I totally agree @bookertease. In the close season I was getting excited about the signings. Rowe as a ball-playing, holding midfielder, the role Ainsworth said he was brought back for. A return to wing play with Banton and Harriman. Holloway bamboozling defences. I'm sure that was Ainsworth's plan too.
So why did it not happen? Here's my theory: Ainsworth was in the market for a good creative midfielder but had to settle for McGinn at last minute (remember the long and not particularly impressive trial period?). His inability meant O'Nien - brought in as squad filler - was given an early opportunity and took it well, but was never earmarked for the creative role. At the same time, Bean's good (and perhaps unexpected) early form prevented Rowe being given an opportunity. Bean is great at breaking up play but not so good at distribution. So instead of playing a cultured and creative central midfield Ainsworth switched tactics and used Bean and O'Nien as two pressing dynamos. As a consequence long ball was in and Banton was sacrificed for the more industrial Wood.
In my opinion Ainsworth's biggest mistake close season is that he didn't replace Peter Murphy / Sam Saunders adequately. It's a mistake I really hope we can rectify in the loan window.
McGinn has shown pretty much nothing that impresses me (or has been given the chance to), Banton was a clear fail, Sellars is now nowhere, Rowe is not even on the bench. That is quite a high percentage of transfer fails for the summer business. If you add to that the failure of AAH to build on some of the performances from last year its not really that brilliant considering we have not got a pot to p1ss in.
Thomson has been a moderate success. Luke has been the stand out signing I guess. Stewart and McCarthy were known quantities and pretty low risk.
I guess my point is that GA MAY have been making the classic manager mistake of signing players and not players for the team.
PCH is a really good loan signing but is a good signing when it means the best player of a large part of the season is now being played out of position to accommodate him? McCarthy is a really good signing but at the expense of Sido or Stewart or Rowe? Has Thompson's signing actually buggered things up for AAH, similarly Ogwu?
I'm simply not convinced that GA knows his best team and has some players that he feels obliged to play. Yesterday we had square pegs in two or three positions and the quality showed.
You mention Harriman as the best player for a large part of the season, but then haven't mentioned him as a summer signing.
Not as good a summer as last year (Hayes, Pierre, Jombati, Jacobson, Mawson all phenomenal) but considering our resources I don't think GA has done badly in terms of who he's brought in, despite some signings not coming off.
But, as I've been saying all season, we are missing that creative spark in midfield that Sam Saunders provided. But then he was a championship quality player playing in league 2.
The point about Harriman being played on the left is a very good one, I'd much rather see Paris played out of position than Harriman, either left wing, through the middle or up front as I'm pretty sure he could do any of those with equal ease.
@drcongo said:
The point about Harriman being played on the left is a very good one, I'd much rather see Paris played out of position than Harriman, either left wing, through the middle or up front as I'm pretty sure he could do any of those with equal ease.
echo the quality analysis from @Aloysius. Good stuff.
Agree on Paris too. Harriman will do a shift anywhere, but wide left massively reduces his contribution. But then I suppose Paris' best work was wide right himself. But as a type of player surely he'd make more sense left or up front.
I wouldn't be against a move back to one of those 4-3-3 variants we played a lot last season.
It's all a headscratcher though, we ended on Saturday, basically with nothing on either wing, and hoping just lumping it into the middle would do something, we need a rethink.
Bearing in mind the squad we currently have, surely it would be better playing PCH down the middle. He has a bit of pace, is very good in the air despite his lack of inches and it might discourage the hoof it tactics.
@mooneyman said:
Bearing in mind the squad we currently have, surely it would be better playing PCH down the middle. He has a bit of pace, is very good in the air despite his lack of inches and it might discourage the hoof it tactics.
For me the release of Banton is an extremely frustrating one. Quite clearly a player who can create a spark of magic as has shown in small amounts over the numerous clubs he has been at but only given a handful of games and ever fewer starts for us. Now at the moment when we cannot buy a goal, especially at home, so a player in the ilk of Jason Banton could give us the individual creativity we so desperately need.
The modern game is a frustrating one with a grater focus placed on defensive shape and security and less about end to end action. It seems that players alike Jason and Hogan from last year who like to express themselves in the final third but not necessarily in the tracking back side of things aren't finding there way in football any more.
If we look at the stats, we aren't doing terribly at home. It's not like we are Dagenham, with no home wins and nine home goals all season.
