Apprentice Task 5 - Team TOS

You each have 10 teams from the Premier League, allocated based on last seasons league positions. I want you to produce me the best possible squad you can, and the best starting XI you can, along with tactics.

The catch is that your squad must contain exactly 20 players with 2 from each of your ten clubs, and your starting XI must contain 1 player from each of the ten clubs.

The two teams will be voted on by the non-Apprentice managers and the winning team will be the one with the most votes. One person from that team will then get fired. Please make your submission on this page by 2pm on Thursday 9th August

Your teams are...

Twist, OTW, Sodhat
1 Manchester City
4 Tottenham Hotspur
5 Newcastle United
8 Liverpool
9 Fulham
12 Norwich City
13 Sunderland
16 Aston Villa
17 Queens Park Rangers
20 West Ham


Squad (20):

Goalkeepers

John Ruddy (Nor)
Rob Green (QPR)

Centre Backs

Vincent Kompany (Man City)
James Tompkins (W Ham)
Martin Skrtel (L’pool)

Full Backs

John O’Shea (Sund)
Phillip Bardsley (Sund)
Fabio (QPR)
Alan Hutton (Villa)

Central Midfielders

Scott Parker (Tott)
Kevin Nolan (W Ham)
Lucas Leiva (L’pool)
Yohan Cabaye (Newc)

Attacking Midfield/Wingers

Moussa Dembele (Ful)
Anthony Pilkington (Nor)
David Silva (Man C)
Rafael van der Vaart (Tott)
Clint Dempsey (Ful)

Strikers

Papiss Cisse (Newc)
Darren Bent (Villa)

Starting XI

------------------Ruddy
Bardsley---Kompany---Tompkins---Fabio
-------------Lucas----Cabaye
Dempsey----------VDV------------Silva
------------------Bent

Right, here we are.

In Trebs absence we better get moving, and he can add his parts after.

We need 2 from each side, and I propose to split them as thus:

Twist - Man City, Liverpool, Sunderland
Trebs - Spurs, Fulham, Villa
Sodhat - Newcastle, QPR, West Ham, Norwich

So get a list of 1 at each position (GK, DF, MD, FW) from each and we will then make our choices from the big pool.

Obviously there are the "usual suspects". However, I think a balanced team is the best bet.

For example, having a world class attack if we have a sub-standard defence.

I will get you my list at lunch Soddy

Good man.

Once we have all the players we can go over any we think have been missed and we'll sort our squad out.

Soddy, I think leaving it until Wednesday might give us not enough time. So you do Newcastle and West Ham, while I do QPR and Norwich?

I would agree but I don't want to cut Trebs out because it gives him no chance in the boardroom if we lose

We will wait till Wednesday and then if he isn't around we will have to take over.

Ok....we wait

Doing my players now

These are who I came up with for my sides...:

Newcastle
Krul
Coloccini
Cabaye
Cisse

QPR
Green
Traore
SWP
Cisse

West Ham
Jaaskaleinan
Tompkins
Nolan
Cole

Norwich
Ruddy
Martin
Snodgrass
Holt

Man City

Hart
Silva
Kompany
Aguero

Liverpool

Reina
Agger
Gerrard
Suarez

Sunderland

Mignolet
Bardsley
Sessegnon
Wickham

This would be my team off the top of my head:

---------------------Ruddy----------------------
Bardsley----Kompany-----A.Ferdinand----Warnock
Dempsey-----Silva-----------Cabaye---------Bale
--------------Suarez------C.Cole----------------

I think that fits the criteria.....one of every team and one team has 2 players (Man C has two players in this team)

Silva and Dempsey could swap. Or we could have Lennon on the right, Dempsey more central, and Silva on the left.

That is just off the top of my head though

Building on your lead, what do you reckon to this?

---------------------Ruddy-----------------
Bardsley----Kompany------Tompkins---Traore
----------------Lucas---Cabaye
Dempsey------------Silva---------------Bale
---------------------Bent

Hey guys, apologies for my absence.
I think the best thing to do is look at the weakest teams and get their best players in there.

