Formation

[BWFC_Insane]

BB I'd certainly agree that we need to play on the front foot at a high tempo. For me we have the best chance of doing that if we control the midfield and I still think often that means the extra man in there.

Perhaps NGog playing in behind a striker might be interesting at times. But I guess we will still have Mark Davies to accomodate as well when he's fit again.

The other problem we have is that opposing teams are happy to often sit behind the ball and break from there. And that can be hard to break down at times - and although this sounds stupid, I don't think some of our players are used to having to do that.

[boltonboris]

BB I'd certainly agree that we need to play on the front foot at a high tempo. For me we have the best chance of doing that if we control the midfield and I still think often that means the extra man in there.
Perhaps NGog playing in behind a striker might be interesting at times. But I guess we will still have Mark Davies to accomodate as well when he's fit again.

The other problem we have is that opposing teams are happy to often sit behind the ball and break from there. And that can be hard to break down at times - and although this sounds stupid, I don't think some of our players are used to having to do that.

Normally I'd agree, but we played the wrong attacking midfielder* and the wrong striker** for the system he's using. In fact, I'd argue that none of the 3 midfielders we played on Saturday would be any good in a high tempo fluid system. Spearing, for all his endeavour is wasteful, unimaginative and not overly athletic.. Let's hope Kamara has a touch of the Muamba's about him, because a midfield of Kamara, Holden and Mark Davies would be as good as anything outside the top 5 or 6 in England.. And I genuinely mean that!

*Granted, the best midfielder isn't available for the advanced role, so I'll let that one slide.

**N'gog plays the role well.. Very well. But he's a bit shot shy and that's a problem. If only he had Sordell's "I don't give a fvck what you say, I'll keep plugging away at you" mentality.
And if only Sordell had N'gog's "anywhere but the 6 yard box" ability.

[SmokinFrazier]

4-5-1 can be effective but for it to work, you need an anchor man in midfield and, at the moment, we lack one. People say that Spearing is good defensively, and I've been impressed with him this season, but he isn't a rock who pins everything together. People like to call that role the 'Makelele role' because of how effective he was at Chelsea playing in that position, and we don't have that sort of player. Obi Mikel is another Chelsea player who is excellent in that position, and you'll very rarely see him go forward into an attacking position. He'll sit back, pick people off and play 5 yard passes, but, crucially, he'll keep the defence rigid and allow for attacking full backs. If we want the luxury of so many attack minded players, we need someone to do all the dirty work.

4-2-3-1 isn't great for us because neither of the '2' are good enough defensively and they don't pass it well enough. That formation leads to a mess when we try it because we don't have the structure in place to pull it off. It can work, but our players need to be coached into improving their positional ability when they are without the ball otherwise it leads the player who does have possession without any targets. A key role here is the central attacking midfielder, who has got to be making room for himself and when he does have it, he needs to be creative enough to find the striker. Hopefully when Mark Davies is fit, this is the role he's given. As it stands though, Pratley and Spearing aren't good enough at controlling the pace of the game, so instead of us dominating with our passes, we give away the ball too often and find ourselves having to defend too frequently, but we lack good defensive minded midfielders to do that.

Personally, I'd just revert back to 4-4-2. It's simple, it's easy to co-ordinate and if you have two central midfielders who are happy to tackle, and two attack minded wingers, you've got a nice balance there.


For the next game, I'd go with:

Chungy - Spearing - Pratley - Eagles
---------Sordell - Craig Davies------


And in the long term, I'd be looking at:

Chungy - Holden - Medo - Eagles
-----------Mark Davies----------
-------------Sordell-------------



The weak position in those two midfields is the left wing with Eagles. Freedman should definitely have brought in a proper left winger, rather than have three right footers and try to put one of them on the left.

For now, I'd definitely go back to a 4-4-2 formation because I think the service to the lone striker is nowhere near good enough, and there isn't enough defensive structure either. Maybe when Holden and Medo are fit, you can play 4-5-1 again but for now, I definitely support 4-4-2, especially if Craig Davies drops back at times and tries to support Sordell.

