Team for Fulham

[The Erectile Banana]

----------Reina------------
Finnan Carragher Skrtel Riise
------Plessis Lucas---------
Pennant Voronin Benayoun
--------Crouch---------

I can see that being the team.

I think we'll put out a similar line up to what played against Arsenal in the league match.

[Joe King]

They don't like blecks.

Reecist.

[Dave Benson Phillips]

Why the desire to go back to 442?

It's a bit like going back to having a car with manual windows and using an A-Z instead of sat-nav...

because if you take out the players that make the system work, then the system no longer works.

As you have a LB playing as LWF in your formation it should be pretty obvious

[Craig_H]

It might be foolhardy to leave them out.

Why's that?

[The Erectile Banana]

They don't like blecks.

That's shecking.

[Craig_H]

because if you take out the players that make the system work, then the system no longer works.

As you have a LB playing as LWF in your formation it should be pretty obvious

You mean the same LB that played there at the Emirates?

[The Erectile Banana]

You mean the same LB that played there at the Emirates?

In fairness though he was ****e in that game. Worst player on the pitch.

Riise should never play in such an advanced position. He's not able for it.

[Matt]

Thinking about it some more, might this not be a good chance to give Lucas the Gerrard role and see if he really is this box to box midfielder we've heard talk of? Masher could do with a run out alongside Plessis.

[Craig_H]

In fairness though he was ****e in that game. Worst player on the pitch.

Riise should never play in such an advanced position. He's not able for it.

That's as may be, but rafa chose him to play there at Arsenal, when he was needing to rest players. According to Dave Benson Phillips, it 'should be obvious' that Riise shouldnt play there, so maybe neither myself nor Rafa can hold our own in the tactics department, when compared to DBP...

[Craig_H]

Thinking about it some more, might this not be a good chance to give Lucas the Gerrard role and see if he really is this box to box midfielder we've heard talk of? Masher could do with a run out alongside Plessis.

I like the idea, but i wouldnt choose to risk Masher in order to try it out.

The CL semi final is infinitely more important than anything else right now.

[dww]

I think we should probably play as close to our now regular system as possible. I'd go with:
-------------------Reina
Finnan------Skrtel----Hyypia-----Riise
-----------Plessis---------Lucas
Pennant---------Voronin------Benayoun
------------------Crouch

I think getting players who might play in the CL match fitness is probably a good idea. I would have Nemeth and Insua in the squad though. I don't see any obvious benefit from swapping to a 4-4-2 either, even the team Marky picks could play in a very similar formation to our more usual one now.

[Matt]

I agree about where our priorities are but he hasn't played since Arsenal and I can't see him having to exert himself THAT much against the likes of Jimmy Bullard and Erik Nevland.

[Craig_H]

I agree about where our priorities are but he hasn't played since Arsenal and I can't see him having to exert himself THAT much against the likes of Jimmy Bullard and Erik Nevland.

It's not about how much he exerts himself though, all it takes is one idiotic tackle and that's that. Not worth the risk for me.

[baz87]

I think the Everton - Chelsea result may influence our side for the weekend. If Everton get a win then i'd imagine we'll almost certainly play a full strength side but if Chelsea win then i wouldn't be suprised if Gerrard and Torres get the day off.

[The Erectile Banana]

That's as may be, but rafa chose him to play there at Arsenal, when he was needing to rest players. According to Dave Benson Phillips, it 'should be obvious' that Riise shouldnt play there, so maybe neither myself nor Rafa can hold our own in the tactics department, when compared to DBP...

I don't mind seeing Riise play there in games such as Saturday but I don't see any place for him in that role in a really big game. Obviously Saturday is all about using our squad, including Riise. If Rafa feels the need to play him there then fine. I don't think DBP is disputing this. I think his general thrust is that Riise isn't much good in his preferred position of LB let alone an unfamiliar LWF role. He can do a job there but that's about it.