Luke Turner talks as we enter an international break…
Following the 1-1 draw with Fulham on Saturday, we now head into an international break which gives Gary Rowett time to work, reflect and then make some big decisions as the season comes to its climax.
He has taken the squad on a training camp to Malaga where he will no doubt work the players hard, ensuring they are ready for one final push.
I am sure he will find it frustrating that the key players in the team will be missing from that camp due to them being on international duty.
The likes of David Cotterill, Jacques Maghoma, Clayton Donaldson, Paul Caddis and Stephen Gleeson have all been called up to represent their respective countries.
Although it is extremely good to see them all recognised at international level, it doesn’t really help Rowett in his planning for the final nine games of the season.
Personally, I think that it’s a ludicrous time to have an international break anyway due to how close the season is to reaching its close and teams wanting to keep momentum going.
But, in some ways for us, it will give us time to work on a few things in hope that it will change our fortunes, beginning at Charlton on April 2nd.
We haven’t been in the best form, particularly away from home, so Rowett can look for other ways to get us back on track away from St Andrews.
He will also have some big decisions to make in regards to team selection. Choosing between Jonathan Spector and Paul Robinson will be one of those.
Robbo had been excellent alongside Michael Morrison since the turn of the year but Rowett recalled Spector in the last two games.
To his credit, he didn’t do too badly against Wolves but, in my opinion, wasn’t that great on Saturday against Fulham and I would personally bring Robbo back in.
I think one thing for certain is that Rowett needs to move away from that 4-3-3 formation and bring Maghoma back into the line up along with playing Jon Toral through the middle from the outset.
On Saturday, it was no use having David Davis occupying a left midfield spot where he struggles to make an impact and Maghoma is sat on the bench when, really, he needs to be playing.
I have heard plenty of people say “play two up front” in recent weeks or even “drop Donaldson”. The latter is a very silly thing to say.
Playing two up front should be an option, yes, but I think we should only resort to it in the final stages of a game.
For starters, where would Jon Toral, our best player, fit in if we started with a 4-4-2 formation. He is neither a winger or centre midfielder and he needs to be playing if we want any chance of winning.
I would also like to point out that dropping Donaldson would change the whole dynamics of our team and we rely on him too much to do so.
Admittedly, he has missed glorious chances in the last few games but he also does so much work for the team which we couldn’t do without.
I think some people need to think before being insistent on believing that 4-4-2 will win us football matches.
Like I said, in the latter stages of games, yes it probably is the best solution. But, you have to be mindful of our shape and the defensive side of the game.
It has been an outstanding season so far and barely any of our fans would’ve thought we’d be in this position at this stage of the season.
What’s frustrating is that we do have the ability to further ourselves but mistakes or, like on Saturday, a poor team selection, has cost us and those are the margins between the play offs and just missing out.
That top six is by no means out of reach, even though it felt that way at full time the other day, but we must keep going, keep believing and enjoy the ride.