1 Manchester City - Virtually anyone.
4 Tottenham Hotspur - Wherever needed: Modric/Bale/VDV/Parker?
5 Newcastle United - Yohan Cabaye/Papiss Cisse/Fabio Collocini
8 Liverpool - Steven Gerrard/Luis Suarez/Martin Skrtel
9 Fulham - Brede Hangeland/Clint Dempsey
12 Norwich City - John Ruddy
13 Sunderland - Lee Cattermole/Wes Brown
16 Aston Villa - Darren Bent/Marc Arlbrighton
17 Queens Park Rangers - Joey Barton/Bobby Zamora
20 West Ham - James Tomkins/Robert Green

I agree, I think we should have the best players of the weaker teams. Then fit the others around it.

My questions based on your team Soddy, and in some respects my own, are:

1) Would Kompany and Tompkins work at CB? Just a general question as I feel the CB partnership is the most important factor we get right.

2) Would it not be better to have a more attacking RB with Dempsey likely to come inside a lot?

3) Do we trust Bent to put away the goals Silva provides?

Norwich I think HAS to be Ruddy. The rest I am not sure of. It is like a massive jigsaw puzzle where every time you move one piece, andother piece doesn't fit

Villa aren't blessed with much else really. They have Hutton for RB, but then we need to find a Sunderland player to fit... Bent has my confidence that he'd get the goals.

Aside from Tompkins, West Ham's best players are probably Nolan, Noble, or Collison, all CM's and I prefer Lucas/Cabaye as a unit that I think would work well. We could take Modric at CM though, and maybe have Tiote/Modric, and slot Suarez in behind the striker with Silva on the left?

So

--------Tiote---Modric
Dempsey---Suarez---Silva
------------Bent

I prefer Lucas/Cabaye, even with Lucas being injured.

Tompkins and Kompany. Again I think that is good.

Just the midfield I don't like. I just think Silva and Dempsey would come inside too much. In the midfield you have above I would swap Silva for Toure

So we have a central midfield of Cabaye-Toure-Lucas. Dempsey on the right. Bale on the left.

This is difficult

Silva would be behind the front man so only Dempsey presents an issue, but I don't see it as an issue to have a fluid frontline.

Ok, but I would prefer Silva in the centre, rather than out on the left.

So where are we with the team at the moment...I am confused

-----------------Ruddy
Bardsley---Kompany--Tompkins---Traore
------------Lucas----Cabaye
Dempsey---------Silva------------Bale
-----------------Bent

the other team I gave was to try and accomodate Suarez and Modric, but that would exclude Bale. I'm still not that comfortable with the LB position really. We could have SWP on the right and have Riise as LB?

What was wrong with Warnock?

He plays for Villa, and so it was him or Bent, and what with full back being less important it makes sense to take the best Villa have

Just for arguments sake whose QPR's best player

Hard to say!

Taarabt, Cisse, Barton, SWP??

Who have they signed?

Fabio on loan......would you have him LB?

We could have Park Ji Sung on the RW, and Riise at LB if we re-jigged?

Or we could have Onouha at RB, with Richardson (Sund) at LB?

Either grab you?

I think we are losing out either way. QPR are probably the worst team to get.

I am tempted to just stick whoever is in goal for QPR and find a outfield Norwich player.

Rob Green - so not bad for a keeper

Norwich aren't great either... I'd be more tempted with Onuoha at RB, and a LB from Sunderland or elsewhere.

Ok, we are going round in circles here.

Let's stick to the original idea. Pick a formation (Are we 4-5-1-ing) and put the best players in the weaker teams in the positions first. Then work round it

Because I am getting confused lol

4-2-3-1 is the basis I think, and at present we both seem agreed on:

------------------Ruddy
Bardsley---Kompany---Tompkins---??
------------Lucas----Cabaye
Dempsey---------Silva------Bale
------------------Bent

Sticking point seems to be LB, and I know you are concerned of Dempsey coming in field.

We need a QPR player in, so it's either at LB, or we have to re-jig. Of all the sides the best LB is either at Spurs or City, but that comprimises our other positions.

In my opinion we have two options:

Fabio at LB
Onouha at RB, Richardson at LB

...assuming we are happy with the players already in place up there ^^

I would say Fabio....I think Fabio and Bale would work on the left.

I think we are running our of time now anyway. We have a lot to do still

We'll go with Fabio then, I think it's reasonable.

