Ok, this week sees a bit more of a move towards the final line-up, and focussing more on the players who are likely to play a lot of the WC. There is a bit more that can be done and this is not yet the final team or lines. The lines are set to 65/55/45/35 to give more time to the players most likely to play, but still give some boost to back-ups who will feature in case of injuries (which may be more prevalant in the next engine).
In goal is Rivers, with Wilkins backing up (swap after 2 goals if losing). Atkinson is third choice at present. I will ask in a moment for opinions on which goalie the community feels is the long-term likely starter.
Defensive pairings are Smith-Murray, Jemson-Dyer, Small-McGiven and Stallard-Noone. The top-7 are clearly the top-7 and would give huge problems to work out who to drop if we played with 6. Noone is likely to play in the WC as he is catching very fast. Aston is the current #8 but will be overtaken by Noone. Bridges will overtake Marshall/Samways/Ward, none of whom are expected to play for the U20s. Ward has the Q/P to play but no EXP (I can't fit him in my team so he is listed to try to get the EXP up)
Centres are Bromwich-Burke-Eaton-Penrice-Hessenthaler-Lynas. Apart from Burke/Eaton who are close it is a fairly clear order although Hessethaler has a chance of challenging.
Wingers are relatively tough to choose, and are generally weaker than the other positions. They are hard to choose as there is a much wider range of Q/P and attributes all over the place, so it is very challenging to predict which players will be where by the WC start.
For now the pairings are Dobson-Ebbrell, Widdrington-Quinney, Hooper-Stein, Wise-Ryan. This week Wise and Stein have swapped over. The players missing out all have a chance of making the team, as they have better Q/P than a few in the team at present. Webber and Johns are new youth pulls that should make the squad if they can catch up the EXP difference, Forbes is a brilliant 18yo that may just have too far to catch up but could see some ice towards the end of the WC. Hignett has a slim chance of catching up the lower Q/P players as well. Richardson won't play.
PP/PK are the main area where we are still spreading players far more than we will later, rather than focussing on success. They are:
PP1: Quinney-Bromwich-Dobson-Stallard-Small
PP2: Widdrington-Burke-Ebbrell-McGiven-Dyer
PK1: Wise-Eaton-Murray-Smith
PK2: Widdrington-Bromwich-McGiven-Jemson
Noone and Stein are both on fourth line and no PP/PK so we can monitor precisely the difference between small minutes for U20 friendlies and big minutes in club friendlies + PP/PK as it may be that we are better off playing three lines and getting the fringe players into club friendlies.
As always, comments/suggestions welcomed, and the next post will be the goalie comparisons.
oK, community input please, not least as it involves my goalie so I would like an impartial decision.
Our 3 goalies have the following stats, I would like to know which one(s) should be playing in the friendlies to develop the best goalkeeping for the WC starting in about 6 weeks - not automatically which one is best now.
All listed as Goal-Speed-Pass-SC-EXP-Q/P
A: 37-46-8-22-4-90/71. Gaining EXP slightly under 2 per week.
B: 50-27-11-14-26-95/53. Gaining EXP at 2 per week.
C: 49-31-10-7-13-90/53. Gaining EXP at slightly over 1 per week, but no weak spot.
How should we play this, even if there is a clear favourite, there is the choice of do we focus exclusively on one goalie and risk injury or give the likely back-up some games just in case.
Thanks all, much appreciated.
EDIT: One final thing, After the youth pulls this week, I will be contacting all managers with a player in the squad to say how I feel their chances are and what training I would like the player to have. It would be rare for youth pulls much later than this week to make the squad due to the low-EXP, although not impossible if they have huge AI well proportioned.
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