I am sure that Graham Arnold can feel a headache coming on. Although I have a feeling he is not too concerned about this headache and he certainly does not want it to be cured any time soon.

This weekend the Mariners depth is coming back as Pedj Bojic returns to the Mariners line up, he has been possibly the best of the back four going forward. Wilkinson and Zwaanswijk (with a cameo by Doig) have kept the centre solid, however the real spark for the McGlinchy revival this season has been the support and running of Pedj down the right flank.

At the start of this season many tipped that Pedj may fall out of the starting 11 with the inclusion of Rose into the squad. However I believe that Bojic has been the more impressive of the two flanking backs. So Arnie is looking at the back of his formation and asking how does 5 fit into 4.

In other good news the midfield is looking more polished and the depth is returning. The return of the injury ravished Patricio Perez (hopefully next weekend given he was announced as available earlier this week) and the continued inclusion of Mustafa Amini sees the Central Coast midfield look both agile and skilled, but still with a certain steel with Griffiths to screen the back four. So now the question is how does Arnie combine the in-form midfielders that have done the job over the last two weeks with the unlimited potential of Perez. How do you make 6 fit into 4?

So the question has to be asked (and it has been a few times in the last few weeks already in different places) should Graham Arnold persist with the same front partnership he has had so far this year or should the Mariners swap out either McBreen or Simon for Perez?

I don't think Arnold will try out this idea this week and nor should he. With Perez returning from a 5-6 week layoff you would expect he will be severely underdone for fitness. I would be surprised if he will get too much more than 60 minutes out of the Argentine star and Amini has shown that he has a tendency to run out of steam late in the game (not unexpected given his age).

So for this week at least the answer is probably quite straightforward, either Perez or Amini to start in the number 10 position and the other will be a replacement if they are not going well or start to run out of steam. But what happens in a few weeks time as Perez starts to get his fitness back?

Should Matt Simon be sitting on the bench for a few games with Perez playing as a striker that can operate with his back to goal?

This is something that the Mariners have not had since Aloisi and Petrovski left the club.

I do have some very big questions over Perez at the front of the Mariners attack, can he keep his feet and fight that South American tendency to go to ground on any contact (yes Sydney FC fans there was contact!). Aloisi and Sash both have a tendency to go down and wait for a whistle when they feel contact but compared to most of the South Americans we have seen in the A-League they look as rough and strong as Hutch. Maybe this is one of the possible permutations the Mariners could try and use to make 6 go into 4.

I think that it is certainly worth the shot, especially in an away game where Arnie could use this formation early on in a classic 4-4-2, if it is not working it would be simple enough to switch Perez back as an extra Midfielder and play more defensive. In this way you may not be sacrificing as much strike power for a home game where teams are expected to make the play.

I have a question to ask our Kiwi cousins about the game over the ditch on Saturday night. Do you really believe that Paston deserves his place in the Nix starting 11 ahead of Vukovic?

Surly given the number of times Danny saved the backsides of the Mariners it would have been a psychological edge for Wellington to have the Mariners running at Danny. They would have been wondering how the hell do we breach this guy when our oppositions couldn't even though our defence was very poor. If Danny was in between the sticks for the Mariners this year they may not have conceded a goal yet this season.