QPR Vs West Brom... Opening Day!

I wouldnt have any issue with the players you mention starting against Cambridge. In respect of Lloyd, do you see Marti playing him wide and then moving Kolli in that central midfield /No. 10 role or do you see him as a partner up front with Celar?   I have always thought that Kolli would be more effective in that central role and given the green light to roam around like Chair.

stoatey Would Kolli not be out of the game given that he went off with a hamstring injury on Saturday?

I’m unconvinced Martí will play with a front two unless injuries necessitate it. It will be 4-2-3-1 pretty much all season to facilitate Chair’s entry into the team. I do think that, if you consider who are centre forwards are, that we would be better off playing a traditional 4-3-3 with runners from midfield and wide players who look to fizz the ball into the box. But because Chair is our most creative player, and you don’t want him stuck tracking full-backs who advance, we have to play 4-2-3-1 or a 3-4-1-2. But like I say, I don’t see Martí going to back three even if we do have the personnel for it.

So given that, I think will see Kolli continue to play wide cutting in. He maybe a 9 in the future, by right now, because we play 4-2-3-1, we need our centre forward to operate as a backboard to a basketball net rather. And quite simply, Kolli’s game is not suited to that, and I think he lacks the maturity at the minute to play with his back to goal for almost the whole game. I think this is where Celar will struggle too, given that most of his goals for Lugano were from movements off of the last defender. His heat map as well shows that he’s a penalty box player, he’s not a back to goal facilitator.

I remember being at Scunthorpe at home in 2010 and hearing a heated discussion between a man and his son about the merits of Heidar Helguson. The son despised him, the dad lauded him. I was always ambivalent back then as an early teenager, but as I’ve got older I’ve seen the merits of him and come to appreciate him more. He is precisely the type of striker we need now. Someone who backs in, plays with his back to goal, who is happy getting it into feet or in the air, who just simply rebounds the ball to his he attacking players playing off of him.