with boyd back, and manny still out - I think we drop huysegems & totori and bring smith in so sanchez can play further forward.
Neither Huysegems or Totori took their chance last week & boyd has been very good in previous weeks. Totori is also best from bench.
Would leave a bench of stein, totori, Lindsay & McMaster. Which is probably a lot more balanced than we have had previously.
Remember Hogg cant play this game
I totally agree with this, and that's not saying he's not good enough to be a starter, i'm just more of the thinking that with his pace, and attack focus, bringing him on to run at tired defenders is a great tactical element to have.
I personally thought he should have come on in the second half against a tired Traore. Traore was always going to have his measure, and as they both tired at the same rate, then the effectiveness was lost.
Totori was able to beat him easily on occasion as we saw, but imagine the carnage he would have caused running at him with fresh legs during the second half.
I think Waffles should also come on as a sub due to a similar factor to why I think Ifill should come off the bench from now on too. Him coming on fresh at tired defenders means they've got a LOT of work to do, when they probably can't be bothered. Again, it's not that I think he's not worthy of starting, i just think that at least yetting our young guys take it to defenders for 60 - 70 minutes, and wear them out, then bring on players frsh that are going to cause a whole heap of new and different headaches is a decent way of using subs in this league.
And please put Sanchez back in that attacking midfield role. Brockie back up top.
The Stein for Boyd one will be interesting. I think if I were Ricki, I would be careful how I handle this. Brockie is going to start, that's a given based on his goals and Ricki gushing over him in the press. He was anonymous last week though so.... You then are picking 2/3 from Stein, Boyd and Fenton. Conventional wisdom says that Boyd would come back in and revert back to what he used prior to the Melbourne game. with Boyd, Fenton and Brockie up front. I think if I was looking at the team right now, the young guys are holding their own and giving probably more than we expected at the start of the season. I think however, there is a little bit of experience missing in that front 3rd. The premise last week was to have Stein as the target man/receiver and have Brockie run off of him but we never got anywhere near that because we came from out wide rather than through Sanchez (which is what probably should happen to use Stein as that receiver). I thought perhaps then that they may have used Stein as a facilitator to help Totori and Fenton get in behind the back wide two (similar to what Melbourne does) but that never happened either. If Ricki is expecting Bertos and Lochhead to supply the balls into the box, then a midget like Boyd is wasted.
I personally would give Fenton a wide roaming role where he can go from flank to flank (similar to what Ifill used to do). He has Sanchez as a facilitating option, Stein to come across and act as an axis for him if needed (and Stein does have lovely ball control) and Brockie is a target man. The experience of Stein would help so I would be inclined to leave Boyd on the bench. He also provides a tall option for the crosses.
That's my logic anyway.