Just signed up to put our side of things across for tonight.
We generally lineup with a 4141 formation.
GK Dean Henderson - on loan from Man Utd, rated highly but inexperienced.
RB James Bolton - steady, although not spectacular, non league purchase.
CB Toto Nsiala - great in the air, big, strong but has a mistake in him.
CB Matt Sadler - left back all his career but moved across centrally and has been brilliant.
LB Junior Brown - again steady, gets forward well, possibly can get outdone in the air.
CDM Ben Godfrey - loan from Norwich, big strong and very tough to get past, sits infront of the defence.
CM Abu Ogogo - not the most technically gifted but an athlete, blocks, tackles and chases everything, captain.
CM Jon Nolan - our best player, great on the ball, if you keep him quiet we can struggle to create chances and keep the ball, the difference between us winning and losing.
RM Shaun Whalley - inconsistent lower league winger, very quick and exciting in the right moments, but like I say, inconsistent.
LM Alex Rodman - a player reborn, not hugely talented but does the basics, crosses, passes simple and runs his socks off.
ST Stefan Payne - another big strong lad, bit of pace and knows where the goal is, needs support though.
We’re not a team of stars or individuals, Nolan is a cracking player but other then that we don’t have player after player who would walk into other sides in this division.
Our main man is in the technical area, Paul Hurst, he’s made us very hard to beat, not a great passing our creative team, but hard to beat. We do the simple things well, play players in their correct position and make sure they all work their bollocks off, that’s all we’ve done really.
All of this is based on our general starting XI this season, what I will say is that we tend to make changes for midweek fixtures, as we press high and work hard the players need a rest, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see the likes of Beckles, Riley, Morris, the other Morris and maybe others come into the lineup tonight, rendering my above analysis useless!
We all know we won’t win the league, there’s much better teams then us in this division and we know the first defeat is on the horizon, regardless of that we have a hard working team and a good manager, so it should be good times ahead even once that defeat and slip down the table comes.
It may be a little late now but there’s two pubs walking distance, The Darwin and The Brooklands which I think is now known as The Wild Pig. Do not park in Sainsbury’s or surrounding shops, tickets seem to get produced on midweek games, but close by is the park and ride which provides free parking, aslong as you don’t mind a queue on the way out.
Without sounding complacent we do expect a win tonight, with the start of the season we’ve had and being at home you can’t really blame us, but there’s been some pretty average performances recently and that first defeat does feel around the corner sooner or later.
