Agree with all that. Could risk Mayor at LWB allowing Broom to play as well. Too much of an ask just to throw Randell in.Houghton will be a massive miss. What a signing hes turned out to be. Id put Grant in for him.
I hate to agree with IJN but don't you think playing Ipswich is a much taller order than Hartlepool?!Disagree he played very well for Torquay in there play off final game which I would argue is a much bigger game in magnitude then just against Ipswich
I very often agree with what you say regarding football. It's the other rubbish I have a problem with!I hate to agree with IJN.
I see where you're coming from, but is it practical? You want to sign a back-up player in a very specialist position (in Lowe's formation) where the incumbent is one of the first names on the team sheet. Unless Houghton sustains a medium term injury, the new signing is not going to play many minutes - and those targeted will know that. It's going to be difficult to get a specialist of reasonable quality and experience (they've obviously got to be better than Randell) to sign on this basis, and you've got to pay the player concerned to potentially do very little. It's a bit like a reserve goalkeeper.I've been thinking for some time now that Lowe's number one priority in January ought to be another defensive midfielder and this discussion triggered by Houghton's impending suspension really just confirms this. You don't really want to have to disrupt a different part of the team to fix a temporary hole somewhere else (e.g. using Grant or Edwards). The squad ought to be able to cope. Obviously that wouldn't be the case if there was more than one player missing. Ideally, with the current squad, Randell would slot straight in as a replacement for Houghton but I think Lowe's comments about the performances of fringe players when they have played tell us that he's not been seeing what he needs to see from Randell. It wouldn't be too disruptive if one of Broom, Camara or Mayor could naturally slot into Houghton's role (leaving the other two in their normal roles) but I don't think they could - Camara might be the best bet I'm not convinced. Perhaps putting Broom and Camara together in slightly deeper positions with Mayor playing centrally in front of them behind split strikers could work - a kind of 3-4-1-2 formation.
Law and Randell given thier senior outing of 90 minutes recently and by all accounts failed miserably to impress!Interesting that those who don't want Randell and would choose Grant to replace Houghton, also suggest anyone but Ryan Law to replace Grant at LWB. Presumably this is again due to inexperience. How are Randell (21) and Law (22, and in his fourth year as a pro) to gain experience if they're not picked?
Sadly, I suspect that amongst those who don't trust these young players is a certain Mr R Lowe. To answer the thread's question, it ought to be Randell, but I don't think it will be.
The above problem is not helped by the apparent lack of competitive senior football for those who don't start for the first team. How much competitive football do Randell and Law play? How does the occasional 20 minutes off the bench prepare Agard if he's needed to play 90? And how are the long term injured (Bolton, Ennis, G Cooper) going to get match ready once the injuries have healed? Not blaming the club for this as I believe steps were being taken to rectify this a couple of years ago, and then Covid arrived. However it is a significant issue for Argyle at present.
There are a lot of different views here.
From the beginning I've been thinking if Randell doesn't get a game now, coming in for the position that he covers on the bench. Then when will he get a chance? He's not a 17 year old who'll only come on in dead rubber end of season games. If not now, then when? What game would be suitable for him?
An alternative might be to move Edwards to DM, and bring Randell in as RWB. That way Randell still plays, and out on the right is where he'd been playing on loan at Torquay.
I've also been thinking that Mike Cooper didn't start off last season with too many great overall performances. Many thought he was particularly dodgy on crosses. And he had to work on and improve his game. But without real match time how do you find out where you need to improve? If we genuinely want to develop our youngsters, then they need to play, at least when they can. Now seems like an opportunity for Randell to get a proper game under his belt.
I'd rather keep 90% of the team the same, and if it's not working change it at half time.