Indeed will be interesting to see if Stamenic can do a job at CB for us, though I think it depends on whatever he establishes himself at club level as, don't want him trying to do both and potentially stop himself mastering either. I'd like to see if Rufer could transition there too, but based on Chiefy's comments that won't be happening this coming Nix season, sounds like the plan is a Rufer, Al Taay and Pennington midfield 3 supported by a promotion from the reserves for depth.
I think for the time being we need to stick with a back 4, I think we can count on a Boxall & (Pijnaker or Smith) pairing over the next year or two, to enable us to be able to play at least 3 of Garbett, Thomas, Bell, Stamenic and Lewis (I think Singh should be thought of more as a forward than midfielder). Then hopefully in that year or two the likes of Surman or Pijnaker or Stamenic or maybe others step up so that we can still have a functional back 4 after Boxall and Smith get too old. I'd rather we played to our strengths, rather than trying to compensate for our weakness in the CB position by shoehorning an additional average defender into our lineup at the expense of a much better midfielder.
Edit: I guess I completely forgot about Tuiloma but he has never really looked defensively solid/consistent enough to be a dependable international level CB, no matter how much he can bring with the rest of his game, though would love for him to prove me wrong.
I think for the time being we need to stick with a back 4, I think we can count on a Boxall & (Pijnaker or Smith) pairing over the next year or two, to enable us to be able to play at least 3 of Garbett, Thomas, Bell, Stamenic and Lewis (I think Singh should be thought of more as a forward than midfielder). Then hopefully in that year or two the likes of Surman or Pijnaker or Stamenic or maybe others step up so that we can still have a functional back 4 after Boxall and Smith get too old. I'd rather we played to our strengths, rather than trying to compensate for our weakness in the CB position by shoehorning an additional average defender into our lineup at the expense of a much better midfielder.
Edit: I guess I completely forgot about Tuiloma but he has never really looked defensively solid/consistent enough to be a dependable international level CB, no matter how much he can bring with the rest of his game, though would love for him to prove me wrong.