Right, this is what we have to go into battle with Swansea with :
Nicky Weaver (G) Currently Injured
Rob Elliot (G)
Aswad Thomas (D)
Grant Basey (D)
Martin Christensen (D)
Johnathan Fortune (D)
Mark Hudson (D)
Yassin Moutaouakil (D) Suspended
Jose Semedo (D)
Kelly Youga (D)
Darren Ambrose (M) Recovering from Op
Harry Arter (M)
Amdy Faye (M) MIA
Matt Holland (M)
Jerome Thomas (M)
Therry Racon (M)
Lloyd Sam (M)
Jonjo Shelvey
Dean Sinclair (M)
Scott Wagstaff
Josh Wright (M)
Zheng Zhi (M) Currently Injured
Chris Dickson (F)
Stuart Fleetwood (F)
Andy Gray (F)
Izale McLeod (F) Currently Injured
Svetoslav Todorov (F)
Luke Varney (F)
Have left Magic out as according to Pards and sky he wont be here by friday let alone swansea. Do we have a squad capable of holding our own in the top 8 or are we really destined to be looking over our shoulders and fearing the worst?
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Toddy is not match fit
I make the team
Elliott
Semedo Hudson Fortune Youga
Sam Shelvey Racon Thomas
Varney Gray
If Varney or Gray are injured at any time we are left with a unfit Toddy, Dickson and Fleetwood who are unproven...
............
On paper yes, but that depends on the players and the management and whether Pards can get them to gel into an effective and combative unit. He's had a year to get to know the players and by now he should have an idea of what his ideal starting XI will be and I hope this year there'll be more consistency over selection, especially at the back where I'd put some blame on Pards for rotating the players around a bit too much - plus of course there were a few injuries and suspensions which didn't help.
Defensively we are stronger with Hudson replacing McCarthy, but need another CB, two if Bougherra goes and we need that elusive centre-midfielder. If we can get the spine from keeper-centre-backs/centre midfield to centre forward sorted then hopefully the pieces will fall into place.
Also looking at it negatively, are there seven teams out there that are notably stronger? The relegated sides are still shifting players in and out and aren't settled. Without being biased I think we are as good as any team in the division. Remember last season our form against the top six clubs was pretty decent - and much better than againt the bottom six. Consistency of performance is as important as consistency in side selection.
At Sunderland :-)
The worry is that if we don't go up Thomas, ZZ & Ambrose are all off on free's next summer and are probably our 3 most saleble assets so Shelvey will be gone for a pittance to cover any black holes next year..
What worries me about that team is that they are pretty much all either unproven at this level (Elliott, Semedo in RB position, Shelvey and Racon} or prone to massive inconsistency (Fortune, Youga, Sam, Thomas, Gray and even Varney). I don't know enough about Hudson yet.
So on our day we can probably beat anyone, but on another day, when it doesn't click, we'll get stuffed by teams at the bottom. Sounds like it could be last year all over again to me!
There was a clip of him on Sky this morning playing in last nights friendly for Sunderland. He looks fatter than ever (must be a better quality of pie up there!). Mind you he was threading a peach of a through ball, that they scored from, at the time!