[bluetagagain]

This is our 2017 L2 winning team and our current bunch of wasters. Who would you swap?

2017.
Forde; Evans, Burgess, Clarke, Stevens; Rose, M.Doyle ; Baker ; Naismith, Bennett; Chaplin.
O’Brien, Whatmough, Linganzi, Kabamba, Aborah, Lowe, Roberts.

Current Bilge.
Bazunu, Brown; Raggett, Ogilvie, Romeo, Williams, Morrell, Harness, Recco, Curtis, Marquis.
Bass, Robertson, Thompson, Adhame, Hirst, Tunnicliffe, Freeman.

[stayinupforever]

I'd keep open sans,helvitca,Arial and sans-serif as my four midfielders. Sans-serif being the Frenchman.

[bluetagagain]

Lol :-)

[Peter_Mellor's_Got_No_Hair]

This is our 2017 L2 winning team and our current bunch of wasters. Who would you swap?

2017.
Forde; Evans, Burgess, Clarke, Stevens; Rose, M.Doyle ; Baker ; Naismith, Bennett; Chaplin.
O’Brien, Whatmough, Linganzi, Kabamba, Aborah, Lowe, Roberts.

Current Bilge.
Bazunu, Brown; Raggett, Ogilvie, Romeo, Williams, Morrell, Harness, Recco, Curtis, Marquis.
Bass, Robertson, Thompson, Adhame, Hirst, Tunnicliffe, Freeman.

........ ..... ..... ....... Bazunu ..... ........ ......... 

........... ........ ......  Burgess ....... ........ .......

....... ...... Whatmough .......  Clarke ..............

Evans ......       ............. ......... .......  Stevens

..............   ....  Morell ....   Doyle ....... ........

.......... ......... ...   Curtis .......... ........... .......

................  Lowe ......   .......  Chaplin 

Take it that these are as they were, regarding fitness. Also i would take Ben Thompson on loan in for Curtis. No long balls 8ft in the air to our forwards either.

[bluetagagain]

Swap Evans for Romeo ( he wasn’t great as a wingback) and make it a flat back 3 and we’d win the league with that team. You can’t have Ben Thompson as he was a Jackass team member .

[Hammie]

I'd keep Evans in the squad though, his attitude and the number of goals he chipped in made him worth his place for reasons beyond actual ability. We could do with a few more like him right now, weak attitude is the biggest problem with this lot for me.

[Wightblue]

The 2017 team is actually is a graphic illustration as to how much we have degenerated in the last four plus seasons. Just think that team was assembled and funded during Fan Ownership !

I wasn’t a fan of Cooks football but Jackett and Cowley have made him look like a footballing genius so I guess he would continue as Team Manager.

[DeepBlue]

Whatmough was injured for most of that season so not sure he counts really as part of the 2017 champions team, so I'd happily have Raggett in his place in a back three. 

But Cook never really played with three at  the back so in a 4231 I'd go for 

Bazanu 
Romeo  Burgess Clarke Stevens 
Morrell Doyle
Lowe Roberts Curtis
Chaplin

So only 4 of the current team, and there's a strong case for Naismith ahead of Curtis. 

What's striking is that neither team has a good tradiitonal centre forward. In Cook's team only two midfield players got into double figures.   Michael Smith was the closest in 2017 but he didn't play, or score, much that season.

[Pedalo_menders]

Youre all smoking crack if you think Bazunu is a more reliable keeper than Forde.

[scumslayer]

I'd take the whole 2017 team with the exception of the show pony/you haven't seen the best of me yet Bennett for the marginally better show pony/you've seen the best of me sometimes Ronan Curtis

[Hammie]

To me Forde was the most important signing that Cook made, on his own he turned a decent team into a promotion team. Funny how much difference a defensive kingpin of a goalkeeper can make. Not sure the experiment with a sweeper keeper has made any difference. Good shot stopped obviously, but is his distribution really that good? I'm not sure how many goals we have scored on a direct break from one of his through balls (for instance)

[bluetagagain]

I'd still have a partially fit Whatmough over Burgess any day but I'd deffo have Burgess in the squad as back up.

[Pedalo_menders]

I'm still fuming we didn't keep whatmough. Probably the divisions best CB.

Burgess was prone to the odd error but was a decent CB too. Ten times the player Raggett is, despite his improvement. I was also fuming when Catlin let his contract run down too. Thought Downing was an adequate replacement FFS. Unbelievable.

[PompeyDB]

Part of my Pompey DNA died the day Burgess and Pitman left on free transfers on the same day. Neither were world beaters, but I'd have followed either of them to the bitter end.

[Hammie]

Pitman was not perfect but to freeze him out completely and waste the wages we were paying him left us short of goals right at the crucial stage of the seasons.

[DeepBlue]

I'm still fuming we didn't keep whatmough. Probably the divisions best CB.

Burgess was prone to the odd error but was a decent CB too. Ten times the player Raggett is, despite his improvement. I was also fuming when Catlin let his contract run down too. Thought Downing was an adequate replacement FFS. Unbelievable.

Pompey offered Burgess a new contract, it was the player's decision to move on to a new challenge -  nothing to do with not being wanted or encouraged to stay by the club.  Not that that would have been Catlin's decision anyway, the manager makes the decisions on which polayers to offer contracts to.   And the manager will have selected Downing as a potential replacement, not Catlin.  Jackett courted Downing over several months and  with hindsight (only) it must go down as his worst bit of transfer business during his tenure.  

And I'm still fuming that Whatmough chose to go too. But football careers are short, his potentially more so than most, and the desire to experience different things obviously quite strong in some players, but I thought Jack was disloyal to turn his back on the club that had stuck by him during his dark days when they did not have to. He said as he left that the money on offer was the same, it was the length of contract and added security for his family that swung it.

[Northstander]

Deep is right, Christian wanted a new challenge, he was never going to resign for us. The team he signed for Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, won the Belgian Div 2 last season and with him a regular, are now sitting top of Div 1 (4 points clear). Good luck to him

[scumslayer]

And instead of resigning for us, he resigned, and then signed for someone else, leaving us looking to sign someone else.

[Hermann's_no_hermit]

And instead of resigning for us, he resigned, and then signed for someone else, leaving us looking to sign someone else.

It's a sign of the times for us!

[scumslayer]

I just want you all to know how disappointed I was that this wasn't a thread about Noel Edmunds