Has anyone got any evidence at all that McGlinchey is any kind of a left winger? I've seen no evidence myself.
I think we'll see Kosta and Finkler as the wide players and Krishna as the 9. With Roly the 10 and some combo of WeeMac/A-Rod/Vinnie in behind.
We won't score enough goals, and we'll concede loads. Assuming we don't sign anyone more of any significance we'll fight it out for 5/6/7/8 again.
A-Rod
Roly WeeMac
Finkler
Krishna Kosta
Which is a bit light defensively but should be devastating breaking at pace. Hopefully we do that rather than attempting patient tiki taka around halfway for a while before losing the ball.
Because Kosta isn't a left forward, for a start. Kosta is a touchline-hugging wide player. I think he'll play right wing. He certainly has been in preseason. I don't know why we would sign the best right wing in the league and play him at left forward?
I agree my Finkler on the left call is a bit odd. But for me he goes head to head with Roly for the #10 and loses. I'm basing this on my hope and expectation that we'll play two deeper-lying midfielders to protect our back four. Finkler's an odd signing in that respect. I reckon maybe we grabbed him when we were worried that Roly would leave.
I think Roly will win the battle for #10, and so we have to fit Finkler in somewhere. I don't think we'll push Roly back into a defensive role he doesn't want and probably can't do, just to play Finkler in front of him. Instead, I think Finkler will be squeezed out wide.
But, another possibility is that Finkler will play deeper or that he and Roly will both play in advanced roles with just one holding midfielder. That's sort of what we tried to do with Roly and Weeman/A Rod last year though, and it didn't really work.
I think you're right that we'll probably end up playing with two deeper midfielders, but I agree with Conan that Kosta and Krishna will play as wide forwards (or at least it's what I think is Ernie's plan). It's really the kind of set-up he favoured when he was at Victory, and now he seemingly has players to employ that kind of set-up here.
I don't think we'll have a #10 - as I said in a previous post, I think Finkler will be a false 9 (although that's stupid terminology, and I hate using it). Guess what I'm trying to say, I think that Finkler will be a quasi-forward tasked with some 'play-making' duties, and we'll rely on getting one of the 'wide' forwards and midfielders into the box to be goal-scoring threats.
The problem that Ernie has right now (leaving the backline aside) is that it's hard to find 3 starting spots for Finkler, Roly, and WeeMac, without asking one of them to a) either play a position they're uncomfortable with, or b) where their ability isn't best utilised. Example A would be WeeMac being asked to play a deeper, more defensive role, and example B would be Roly filling that role. That could potentially be solved by playing a flatter three in the middle of the park (with A-Rod in the middle of that three), but we'd probably need to spend a decent chunk of the pre-season working on that.