Tony Cottee believes Slave Bilic will stick with Andy Carroll for the clash against Everton.
And he justifies his surprise prediction by declaring: “He’s a natural line leader whereas Enner Valencia isn’t. I’m pretty certain Slaven will go with the big man”
And with the manager saying this afternoon that Valencia may not yet be up to speed, Cottee reckons the big fella will get the nod.
He said: “I really don’t see Enner as a line leader who can do the same job as Diafra whereas Andy is very good at what he does and although he didn’t have the best game at Watford, WHO DID?
“People over-complicate things. Sometimes footballers just have off days. The previous week against Chelsea Andy was the returning hero and scored a great goal. Maybe we need a little more balance when making these judgements.
He added: “There will be no Phil Jagielka and that would make Andy even more of a threat. Watford was a very bad day at the office with everybody off the pace.
We need to shake that off quickly and I believe we will with the team winning this 2-0 or 2-1 and I can see Big Andy scoring.
Carroll is a good player but does not give us the speed or ball holding ability others do,
We could start with Valencia,Moses or Antonio or all 3 with Payet sitting behind and Obiang and Kouyate behind him,this wood give us 3 players that could rotate up top all with the ability to hold the ball all with fast feet,if it does not pan out by half time bring on Carroll and Lanzini and go back to playing 2 wide and 1 large forward,
But if it did not work at Watford why try it again
If we start with Carroll upfront might aswell admit defeat, he is no good as a lone striker, the only time he makes that work is if there are one or two other forwards, he may have class in training but he doesn’t produce it often enough on the pitch, his best performances have come as an impact sub, hopefully it will stay that way, Jelavic is better at leading the line than Carroll at least he can hold onto the ball long enough to bring other players into the game. Hopefully Cottee is wrong on this, Valencia could lead the line also but he needs to be told to start higher up the pitch like Sakho does.