We are 15th in the 'home' table, solidly mid-table. The mean average number of wins is 5.5 compared to our 5. Talk of radical changes to our home style would have three potential consequences - we do better, we stay the same, or we do worse. We've only failed to score in four home League games so far this season, although three of those happen to be the last three games.
We score more goals per game at home than we do away - 1.27 as opposed to 1.08. The difference in our form is due to the fact we concede 1.33 goals at home rather than 0.62 away. Maybe this suggests that we should play less expansively at home than we currently do, rather than more expansively. I think Dev has commented before that we need to separate our criticisms over the style of play with the results - the style of play may be dour and lacking in excitement at the moment (having said that, the start Saturday was about as good as we've played all season, and our style isn't even approaching Peter Taylor levels of dullness) but the results aren't that bad. Talk of being relieved if Ainsworth leaves is, in my mind, a massive case of the grass being greener on the other side. Some people seem to have got into the habit of dismissing the line that Wycombe is a small club overachieving on its resources as a PR exercise; but without Ainsworth we could be doing a hell of a lot worse.
Sure, we're going through a bit of a sticky patch right now. But we could easily have scored a couple in the first 20 minutes yesterday, and sometimes these things are down to luck rather than any grand narrative. Has anything changed from how we were playing in the previous home games this season when we've been scoring nearly every game to our impotent last three in terms of how we set up or our personnel? If so, then we should try to reverse those changes. If not, then the difference is down to the opposition and luck on the day.
I shudder when I read stuff about how it might not be a bad thing to lose Ainsworth to Barnsley. It reminds me of those Charlton fans who used to phone up 606 and demand the removal of Alan Curbishley because he could never quite get Charlton into Europe. Or the Villa fans griping at O'Neil's inability to deliver champions league football.
It's frustrating at the moment but it could be an awful lot worse. We do have to take into account the financial state of the club, regardless of the claims on here that we're not as badly off as we make out (no proof to back this up, of course, asides wild predictions of cup revenue).
The key for me watching Saturday's game was how well we started. No hoofball at all in the first 30. But chances were missed and confidence waned. I doubt Gareth's instructions were 'play lovely stuff for the first 30 then hoof it'.
It's not a very poor return, it's mid table. 6th place in the home table is 23 points to put it into a bit of perspective, 4th is 25, and 2nd is 27. Northampton are running away with it with 34 points at home.
But I wouldn't want to swap places with a Northampton Town fan at the moment!
@arnos_grove said:
I shudder when I read stuff about how it might not be a bad thing to lose Ainsworth to Barnsley. It reminds me of those Charlton fans who used to phone up 606 and demand the removal of Alan Curbishley because he could never quite get Charlton into Europe. Or the Villa fans griping at O'Neil's inability to deliver champions league football.
It's frustrating at the moment but it could be an awful lot worse. We do have to take into account the financial state of the club, regardless of the claims on here that we're not as badly off as we make out (no proof to back this up, of course, asides wild predictions of cup revenue).
The key for me watching Saturday's game was how well we started. No hoofball at all in the first 30. But chances were missed and confidence waned. I doubt Gareth's instructions were 'play lovely stuff for the first 30 then hoof it'.
I've been mulling over how Ainsworth could change things substantially while keeping current personnel and maintaining his direct, pressing game.
I wonder whether the key to this could be moving Harriman to a Scowen-esque anchor role - protecting the defence, spraying the ball about, directing play. He appears to have the intelligence and the skill to do this and certainly has the defensive chops.
That would allow Bean and O'Nien/Bloomfield to work as box-to-box midfield dynamos. It would also give Jacobson and Jombati much more license to bomb forward and boss the wings.
Then we would have Hayes and Thompson linking midfield with attack, running into the channels, getting the ball to PCH up front to score goals, goals, goals.
The only person dropped would be Wood - though he and Holloway would be fine replacements for Hayes and Thompson when they tire, as would Ugwu for PCH.
It seems that unless we score early(ish) we're destined to struggle with the way we're set up. The high-intensity style Ainsworth wants can't be sustained for 90 minutes and if we get caught on the break or a chance goal, we resort to panic mode. Having a player like Saunders in the team could make a huge difference both creatively and bringing a bit more level-headedness to the midfield when it's sorely needed. Can't see us getting Sam back this season, though.