Now we need 9 more players from the other clubs. I don't think Trebs is around so we'll do it between us.

GK, RB, LB, CB(2?), RM, LM, CM, ST (2) is what I would say we need. We can use versatility here too, to fill more than one need at once.

Looking over names mentioned already:

Green (QPR)
Hutton RB (Villa)
O Shea CB/FB (Sund)
Skrtel CB (L'pool)
Parker CM (Spurs)
Nolan CM (W Ham)
Dembele LW/FW (F'ham)
Pilkington RW (N'wich)
Cisse ST (Newc)

Thoughts?

Green is a defo.......gets QPR out the way. Same with Pilkington.

I would go Noble over Nolan. I need to think about the others.

I'd agree Noble is a better player, but I wonder whether the balance of Nolan being more attacking against Parker being more defensive might push Nolan ahead

Thinking in terms of needing a goal from the bench.

That's true.

To be honest it is all relative.....it is what the people voting think

sodhat wrote:Rob Green - so not bad for a keeper

Norwich aren't great either... I'd be more tempted with Onuoha at RB, and a LB from Sunderland or elsewhere.

I think they're more an example of being more than the sum of their parts Olly - there is no one outstanding player there...

Yes there is no outstanding player there, but I'd rather have a team unit than a team built around a prima donna. Carry on...

*Cough*....Grant Holt...*Cough*

*Cough*...Voting for Nando and Viva...*Cough*

Hey, was doing some thinking as I'm not around for this bit, I will write up all the tactics if you want?

I think Fabio is a good choice, but we need to check he definitely counts as a QPR player.

Olly wrote:*Cough*...Voting for Nando and Viva...*Cough*

I'm not above telling on you!

Trebs - we will assume he can be taken because it solves a headache, and he'll be playing for them this year. Good idea on the tactics, I will PM you when myself and Twist have decided the full squad and you can do the tactics while we write about the players.

Alright mate, sorry for not being around to help out with the task but it gives me a clear part of the task to do and I know I've pulled my weight

Can't be helped with work and that. Takes weight off us too, so it's important.

Mate, just realised the deadline is 2pm today so make sure you get your final squad to me ASAP. I'll be finishing work at 12 today, so will do it in the hour before. Will post on here to confirm I'm around.

TwisT wrote:Green is a defo.......gets QPR out the way. Same with Pilkington.

I would go Noble over Nolan. I need to think about the others.

We have till 12 pm to finalise the squad at large so give me your thoughts asap. I will then PM it to Trebs with the starting XI and he'll do tactics.

We will take 10 players each and write a couple of lines on why each is chosen, and I'll write the broad overview.

I'm here.

GK
GK
LB
LB
CB
CB
CB
RB
RB
LM
LM
CM
CM
CM
CM
RM
RM
ST
ST
ST

Put the above on the main post Soddy, and put in the players we have and the teams in brackets next to each name. Easier to sort out then

Updated at the top

Let me know any amendments. We look light at CB with only 3 there, but O Shea is deliberately included as utility should we ever have two CB's out.

Seeing the team in full now, I would be tempted to not have Bale.

Move Silva left, and put Van der Vaart there. As we only have two strikers I really feel we should have a SS like him.

Then I think Trebs tactics should not be about width but about a strong midfield unit that can interchange

or we could take Bale out, put Modric in midfield with Parker, take Lucas out and have Suarez, leaving it as:

----Parker---Modric
Dempsey---Suarez---Silva

Might get points for a Parker/Modric midfield?

Then have Cabaye/Nolan backing up in CM. Or maybe drop Cabaye for Tiote for a DM cover?

sodhat wrote:or we could take Bale out, put Modric in midfield with Parker, take Lucas out and have Suarez, leaving it as:

----Parker---Modric
Dempsey---Suarez---Silva

Might get points for a Parker/Modric midfield?

Then have Cabaye/Nolan backing up in CM. Or maybe drop Cabaye for Tiote for a DM cover?

2 reasons why I say no to that:

1) I can see Parker being over-run. I think Cabaye would be more likely to get stuck in and help out than Modric.

2) We have 2 Man C players in the first 11 (Kompany, Silva) and 2 Spurs (Parker, Modric)

I would pick VDV over Suarez any day.