Team Selection

Macca

Back four of Tait, Toto, Gowling, Horwood. Although I would happily see Pearson and Robertson in there too.

Midfield of Arnold, Nolan, Disley and Monkhouse.

Strikers just have to be Amond and Bogle.

Any arguments from anyone on this?

Yeah, why is Monkhouse starting against a team that will park the bus at BP? We need pace against these, not predictable tonks up the left channel.

Not really Ascend though I would rather see Danny East play as he offers more going forward and Pearson would be first name on my teamsheet.

TBH Assends team would be the one I would start with

Agree with Ascend. It's been the best team over the course of the season. UTM

Monkhouse is a good option provided we get Horwood pushing on to support him, overlap him if need be and we put the ball on the deck. He's more effective on the floor anyway so god knows why we punt it to him so often.

Works for me I'll ring Paul now and tell him as he may not realise..........

No sorry Monkhouse is not good enough end of.!

The rest of the team looks fine, just not Monkhouse - Hoofball to a team that will lap up that sort of play.


NO TO MONKHOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE NEEDS TO RETIRE BEFORE THE GAME.!!

Hurst goes nuts and......

Macca

3      Gowling, Toto and Pearson at the back to deal with their lone striker and give better spread of height to combat their set piece      
         threat....
4     Tait, Monky playing wide...Nolan & Dis in the middle...
1     Arnold free role....
2     Amond and Bogle

The OP will be the side and if we play our best football, it should be enough to take a good lead to Braintree.

But.. They will play 4-5-1 against our 4-4-2. Immediately we give up numerical advantage in the centre of midfield. It creates the same old problem that if we are not at our best, a park the bus side will find it easy against us. We will have to be at our best out wide to give them something to think about or play it early and long to Bogle and Amond in the hope that they create something between themselves. Playing through central midfield will not be an option.

I always wonder with these threads whether 99% of posters always pick a 4-4-2 because our manager has for five years or that is their formation of choice.

I would pull a rabbit out of the hat if I were Hurst and play a 4-3-1-2. Match them up in centre midfield so we can play through there and have Arnold floating about in areas their defenders won't want to go into, and then he would get back behind the ball when we're defending. When defending, the front two cut each of their full backs off, to force them to play from centre half into our midfield three or have to knock it long to their one up front marked by our two monster centre halves. We've got two full backs that like to get forward and with having three in centre midfield one of Disley or Clay would hold to give them that licence.

McKeown

Tait
Nsiala
Gowling
Horwood

Clay
Disley
Nolan

Arnold

Bogle
Amond

That's what I would play but Monkhouse will always be on a Hurst 4-4-2 team sheet.

On another note, at Braintree this season, we drew 0-0 but they did tire for the last twenty minutes and we could have easily scored one or two in that time. It's important for us to trust that our fitness is superior and play a high tempo game from the start. If we can nick an early goal and add another by half time, I seriously can see them conceding more as they will have to try and score themselves.