Hoping Ainsworth will leave is incredibly short sighted. We have had so many great loans and signings, not because we are Wycombe Wanderers, it's because we have Gareth.
Time and time again you hear players joining who were looking elsewhere then had a chat with Ainsworth who got them to 'buy in' to his ethos and philosophy.
HE has a reputation for bringing the best out of players and makes players gamble to come here. The club, in its current circumstance, has no track here without GA.
Yes, it's not pretty, but remember where our 'rock and roll' football got us before?
To replace GA we would need to get in someone cheap, therefore most likely inexperienced at this level, or someone who has failed elsewhere.
@Lloyd2084 said:
To replace GA we would need to get in someone cheap, therefore most likely inexperienced at this level, or someone who has failed elsewhere.
I sense we may only be one or two defeats away from a 'Keith Scott is the answer' post.
Leaving aside the style of football, which when we're struggling can be pretty dire (but then again if a relatively average team in League 2 is not on a good form, and lacking a bit of confidence to break teams down at home, it's never going to be champagne football whatever happens is it) we are 10th in the league. If we can sneak a win tomorrow night, we may well be back up into the play off spots. I would say the quality of the team are doing about exactly as they should be.
Last season we had a better first 11 for sure. O'Nien is a real find and will improve for sure but he is not in the same league as Josh Scowen, whose passing ability in addition to that energy will see him play above League 1 level in the future I am certain. We had a fully firing Paris until January, then a brilliant 6-8 week period from Fred. We had Peter Murphy bang on form the first half of the season, and a central defender in Mawson who exuded class throughout the season. When Josh left we brought in two Championship quality central midfielders in Sam Saunders and Nico Yennaris. SAmmy Wood was having a more consistent season than this year. AAH was on looking fit and motivated towards the end of the season. And Paul Hayes was much more effective and able to impact games (whether this season is down to his injuries or age is catching up with him, who knows). Arguably, if we had had a bigger squad, the slight slump either side of game 40 would not have happened and we would have been promoted. And regardless of that, normally 84 points would have seen us up. My point is we had an unbelieveable squad last year and finished 4th. We have a good squad this time around, but perhaps without those touches of quality described above. So we are tending to play well in some games/parts of games, and not so well in others. I think we are about where we should be, mid table but maybe flirting with the play offs at times. And this does not even mention the decent cup run we had which has brought some good money into the club.
But I guess my point is after this rambling post, is that Ainsworth is an impressive man and we are lucky to have him. Losing him at this stage would be a disaster so let's just keep behind the players and manager, and try to enjoy the good games and performances we produce in the run in. I'm sure in the Summer, Gareth will bring in some further talented youngsters and we can go again next season.
Excellent post @Quarterman. 2 home wins since September is my "broken record" comment I know but it certainly affects home attendances.
Change is needed but to lose GA would be potentially disastrous.
There as been quite a major change over the last few years across lower football generally away from the old expect to win at home lose away. Not sure I or supporters in general have really caught up with this. If I have done the maths right , this season in Lg2, there have been 127 home wins 88 draws and 125 aways, suggesting that for any particular game, a home supporter is far more likely not to see a home win than to see one.
I guess this must have some effect on attendances (generally supporters want to see wins) although I think it would be easy to overstate how much..
Would it be better for WWFC to win more games at home? Yes of course it would, but I trust GA to come up with tactics to maximise probability of that more than supporters on a message board.
I am frankly staggered to hear supporters of WWFC state they would be glad to see GA leave less than nine months after going to Wembley and during another season where the club is overachieving what I see as reasonable expectations in results terms. Each of course is entitled to their view however. I presume Barnsley will make their mind up in the next 7 days, lets hope they choose someone else or even better they choose GA but he decides to stay at WWFC.
I agree with much of the above. We started well and were playing to feet for the first half of the half and looked decent and dangerous. I cannot be sure we would have scored, but that first goal knocked the stuffing out of us. Harriman on the left seemed like a big mistake to me...I would have left him in his comfort zone and bunged PCH on the left.
I think GA is doing a very good job (though the late substitutions still worry me) and I don't think we have a bad team by any means. As I've said before, I don't think we are any more of a spoiling anti-football team than most of the opposition we've had this term.
We may not be setting the world alight, but are not too far off the top places, despite a very poor run. Two or three wins on the trot and we will be competing again.
