I'm with morty on this one, it would be crazy to change our starting line up just as we see improvement and organisation, and that's aside of me wanting to see Redmond start for selfish reasons. I can however certainly cope with him coming of the bench as an impact sub and helping us smash and grab a win after the initial team has held firm for an hour, which is something like I am expecting.
I agree, I'd go with exactly the same team again.
Yes Redmond changed the game (so I hear),but it isn't uncommon at all for first halves to be closed affairs / conservative in nature, gives teams a chance to suss each other out, and shows that Adams & Phelan (feels lovely saying that, just like we used to say Lambert & Culverhouse) made the right tactical changes at the right time. Games are won over 90 minutes. Sometimes if you go on a live scores website you'll notice that nearly every game is 0-0 or 1-0 at half-time, not uncommon at all for one team to go on and show their dominance later in a game, it is usual for many more goals to be scored in the second half isn't it?
Derby are going to have 11 men and we aren't playing at Carrow Road. Just because the conditions were right for Redmond to prove a point on Saturday doesn't mean that he'll be able to do the same over 90 minutes away to one of the leagues best teams, perhaps this game will hinge on tactical decisions later in the game too, as is often the case?
Are there any players who deserve to be dropped? Perhaps that's the more pertinent question. We could make an argument for Lewis Grabban deserving another chance after scoring, and I heard Wes looked handy when he came on. This is a nice position to be in, having players on the bench hungry for their chances taking them when they come.
But it would be harsh to stick Redmond on the left at the expense of Bradley Johnson (two goals),harsh to stick him on the right at the expense of Howson or up front at the expense of Hooper (don't we look so much better now with Hooper & Howson in the team?),and Jerome is forming a great little partnership with Hooper and bagged a goal and won a penalty.
We may have to wait for a poor individual or team performance to make changes, but that's a great position to be in, a situation wherebyyour place in the team is yours to lose and every player knows that there is a quality player waiting to steal their place in the team.
It isn't just Redmond who is fighting for his place in the team, it is also Grabban, Turner, Wes, Ryan Bennett..... its about time we had this predicament and saw evidence that we have a deep squad full of talent, because just a few weeks ago we were looking like a mid-table team at very best and even the fans were running out of ideas.
This mentality should have been bred earlier, Adams wasn't using his squad enough and wasn't dropping players when they were performing poorly (especially Grabban). I'm not sure that he should now start dropping players who are playing well. Dropping in-form players is just as bad as not dropping out of form players unless the games are coming thick and fast (and some will say that we didn't rotate enough when we had 7 games in 22 days earlier in the season).
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