Who will Tindall pick to face Manchester City?

Written by kirsikka

Pep says EFL Cup team will be players from the academy. Needs to keep his best team for Leicester.

— Simon Stone (@sistoney67) September 21, 2020

This suddenly feels like a really difficult team to pick for AFC Bournemouth manager Jason Tindall.

We haven’t played with any sort of fluidity in the league and need to get some players backfiring on all cylinders so game time could help them. By the same token, the chances of getting anything from the game are beyond slim so why risk first team players?

I know Manchester City have three games in a short period but even with eleven changes they *should* still stomp all over us like a kid on an ant. Occasionally the ant escapes but usually, it’s… splat. Will playing knock the confidence of already fragile-looking players even more if they get badly exposed by superior players? It already looks like there’s some kind of relegation hangover. Moreover, if an important player picks up a knock or, even worse, something more long term then JT will be accused of rank stupidity for risking them there.

I’d say this is probably the hardest line up of the season to predict. Here’s my guess at the selection.

Travers

Smith Mepham Kelly Rico

Arter L Cook Ofoborh

Brooks King

Surridge

Subs: Begovic, Solanke, Gosling, Kilkenny, Simpson, Anthony, Zemura

I’d play it as a 4-3-3 but suspect JT will push Ofoborh back into defence again to stick with his recent 3-4-3 formation.

Your say…

Sorry Roger wrote…

This is a very odd start to the season because of the truncated pre-season and the lack of supporters in grounds. I would treat it as a pre-season game (with more tempo and competitive obviously).

So the key objectives are: to help players to full match fitness (where needed); to protect any players carrying niggles; to cast an eye over a couple of fringe players to help decide where they sit for the season, and to try out team shape/formation.

If JT and team do that, I’ll be happy whatever the result. – Join the conversation, click here.