I still think Stewart and Pierre are a decent CB pairing, JJ is a must, so I would choose either McCarthy OR Sido at RB. Harriman should stay on the right, being Sam back to the left, Bean OR Bloomfield with O'Nien in the middle and I would play PCH with Hayes OR Thompson. We still might not win more at home, but I think that would be an interesting team to see play.
Comments
I totally agree @bookertease. In the close season I was getting excited about the signings. Rowe as a ball-playing, holding midfielder, the role Ainsworth said he was brought back for. A return to wing play with Banton and Harriman. Holloway bamboozling defences. I'm sure that was Ainsworth's plan too.
So why did it not happen? Here's my theory: Ainsworth was in the market for a good creative midfielder but had to settle for McGinn at last minute (remember the long and not particularly impressive trial period?). His inability meant O'Nien - brought in as squad filler - was given an early opportunity and took it well, but was never earmarked for the creative role. At the same time, Bean's good (and perhaps unexpected) early form prevented Rowe being given an opportunity. Bean is great at breaking up play but not so good at distribution. So instead of playing a cultured and creative central midfield Ainsworth switched tactics and used Bean and O'Nien as two pressing dynamos. As a consequence long ball was in and Banton was sacrificed for the more industrial Wood.
In my opinion Ainsworth's biggest mistake close season is that he didn't replace Peter Murphy / Sam Saunders adequately. It's a mistake I really hope we can rectify in the loan window.
Excellent posts both from @bookertease and @aloysius
McGinn has shown pretty much nothing that impresses me (or has been given the chance to), Banton was a clear fail, Sellars is now nowhere, Rowe is not even on the bench. That is quite a high percentage of transfer fails for the summer business. If you add to that the failure of AAH to build on some of the performances from last year its not really that brilliant considering we have not got a pot to p1ss in.
Thomson has been a moderate success. Luke has been the stand out signing I guess. Stewart and McCarthy were known quantities and pretty low risk.
I guess my point is that GA MAY have been making the classic manager mistake of signing players and not players for the team.
PCH is a really good loan signing but is a good signing when it means the best player of a large part of the season is now being played out of position to accommodate him? McCarthy is a really good signing but at the expense of Sido or Stewart or Rowe? Has Thompson's signing actually buggered things up for AAH, similarly Ogwu?
I'm simply not convinced that GA knows his best team and has some players that he feels obliged to play. Yesterday we had square pegs in two or three positions and the quality showed.
@drcongo said: "Excellent posts both from bookertease and aloysius".
Echo their analysis and points.
You mention Harriman as the best player for a large part of the season, but then haven't mentioned him as a summer signing.
Not as good a summer as last year (Hayes, Pierre, Jombati, Jacobson, Mawson all phenomenal) but considering our resources I don't think GA has done badly in terms of who he's brought in, despite some signings not coming off.
But, as I've been saying all season, we are missing that creative spark in midfield that Sam Saunders provided. But then he was a championship quality player playing in league 2.
The point about Harriman being played on the left is a very good one, I'd much rather see Paris played out of position than Harriman, either left wing, through the middle or up front as I'm pretty sure he could do any of those with equal ease.
Absolutely.
PS I did wonder yesterday if GA would be tempted to play McCarthy at right back behind Harriman bearing in mind how well that worked in the away game.
echo the quality analysis from @Aloysius. Good stuff.
Agree on Paris too. Harriman will do a shift anywhere, but wide left massively reduces his contribution. But then I suppose Paris' best work was wide right himself. But as a type of player surely he'd make more sense left or up front.
I wouldn't be against a move back to one of those 4-3-3 variants we played a lot last season.
It's all a headscratcher though, we ended on Saturday, basically with nothing on either wing, and hoping just lumping it into the middle would do something, we need a rethink.
Bearing in mind the squad we currently have, surely it would be better playing PCH down the middle. He has a bit of pace, is very good in the air despite his lack of inches and it might discourage the hoof it tactics.
Definitely.
My goodness- that was quick!
For me the release of Banton is an extremely frustrating one. Quite clearly a player who can create a spark of magic as has shown in small amounts over the numerous clubs he has been at but only given a handful of games and ever fewer starts for us. Now at the moment when we cannot buy a goal, especially at home, so a player in the ilk of Jason Banton could give us the individual creativity we so desperately need.
The modern game is a frustrating one with a grater focus placed on defensive shape and security and less about end to end action. It seems that players alike Jason and Hogan from last year who like to express themselves in the final third but not necessarily in the tracking back side of things aren't finding there way in football any more.
