Neil Lennon on Handling the Pressure of a ‘Monumental' Season as McCoist gets his Excuses in Early

Winning Captains

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The pre-season games will be upon us soon. These are very useful for seeing what our squad can do. We have a habit of entirely replacing the team at half time. This is a great time for fringe players to make their case for inclusion in the playing squad. Of course I would like to see us beat any team that we play but these games are not just about winning. They are about sorting the wheat from the chaff. I expect a few surprises.
 
This season is like no other. We play Lyon, Nice and PSG in pre-season which is great preparation for the one leg European banana-skin qualifiers. They are in August instead of July so we will have started the league. We are in training and the manager is seeing all of our squad and Gavin Strachan is a fresh set of eyes with no bias. I expect we will see Soro, Klimala and Bayo now or never. They have to prove that they deserve a place in the team or the bench. I wonder which development players will break through this season. Connel. Afolabi, Dembele, Lee, Arzani, Schved have to impress.
 
Given our current squad what is our best starting 11?
Which players if fit are certain starters. I'd suggest no one at present apart from perhaps Scott Bain. That's actually quite good as it means that we are not dependant on any one player. There are ten outfield players and we have approximately 3 possible options for each position. We have a wealth of talent for midfield and I cannot squeeze them all in or deny them a place.
In terms of formation I suspect we will have a variety of options for different matches. I'd prefer to see a 3-3-4 for domestic games.
 

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