Mackie...

[Gary Baldi]

And playing Mousinho further forward means you can play Brannagan further forward. Square pegs into square holes?

 

[jambon46]

And playing Mousinho further forward means you can play Brannagan further forward. Square pegs into square holes?

and I think they did

 

[frenchconnection]

I think mackie with no nonsense 'i dont like the pretty pretty football I like to get in the defenders faces and have a ruck' bradbury could be an interesting future partnership

 

[frenchconnection]

Oh and as far as im concerned obika should be a ball boy...although hed miss most of them lol

 

[Mystery Yellow]

And playing Mousinho further forward means you can play Brannagan further forward. Square pegs into square holes?

Only took 50 odd games to figure out Mousinho isn’t a centre back, I’m glad for the formation change aswell as 4-2-3-1 didn’t work

 

[Yellow River]

Only took 50 odd games to figure out Mousinho isn’t a centre back, I’m glad for the formation change aswell as 4-2-3-1 didn’t work

I thought Mousinho was excellent on Saturday and yes it did free-up Brannigan a little, but to my eyes at least it still basically looked like a 4-2-3-1 formation.

 

[makv]

I didn't go to Sunderland but I thought Mackie was the obvious choice for the lone striker job just for his performance against Luton. He came on near the end of that game and immediately nailed one of their centre backs, followed by the other. A lone striker has to make the life of a centre back difficult. It's not necessarily about chasing the two centre backs whilst they pass the ball round you, but it's about making sure you contest the ball when it's in the air, being aggressive and brave and backing in so a centre back can't easily win the header to clear it over the head of your midfielders. Obviously the bigger you are the better, and although Mackie isn't that tall he does have the build of someone who goes to the gym and skips leg day to do arms and chest, but the most important thing is a bit of aggression. Hylton was good at it, as was Maguire. It does pain me to see the size of Obika and then how bad he can be at it. If I was as big and strong as him I would take great pleasure in bullying centre backs but I don't understand why he's so timid.

Henry, Browne, Holmes and Whyte are all good players at this level but it's no good if they never see the ball. With Mackie in there, you know he's the exact gobshite player that you love to have in your team. Even if he doesn't hold the ball up, he can put enough pressure on that the centre back doesn't get it cleared properly and it falls for one of the attacking players.

Changing the subject slightly, it's also the reason why I thought Dunkley was such an effective centre back. Regardless of who he was up against he normally always won the first ball and first and foremost got good distance on it. As much as I like Mousinho as a player, I thought he was much more effective in midfield. When he's at centre back he quite often gets out muscled but he showed his worth further forward yesterday where he also took on leadership of the team well.

Amen. Mackie is the sort of player you hate when he’s in the opposition. I’m glad we finally got to see why we signed him. And amen re Dunkley too. I wish we still had him.