If we look at the stats, we aren't doing terribly at home. It's not like we are Dagenham, with no home wins and nine home goals all season.
We are 15th in the 'home' table, solidly mid-table. The mean average number of wins is 5.5 compared to our 5. Talk of radical changes to our home style would have three potential consequences - we do better, we stay the same, or we do worse. We've only failed to score in four home League games so far this season, although three of those happen to be the last three games.
We score more goals per game at home than we do away - 1.27 as opposed to 1.08. The difference in our form is due to the fact we concede 1.33 goals at home rather than 0.62 away. Maybe this suggests that we should play less expansively at home than we currently do, rather than more expansively. I think Dev has commented before that we need to separate our criticisms over the style of play with the results - the style of play may be dour and lacking in excitement at the moment (having said that, the start Saturday was about as good as we've played all season, and our style isn't even approaching Peter Taylor levels of dullness) but the results aren't that bad. Talk of being relieved if Ainsworth leaves is, in my mind, a massive case of the grass being greener on the other side. Some people seem to have got into the habit of dismissing the line that Wycombe is a small club overachieving on its resources as a PR exercise; but without Ainsworth we could be doing a hell of a lot worse.
Sure, we're going through a bit of a sticky patch right now. But we could easily have scored a couple in the first 20 minutes yesterday, and sometimes these things are down to luck rather than any grand narrative. Has anything changed from how we were playing in the previous home games this season when we've been scoring nearly every game to our impotent last three in terms of how we set up or our personnel? If so, then we should try to reverse those changes. If not, then the difference is down to the opposition and luck on the day.
I shudder when I read stuff about how it might not be a bad thing to lose Ainsworth to Barnsley. It reminds me of those Charlton fans who used to phone up 606 and demand the removal of Alan Curbishley because he could never quite get Charlton into Europe. Or the Villa fans griping at O'Neil's inability to deliver champions league football.
It's frustrating at the moment but it could be an awful lot worse. We do have to take into account the financial state of the club, regardless of the claims on here that we're not as badly off as we make out (no proof to back this up, of course, asides wild predictions of cup revenue).
The key for me watching Saturday's game was how well we started. No hoofball at all in the first 30. But chances were missed and confidence waned. I doubt Gareth's instructions were 'play lovely stuff for the first 30 then hoof it'.
Oh come on Chris, 19 points from a possible 45 is a very poor return. That stat allied to our anti-football style says it all really.
It's not a very poor return, it's mid table. 6th place in the home table is 23 points to put it into a bit of perspective, 4th is 25, and 2nd is 27. Northampton are running away with it with 34 points at home.
But I wouldn't want to swap places with a Northampton Town fan at the moment!
I beg to differ then.
Good work Arnos.
I've been mulling over how Ainsworth could change things substantially while keeping current personnel and maintaining his direct, pressing game.
I wonder whether the key to this could be moving Harriman to a Scowen-esque anchor role - protecting the defence, spraying the ball about, directing play. He appears to have the intelligence and the skill to do this and certainly has the defensive chops.
That would allow Bean and O'Nien/Bloomfield to work as box-to-box midfield dynamos. It would also give Jacobson and Jombati much more license to bomb forward and boss the wings.
Then we would have Hayes and Thompson linking midfield with attack, running into the channels, getting the ball to PCH up front to score goals, goals, goals.
The only person dropped would be Wood - though he and Holloway would be fine replacements for Hayes and Thompson when they tire, as would Ugwu for PCH.
A 4-3-2-1 to get us back into the play offs.
It seems that unless we score early(ish) we're destined to struggle with the way we're set up. The high-intensity style Ainsworth wants can't be sustained for 90 minutes and if we get caught on the break or a chance goal, we resort to panic mode. Having a player like Saunders in the team could make a huge difference both creatively and bringing a bit more level-headedness to the midfield when it's sorely needed. Can't see us getting Sam back this season, though.
Hoping Ainsworth will leave is incredibly short sighted. We have had so many great loans and signings, not because we are Wycombe Wanderers, it's because we have Gareth.
Time and time again you hear players joining who were looking elsewhere then had a chat with Ainsworth who got them to 'buy in' to his ethos and philosophy.
HE has a reputation for bringing the best out of players and makes players gamble to come here. The club, in its current circumstance, has no track here without GA.
