Yep, always felt the same about Pereyra, but I would say Hughes is even more wasted and less well suited out there. With the current injury list and now that we're building towards the season starting, if we are looking to start playing our likely starting XI now, surely just play Pereyra wide left, Hughes in the middle and Sema wide right, Capoue and Rodwell the two holding midfielders (god help us).
The medical team are clueless as ever. Failure to rectify this together with the poor recruitment this summer reflects poorly on the competence of the people running this club.
Haha - just read Gracia's comments. He doesn't have any idea what the injury status is does he? The medical team aren't able to tell him so he just has to guess. What a shambolic state of affairs.
After the way he finished last season, I think wide left is the best place for Pereyra. He gets a bit more time on the ball and is good at finding space in the box - hence his flurry of goals. Hughes always wants to be in the middle though. He drifts inside all the time and leaves the team looking a bit unbalanced and asymmetric. I agree with you, we should be playing our first xi together in pre-season and for me that means wingers on the wing and Hughes in the middle. (Fingers crossed for at least one of Doucs or Chalobah back by next week to play alongside Capoue).
We're about to enter the season with a midfield pairing consisting of a player without a contract, and a League 2 centre half
Reading a brief report on last nights game (I didn't go) it was interesting the reporter made a point of how both Hughes and Sema would usually cut in with the ball or drift in without it. This meant Masina and 'Guns of' Navarro were making a lot of runs forward into the space provided. It also seems we're setting up in a 4-4-2 formation but not in flat lines. I presume if one full-back pushes on then one of the two central midfielders (Rodwell or Wilmot last night) would either offer direct cover or drop back and a centre-back would go wider when needed. With the two wider midfielders (Hughes and Sema last night) pushing in, it should/could negate getting overrun in the middle of the park when we don't have the ball. One of the two forwards can also drop deeper if needed or go wider, if our midfield is already narrow, to track an opposition full-back. If I remember correctly, Reids made a big point when Gracia first came on how fluid we were in defence in one of his early home games (Chelsea?) Shifting positionally left or right with midfielders dropping in to cover. With both Masina and Navarro able to play centre-back (at a push) they should be more comfortable with this way of playing than Holebas, Janmaat and Kiko.
Agreed, on paper he has everything to be a god player in the middle of the park but in reality he needs the space afforded by playing wider.
Full team, Foster, Janmaat, Kabasele, Britos, Holebas; Pereyra, Charles, Capoue (C), Sema; Success, Gray Not sure if 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 Pretty sure that team could go through the season unbeaten* * if certain unique circumstances were met.
We'd be humiliated by Brighton at home in the first game, the whole squad would slip into deep, clinical depression and we'd have to forfeit our season.
Every player to a man was at the Junior Hornets Open Day today it seems from the social media accounts. Deleofeu... Chalobah... Doucoure... Cleverley... Penaranda.... ....and yes, even Okaka.
You are Reids & in future please use the dog waste bin rather than the Coop car park one. Signed A Resident
We will be in the bottom three come May 2019. The feeling is all doom and gloom. Where is the excitement of looking forward to the new season? Only the die hards are rubbing their hands with glee, the rest fear the Championship awaits. No one on this site knows what is really going on at the club, we are all just throwing our opinions into the ring. We are favourites for relegation yet again, has our time has come?
If none of the supporters know what's really going on and are just throwing around random opinions - then surely that's the same for the 'experts' that have made us relegation favourites for every prem season we've had? My biggest fear is the medical dept/injury list. Provided it's improved and the numbers return to somewhere near what most other clubs deal with over the course of a season, then we'll be fine. We're not as bad as people make out - we even thrashed Chelsea last season with Holebas and Zeegelaar in the starting eleven. I don't care what crisis they were going through, that's amazing. Keeping our best players fit - not lack of new, first-team-ready signings - is what will determine our fate.
At least you have now defined all the pant ******* posters on here as lightweights. And it's only the lightweights that take pre-season seriously.
