A team for Saturday

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Zero movement off the ball last night. Our leading goal scorer hasn't scored from open play since before Xmas, why is he bomb proof?

Zero movement off the ball? How about when he had his first chance from Arnold's cross (created by an excellent run from Arnold). His movement was good enough to get him into the right position in the box then. What about his one-on-one in the second half when he ran through onto the flick forward from Jolley (I think), then ran 40-odd yards with the ball before having his effort saved?

LJL didn't have a good game last night but he still got himself into position for 5 chances, 2 of which were saved and one of which hit the bar. In comparison, Watson has had less than a handful of brief cameos and I'm not sure if he's even had a shot on target as yet, has he?

When Palmer regains full fitness, you could understand if LJL was dropped/rested with Pittman, Jolley and Hannah also available, but saying that Watson should be given a start in his place is just nuts!

Watson seems to be becoming the new Hockless.

Quoted from chaos33

You must have watched a different game to me last night.

Probably, opinions are like arseholes

They always say you should never change a winning team so if the XI that started on Tuesday are all fit, you go with the same team again.

I think PH is in a bit of a Catch22 situation here.

                      McKeown
             Magnay        Pearson
Mackreth              Disley               Arnold
Jolley Palmer John-Lewis Hannah Pittman

Quoted from Abdul19

                      McKeown
             Magnay        Pearson
Mackreth              Disley               Arnold
Jolley Palmer John-Lewis Hannah Pittman

A bit too defensive for me. Let's try a properly Victorian formation:

                                  McKeown
                                   Pearson
                               Magnay  Toto
Mackreth  LJL  Pittman  Palmer  Hannah  Jolley  Arnold

Quoted from Maringer

Watson hasn't scored a goal since August and has only played about 30 minutes of football since then, yet you want to drop LJL because hasn't scored in a month?

Interesting choice.  

Yeah I would.....lewis would be nowhere near my team and its not because he hasn't scored in a month, it's because he's not good enough, never has been and never will be

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Clearly LJL won't get dropped even though he hasn't scored this year but here's a variation for you:

Maca

Magnay
Toto
Shaun
Robertson

Clay
Brown
Dis

Arnold
Palmer
Jolley

Couldn't agree more with the switch to 4-3-3.

Our back four picks itself. The central midfield three is very strong, we'd see a different Christian Jolley if he was wide of the central striker and we could get balls behind him so he could use that pace, same with Arnold.

Please be brave PH, it isn't working at home with this rigid 4-4-2 formation. We've sone room to manoeuvre as far as play offs are concerned but if we were to switch to a formation that suits our players then do it now.

Quoted from ackomariner

Yeah I would.....lewis would be nowhere near my team and its not because he hasn't scored in a month, it's because he's not good enough, never has been and never will be

Yet he's still scored as many goals as all our other strikers combined this season (one less when you count the young lad who came on loan from Barnsley). As I've said in the past, the lack of goals from elsewhere is our striking problem, not LJL's contribution.

If you'd said at the start of the season that he would score 15 goals I'd have been pleased with that total as he leads the line and does much of the donkey work for the team. After racing up the scoring charts before Christmas, he's been on a lean spell but is still our main contributor and I'm hoping he'll start knocking the odd one in again here and there rather than calling for him to be dropped for someone who has pretty much no experience in English football.

Here's something to think about. Remember all the wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst some when we let Cook depart at the end of last season? In two seasons at the club, he scored just 14 goals in the Conference from 44 starts and 29 sub appearances. In comparison, LJL has scored almost that many in just 31 appearances this season yet some still deem that this is not good enough! Nuts.

I think we will be lucky to see much more of Palmer this season. Hamstring injuries are long lasting especially if the player comes back too soon so I reckon Hurst will not risk him as a starter for at least another couple of game and possibly more if the side is winning without him. At this stage 1-0 is as good as 5-0 to him.

Seeing as Hurst will never voluntarily leave out penalty king LJL and he clearly doesn't rate Hannah either, there won't be many changes up front, if any, unless there are more injuries. Not that I'd agree, it's just the way the manager's mind works isn't it?

The one positive thing about Palmer's injury is that I don't think it failed catastrophically in the way that Pittman's injury came about earlier in the season?

If it was just a bit of a tweak, hopefully he'll be back in contention soon, even if he isn't available on Saturday.