Yes, it's not pretty, but remember where our 'rock and roll' football got us before?
To replace GA we would need to get in someone cheap, therefore most likely inexperienced at this level, or someone who has failed elsewhere.
Keep the faith.
I sense we may only be one or two defeats away from a 'Keith Scott is the answer' post.
In GA we trust.
Leaving aside the style of football, which when we're struggling can be pretty dire (but then again if a relatively average team in League 2 is not on a good form, and lacking a bit of confidence to break teams down at home, it's never going to be champagne football whatever happens is it) we are 10th in the league. If we can sneak a win tomorrow night, we may well be back up into the play off spots. I would say the quality of the team are doing about exactly as they should be.
Last season we had a better first 11 for sure. O'Nien is a real find and will improve for sure but he is not in the same league as Josh Scowen, whose passing ability in addition to that energy will see him play above League 1 level in the future I am certain. We had a fully firing Paris until January, then a brilliant 6-8 week period from Fred. We had Peter Murphy bang on form the first half of the season, and a central defender in Mawson who exuded class throughout the season. When Josh left we brought in two Championship quality central midfielders in Sam Saunders and Nico Yennaris. SAmmy Wood was having a more consistent season than this year. AAH was on looking fit and motivated towards the end of the season. And Paul Hayes was much more effective and able to impact games (whether this season is down to his injuries or age is catching up with him, who knows). Arguably, if we had had a bigger squad, the slight slump either side of game 40 would not have happened and we would have been promoted. And regardless of that, normally 84 points would have seen us up. My point is we had an unbelieveable squad last year and finished 4th. We have a good squad this time around, but perhaps without those touches of quality described above. So we are tending to play well in some games/parts of games, and not so well in others. I think we are about where we should be, mid table but maybe flirting with the play offs at times. And this does not even mention the decent cup run we had which has brought some good money into the club.
But I guess my point is after this rambling post, is that Ainsworth is an impressive man and we are lucky to have him. Losing him at this stage would be a disaster so let's just keep behind the players and manager, and try to enjoy the good games and performances we produce in the run in. I'm sure in the Summer, Gareth will bring in some further talented youngsters and we can go again next season.
Excellent post @Quarterman. 2 home wins since September is my "broken record" comment I know but it certainly affects home attendances.
Change is needed but to lose GA would be potentially disastrous.
There as been quite a major change over the last few years across lower football generally away from the old expect to win at home lose away. Not sure I or supporters in general have really caught up with this. If I have done the maths right , this season in Lg2, there have been 127 home wins 88 draws and 125 aways, suggesting that for any particular game, a home supporter is far more likely not to see a home win than to see one.
I guess this must have some effect on attendances (generally supporters want to see wins) although I think it would be easy to overstate how much..
Would it be better for WWFC to win more games at home? Yes of course it would, but I trust GA to come up with tactics to maximise probability of that more than supporters on a message board.
I am frankly staggered to hear supporters of WWFC state they would be glad to see GA leave less than nine months after going to Wembley and during another season where the club is overachieving what I see as reasonable expectations in results terms. Each of course is entitled to their view however. I presume Barnsley will make their mind up in the next 7 days, lets hope they choose someone else or even better they choose GA but he decides to stay at WWFC.
And from October to December there were only two home games in which we didn't score two, so it wasn't from lack of goals during that period.
Our lack of total goals comes from not ever looking like beating a team by four or five. Most teams normally only manage a goal or two in each game.
I agree with much of the above. We started well and were playing to feet for the first half of the half and looked decent and dangerous. I cannot be sure we would have scored, but that first goal knocked the stuffing out of us. Harriman on the left seemed like a big mistake to me...I would have left him in his comfort zone and bunged PCH on the left.
I think GA is doing a very good job (though the late substitutions still worry me) and I don't think we have a bad team by any means. As I've said before, I don't think we are any more of a spoiling anti-football team than most of the opposition we've had this term.
We may not be setting the world alight, but are not too far off the top places, despite a very poor run. Two or three wins on the trot and we will be competing again.
I still think Stewart and Pierre are a decent CB pairing, JJ is a must, so I would choose either McCarthy OR Sido at RB. Harriman should stay on the right, being Sam back to the left, Bean OR Bloomfield with O'Nien in the middle and I would play PCH with Hayes OR Thompson. We still might not win more at home, but I think that would be an interesting team to see play.