Starting lineup

[supergulls]

If you were the manager and you had the whole squad to pick from what would be your starting line up for the next match. I would go
Poke
Leadbitter Saah Downes cruise

Macklin Craig mansell Morris

Howe Jarvis

[Yellow4life]

Poke
Oastler Downes Macdonald Nico

Bodin Mansell Lathrope Stevens

Craig

Howe

[OllieGull]

-----------------Poke---------------
Oastler---Downes---Saah---Nico
---------Mansell---Easton---------
--Bodin------Craig------Stevens--
---------------Howe---------------

[stevegull]

----------------Poke----------
Oastler---Saah---Downes---Nicholson
----------Lathrope--Mansell----
- Macklin ---- Craig ---- Bodin
---------------Howe----------------

Get Bodin out wide, he's not clever enough to play in behind a front man. Give him a simple task to try and get his form back. Just tell him to beat his man and whip the ball into the box.

I put us back in this formation as when you're on a bad run I think it's important to try and become solid at the back. You can see it happen in the Premier League, with a few different teams this season. For example, at the start of the season Norwich were shipping loads of goals, and then Hughton worked on stopping them conceding and gradually tried to then improve the attacking sector of their play.

Ideally we'd have another option instead of Craig in the CAM role. Don't get me wrong, I think he can be a top player, but he'll need time to develop so if we can pick up a good creative midfielder who could fill in that would be perfect. But it's not urgent.

If we get on a better run or when we play beatable teams at home then you'd push Craig somewhere out wide and bring in Jarvis to partner Howe.

[JamieE]

Any formation with Nathan Craig central.

[Colorado Gull]

Poke

Leadbitter
Saah
Downes
Cruise

Stevens
Mansell
Craig
Thompson

Howe
Yeoman

[ferrarilover]

How the hell are people choosing Bodin over either Tommo, Macklin or Morris?

Matt.

[royalgull]

Poke

Average - Downes -Saah - Nicho

Average - Manse

Average -Average -Average

Howe

Subs
Average x7

[novicegull]

poke

oastler downes saah nicholson

lathrope mansell

thompson craig bodin

howe

[stevegull]

How the hell are people choosing Bodin over either Tommo, Macklin or Morris?

Matt.

Quite right, it's been so long since he played I forgot about him!

Drop Bodin from my team and chuck Morris in.

[supergulls]

It's funny how when given the opportunity to play anybody from the squad a lot of the choices being made are still the same old faces that in my opinion are not on form such as bodin and nicho etc. that's why I went with leadbitter, macklin, cruise etc to try and inject some pace into our game which I think we are sometimes lacking. It just shows that even in a pretend scenario as human beings we tend to play safe with what we know rather than take a gamble unless we have to. Now can you see how hard it is for Martin on a daily basis.

[novicegull]

it's all very well having pace but can they get back and defend well enough and be prepared to put in a tackle when needed, something which i think too many of our squad are not prepared to do unfortunately

[novicegull]

it's all very well having pace but can they get back and defend well enough and be prepared to put in a tackle when needed, something which i think too many of our squad are not prepared to do unfortunately

[supergulls]

it's all very well having pace but can they get back and defend well enough and be prepared to put in a tackle when needed, something which i think too many of our squad are not prepared to do unfortunately

I think we have unfortunately gone the other way and have become too defensive, playing Craig, Mansell and Easton across the middle in my view are all very similar players. Sometimes you need a mixture of the grafters and the players that can change the game.

[Gullscorer]

We should certainly not go back to using a totally defensive formation. This may help to avoid relegation and even provide a good basis for a promotion challenge, but if teams don't score goals they're not, for the most part, going to be particularly successful. On the other hand, to some extent this will depend on the form and availability of players; we must make the best use of the strengths and qualities of the players we have. The key element is flexibility.

What we should not do, unless it's unavoidable, is to put out players who are not fully fit or who are currently in poor form. We must give the youngsters more opportunities to prove themselves in the first team. And, since the team has lost momentum and needs something of a shake-up, now is the time to give more chances to our promising fringe players.

I shouldn't tempt fate, but we're unlikely to be involved in a relegation battle. We still have an outside chance of making a late play-off challenge, though to do this we need a few changes to be made. Apart from the more obvious ones mentioned above, it will be interesting to see what rabbits Martin Ling pulls out of the hat in the January transfer window...