You said this last night

I didn't agree then and I don't agree now.

We're marginally better in defence perhaps with klose instead of bassong, although bassong was actually very good in the championship and dealt with physicality far better than klose did v Ipswich and brum.

Midfield we're weaker. No BJ, no Gaz O'Neil, no Redmond. Pritchard might turn out to be excellent, but he plays in a role that we have well covered by wes. Canos might be decent too, but won't be better than Redmond.

Strikers? Well it goes without saying that we're not as strong. It also means more pressure on jerome which probably isn't a good thing.

Overall, we might have a bigger squad of good players, but the balance is off; no pace up front, lack of variety in midfield.

How would we play a 4-4-2 for example?

Lack of variety for mixing up our system when we couldn't break teams down was a bit of a problem last time and it doesn't look to have improved.

Posted By: SimonOTBC, Sep 1, 09:12:08