raphael_as
Active Member
I'd be tempted to rest Cesc for this one - I didn't see the game but people said he was looking tired towards the end of the game yesterday and we should have enough to beat Pompey without him.
A lot of potential returns from injury make the team uncertain, if they're ready I'd play all the returnees I could to give them some match time and see what sort of form they're in for Juve: so assuming Reyes, Lundberg, Sol and RvP are available I'd go for the following:
-----------Mad Jens
Eboue--Toure--Sol--Flamini
Freddie--Gilberto--Hleb--Reyes
--------RvP-------Henry
(I'd love to see what Hleb can do from the centre of mid-field now that he seems to be running into form).
Straight-up replacements of Phil, Pires and Adebayor for Sol,Reyes/Lundberg and RvP respectively if not fit. If both Reyes and Freddie are unavailable then some more juggling needs to happen, with perhaps Song or Diaby (if available), or throw in one of the youngsters (smith, walcott) and see what they can do.
As for Pompey - I expect a tough match, Redknapp will have them playing hard against us and closing us down fast, which will be a good test to see how far this team have come in dealing with the sort of thing we've been having problems with all season.
But their results have come against a pretty much 2nd-string West Ham and a Man City side who are almost as inconsistent as we are this season (beating Utd and Newcastle and losing to Portsmouth). Before that I think their last win in the Premiership was in 2005.
It's either going to be one of those really frustrating games where we create a dozen chances but win or lose by 1-0, or its going to be another 4-0 pasting.
A lot of potential returns from injury make the team uncertain, if they're ready I'd play all the returnees I could to give them some match time and see what sort of form they're in for Juve: so assuming Reyes, Lundberg, Sol and RvP are available I'd go for the following:
-----------Mad Jens
Eboue--Toure--Sol--Flamini
Freddie--Gilberto--Hleb--Reyes
--------RvP-------Henry
(I'd love to see what Hleb can do from the centre of mid-field now that he seems to be running into form).
Straight-up replacements of Phil, Pires and Adebayor for Sol,Reyes/Lundberg and RvP respectively if not fit. If both Reyes and Freddie are unavailable then some more juggling needs to happen, with perhaps Song or Diaby (if available), or throw in one of the youngsters (smith, walcott) and see what they can do.
As for Pompey - I expect a tough match, Redknapp will have them playing hard against us and closing us down fast, which will be a good test to see how far this team have come in dealing with the sort of thing we've been having problems with all season.
But their results have come against a pretty much 2nd-string West Ham and a Man City side who are almost as inconsistent as we are this season (beating Utd and Newcastle and losing to Portsmouth). Before that I think their last win in the Premiership was in 2005.
It's either going to be one of those really frustrating games where we create a dozen chances but win or lose by 1-0, or its going to be another 4-0 pasting.
