If Bucks Does Not know Do You?

....Its a good question, i cant remember a season when it is so hard to pick our best team. Maybe its down to the strength of the squad....more likely its that we're just inconsistent

Here's my effort



Bevan

Mansell Robertson Hodges Nicholson

Carayol Wroe Hargreaves Dsane

Sills Green

Bench

Christie Benyon Thompson Woods Carlisle

Away from home i would replace Green with Thompson and play the 4-4-1-1 that has proved so succesful this season.

...I would ditch Dsane if we had a natural left sided attacking player with pace.

As we haven't, i've gone with him as at least he scores a few.

He's a better bet than our other wingers on the left imo.

You are right though, that position sticks out like a sore thumb.

I would certainly be happy if that were the eleven picked for Tuesday night. Carayol and Green seem to have come out of the last game with some credit and it would be good to see that rewarded.

If we continue to have ineffective supply down the wings, though, I would like to see a 4-3-3 with Thompson, Wroe and Hargeaves in the middle. Benyon would get my third striker slot. I believe this was tried with good effect away to Wrexham earlier in the season but ditched.

Dave Thomas spoke about his with regards to Benyon yesterday - that it seems that the pressure to get instant results is preventing "us" from having patience to develop these players and learn the game. Compare this with Burton Albion as they romp into the league - a fairly settled side without the weight of expectation of promotion and instant results.

I think we have very much a different approach to getting out of the league compared to Exeter. They built upon some excellent young players that they developed young players from their youth system - George Friend, Danny Seabourne & Dean Moxey and also young players rejected from other clubs in Mackie, and Paul Jones.
We have basically had to pay a premium to get experienced players assembled in the space of just a few weeks - with a sprinkling of young players.
The likes of Sills, Hargreaves, Nicholson, Phillips, Todd surely didn't come cheap and we must have been well subsidised by our Directors and the Consortium (as I'm sure we are being to greater extent at the moment due to poor crowds). Surely the lines of business that our backers are in mean that they are feeling the pinch of the recession and next season is going to be far tougher to attract players than it was over the past couple of summers.

Benyon (who I'm sure will move to a bigger club in the summer), Carayol, Green, Ellis, Robertson and Stevens have not seen a significant run in the team.
Once they seem to indicate a progression they are on the bench and without knowing why (and neither would I expect to - that is not how a football club works) it is often mystifying to the average supporter.

Come next season, I believe that we will have a different "mix" to the players within the squad - it will be younger players rather than "established" conference players that will be making-up the bulk of the team. That is something that I am in some ways looking forward to.
We already have a core of decent players in Bevan, Mansell, Hodges, Sills, Todd and possibly Woods? Green, Carayol, Ellis and Wroe are also under contract and I believe they have a lot to prove (as has Carlisle) and develop.
The only experienced players that I would be disappointed not to retain are Hargreaves and Nicholson. Adams and Dsane are coming to the end of their deals and surely wont be retained.
As for Christie, I'm not being derogatory as to his ability, but I would rather have seen a left winger like Ryan Williams arrive at the club to give some balance and create more chances for the strikers that we already do have.

Back to the topic of the Original Poster............ I'm not sure what the "best team" is (other than it hasnt been us too many times recently!) - and even whether it is a good thing to have "best team" as such. Last season you could more or less name the players that would start every week - even when their form suffered there were several players who would never be in danger of being dropped.
I guess it is "horses for courses" every match.

For what it is worth, I think we have a 50 / 50 chance of making the play-offs as things stand - and a 30% chance if we do make it. That's just being realistic. 4 wins in the last 10 or 11 BSP games isn't good enough and last season when we started our post-Christmas slump we had a far bigger cushion between us and the play-off chasing clubs.
The only real hope for me is that I remind myself that Exeter went through some very inconsistent patches before finding the right formula and they made it up.

**EDIT** Agree with all he points you make about Dsane, Capitalgull (from the numerous times I have seen him this season), although there have been a few games hat I have ben impressed with is contribution. The fact remains that he is 29 and probably isn't going to develop much more and he is probably on "football league wages" and his contribution to all-round play isn't hugely inspiring.
That said, he does pop-up with the odd goal.

I'm with you on the formation Shane. As soon as we went 4-3-3 yesterday, albeit in 'panic and let's get forward as much as we can to equalise' mode, we looked a different side.

BUT I don't see Benyon as part of it. I'd have Christie in for him after the brief glimpse I saw yesterday. Some tellingly good work, on the right of a three, with Sills in the middle and Green on the left. A couple of really good flicks, always in the direction of a team-mate, some lovely knockdowns, and hopefully when his fitness is there, he'll be able to do the same for 90 minutes.

Same team you put with Christie for Benyon would be mine.

Funniest chant of yesterday as well, in response to the 'fat barsteward' ones directed at the shuffling Mr Christie...

To the tune of 1-0 to the Arse-eh-nal.
'Shut up, if you can't be nice; shut up, if you can't be nice!'

Made me laugh anyway!!

I'm with you Shane of the formation and your team selection except one and yes sorry that is Benyon, but he could still have a part to play in our games. Christie is much stronger, has far better control and as Andy pointed out can do the clever flicks that will find the likes of Green and Sills.

I firmly believe that Green would get more chances in a game having the clever play of Christie feeding him in and all will be needed then is to make sure we finish the chances created.

Cristie may not be fit enough to last the whole game and remain as effective, but by then you would hope that the extra power and cleverness he and Green would have up front, that we would be in control and more importantly winning the game.

Time then to bring on Benyon, who in my view has always made more of an impact coming on later as a sub, his fresh legs and willingness to work hard will give the tired defenders even more of a problem and Benyon's lack of any real physical presence will not matter so much.

Did any of those clubs have any other option than to 'take things slowly' though? It seems to me they were all in the position of having to do what they could in terms of bringing youth players through rather than trying to attain 'instant success' - and their fans would have been aware of that. Had they been in a position to try and get out of here at the earliest opportunity, is it realistic to think they'd have rejected it? Our situation was different from the outset. The consortium arrived with the intention of making amends for everything that had gone before them, as quickly as possible. They provided the funds which most other clubs in this division can only dream of, and with that came an expectancy. Whilst most supporters understood there would likely be a period of consolidation, by the time we'd created the squad and started so promisingly, the expectancy was there.