John Oster

[Sharpy]

gunnarson or oster for harper...

Agreed, as it will put Harper on his toes after a few crap games

if we drop a center midfielder we should drop sidwell harper is alot better then sidders gunnarson was amazing against united and should be in the team against arsenal

no way....sidwell showed his quality in physical/tackling situations last night, won the ball when he had no right at close quarters..all harper does is wave his arms about and runs about alot...far too fragile to even get close to what sidders did yesterday.

[brendywendy]

if we play 4-5-1 on saturday itll be
marcus
murts, bikey, ivar, shorey
brynn
little, harps, sidders, hunt
kitson

with oster and lita coming on second half

brynn was awesome again, definately m,y favourite reading midfielder, so unlucky not to play more often

and oster proved tonight what steveie C has seen in him all this time

DLC was good again too
bikey showed flashes of genius, along with a few abberations

[a royal called morty]

Gunnarsson proved to me tonight that he can take Sidwell's slot in midfield in/when he leaves.

The blokes work rate is incredible and showed again that he can attack aswell as defend.

My man of the match with Oster a close second.

Definately agree, gunnar was brilliant yesterday evening, and he would have been worthy of scoring the equaliser had it been a few inches lower. i thought oster played excellently last night, although my mates seemed to think he was just 'OK' i tried to change their opinions but they were having none of it.

[Jaques Francais]

I have to simply echo the points made here about Oster's first rate performance tonight - we are blessed (thanks to SC) with at least 5 superb wingers on their day (and yes, I include Seol and Convey in that 5) and it gives me confidence for both the rest of the season and next year.

[West Stand Man]

gunnarson or oster for harper...

Agreed, as it will put Harper on his toes after a few crap games

if we drop a center midfielder we should drop sidwell harper is alot better then sidders gunnarson was amazing against united and should be in the team against arsenal

Phew. No punctuation, US spelling of centre, and we are supposed to decipher the meaning of all that?

[AbovetheI]

Shoot me down, but i have to disagree with this thread. He looked positive but lacked that final ball and gave the ball away far too many times. Good player though..

[Archie's penalty]

Shoot me down, but i have to disagree with this thread. He looked positive but lacked that final ball and gave the ball away far too many times. Good player though..

Bang bang........... (well you did ask for it )

Although I do agree his final ball was not so good it was his energy and attitude which drove us on last nite.

[Charles Dapper]

Maybe I was watching a different game.

I will give you that once Hunt was warmed up and in his full kit at the side, Oster the woke up, and his performance was as good as his goal getting performance Up north on Saturday.

Before that he was as bad as he normally is.

Wayward passes - Straight to Bentley Blackburn
Straight to Ronaldo (Old Trafford)

Just 2 stunning examples.

Or he would try and be too showy. Keep the ball too long and then have no options.

If you want to put anybody in midfield on Saturday then replace Harper with Gunnarsson.

But of course SSC won't do that since Harper hasn't done anything wrong

[doylefan]

Oster played fanstastically on tuesday. has proved this season that he can play anywhere in midfield (in the reserves mainly in the middle - key there and on both wings). He's great on the right but also proved that he can play on the left and continue to do well. Would love to see him start on satruday or if not come on at sometime. To be honest would love to see Little on the Right and Oster on the left on satruday but i think Coppell will stick with Hunt and Little and bring on Oster from the bench.

On the bench heprovides cover for anywhere in the middle and displays like Tuesday night show why he is keeping Seol out of the squad at the moment and good luck to him. He's cleaned up his act and doing well!!!

[Fife]

He's good but he sometimes take just one too many touches.

[Ian Royal]

To stick my oar in and probably repeat others. I thought Oster did very well. However I would want to see several improvements before he made it to the first team on a regular basis ( I'd be happy for it to be wing or central though)

1) He needs to play the simple/early ball more often, I felt too many times against Man U he over complicated things or didn't release someone else early enough.

2) He needs to compete and challenge for the ball more often and with more commitment. Too often on Tuesday he stood by and let Utd win a 50-50 or 40-60. Or if he did go in for the ball it was rather half heartedly.

Now I'm not saying that he wasn't doing these things at all, but he certainly wasn't doing them enough. He certainly wouldn't displace Little or Hunt in the team right now. And Gunnarsson looked much the more likely to get a central midfield place than he did.

Against Arsenal I would happily see us line up with:

Hahnemann
Murty Bikey Ivar Shorey
Little Gunnarsson Sidwell Harper Hunt
Lita.

To beat Arsenal you have to press as a team and unsettle them. That team has hassling and physicality all over the pitch with plenty of attacking options down the wings. If we need them then we have the options of Oster, Seol Doyle and Kitson to put on the bench, who are all players who can come on and make a real difference. (Seol less so at the moment)