Originally Posted by
AucklandRover
Not being negative, Champs. I think you have to take a step back and take a look at some of the other squads as if you were not a Rovers supporter at all. Doing that, you'd have to say that Villa, Stoke, Derby, Middlesbrough, Forest, Swansea, Leeds are all ahead of us in terms of overall quality. Then there are a few teams who are battle-hardened in the Championship. That's not to say all of those mentioned will finish above us, because there are a few surprises every season, and I think one of Mowbray's greatest achievements is that he has made this group of players better than the sum of its parts. All the same, the bookies' odds are probably a fair guide to the "probabilities".
As for the Millwall game, I am not sure why we sometimes have this "rabbits in the headlights" spell at the start of home games. It happened on a few occasions last season as well.
Overall, we edged it in terms of chances, and we more or less dominated the final 50-55 minutes.
Rothwell did his prospects no harm at all. On that (limited) evidence, Freeman or McGinn might not turn out to be such big "misses" after all.
We will hear a lot about about Graham's missed chances, but I thought his general play was very good, Strangely, both Dack and Armstrong were a little below par.
Lenihan and Evans both excellent. I'm sure Nyambe gets physically stronger every week. I bet he'd make a very good rugby player.
Palmer too was promising, once he'd settled.
The big decision for TM is, does he stick to that tried and tested 4-2-3-1 (with minor variations on that theme), or does he look to play a more attacking central midfielder? For the moment, we don't have the extra complication of a winger like Chapman, but we still have the problem of a quart in a pint pot. Is there some formation that doesn't drop Bennett which could accommodate all of the following:
Graham, Dack, Armstrong, Palmer, Rothwell?
Very difficult. Leaving out Bennett and Smallwood, we could field:
Raya
Nyambe Lenihan Mulgrew Williams (or Bell)
Rothwell Evans
Palmer Dack Armstrong
Graham.
That would have enormous attacking potential, but would it be solid enough? I doubt that Bennett could be dropped anyway, to be honest, so we could try:
Raya
Nyambe Lenihan Mulgrew Williams (or Bell)
Bennett Rothwell Evans
Dack Armstrong
Graham.
What do you think?
Incidentally, I quite enjoyed watching Millwall playing a nostalgic 4-4-2!