[Athers]

Personal preference but I like Mark Davies as one of two holders/double pivot/whatever - think he can find space to carry the ball forward and I think he's our best passer for finding the 4 in a bit of space. Here's where a workmanlike pair of Andrews and Spearing can let us down.

He could also rotate really well with whoever is the one in front.

[BWFC_Insane]

SmokingFrazier, I'm confused that your answer to not having a proper defensive midfield player is to weaken the midfield in numbers?

I can only see Spearing and Pratley being overrun in that system and surely in a 4-4-2 with two 'attack minded wingers' the quality of your central midfield players passing is even more crucial? Otherwise your wingers don't get any service and you are reliant on long balls.

It's what happened when we played 4-4-2 under Coyle this season. We couldn't control the midfield the game got stretched and our wingers didn't see the ball.

[SmokinFrazier]

SmokingFrazier, I'm confused that your answer to not having a proper defensive midfield player is to weaken the midfield in numbers?

I can only see Spearing and Pratley being overrun in that system and surely in a 4-4-2 with two 'attack minded wingers' the quality of your central midfield players passing is even more crucial? Otherwise your wingers don't get any service and you are reliant on long balls.

It's what happened when we played 4-4-2 under Coyle this season. We couldn't control the midfield the game got stretched and our wingers didn't see the ball.

4-4-2 is more structured than 4-5-1 is, so even though you're giving up an extra midfielder, it can be beneficial to keeping hold of the ball and creating chances. That extra midfielder is only any use if you're a cohesive unit, which we aren't. Look at the amount of chances we created against Burnley with a lone striker. That extra midfielder was wasted because there was no structure.

The problem with the 4-4-2 under Coyle was that our wingers were far too attack minded. You can't have two central midfielders at the half way line and then two wingers 15 metres in front of them. They need to be a flat 4 a lot of the time, which Coyle didn't want, and that meant the two central midfielders were overrun.

That's why Ferguson prefers Valencia to Nani or Young when playing 4-4-2. Valencia is happy to go back and defend whereas the other two are attack minded. You need defensive cover from your wingers in a 4-4-2 otherwise your central midfielders will be up against it as soon as you lose possession.

4-4-2 with wingers who are told not to drift up the pitch too often, and are replaced in midfield by full backs when they do, is more balanced than what we are doing now and I think it'd produce better results.

[bedwetter2]

I would disagree with the view expressed by someone earlier that Allardyce was a proponent of 4-5-1. He was sufficiently pragmatic to encourage 4-3-3 when we needed to push and was also keen on wingers switching roles in order to gain an advantage against more rigid formations.
In fact, the biggest issue we currently face is one of unimaginative or just plain thick players who find it difficult to read a game. High tempo from the outset is good if we can be confident of killing off a game but if, as I believe, we do not yet have prolific enough goalscorers for this league yet, better pacing of the game is essential. If only we could discover a new Walker or Mcginlay.
The team is in transition and there is still a number of weak individuals who need to go.

[BWFC_Insane]

SmokingFrazier, I'm confused that your answer to not having a proper defensive midfield player is to weaken the midfield in numbers?

I can only see Spearing and Pratley being overrun in that system and surely in a 4-4-2 with two 'attack minded wingers' the quality of your central midfield players passing is even more crucial? Otherwise your wingers don't get any service and you are reliant on long balls.

It's what happened when we played 4-4-2 under Coyle this season. We couldn't control the midfield the game got stretched and our wingers didn't see the ball.

4-4-2 is more structured than 4-5-1 is, so even though you're giving up an extra midfielder, it can be beneficial to keeping hold of the ball and creating chances. That extra midfielder is only any use if you're a cohesive unit, which we aren't. Look at the amount of chances we created against Burnley with a lone striker. That extra midfielder was wasted because there was no structure.

The problem with the 4-4-2 under Coyle was that our wingers were far too attack minded. You can't have two central midfielders at the half way line and then two wingers 15 metres in front of them. They need to be a flat 4 a lot of the time, which Coyle didn't want, and that meant the two central midfielders were overrun.

That's why Ferguson prefers Valencia to Nani or Young when playing 4-4-2. Valencia is happy to go back and defend whereas the other two are attack minded. You need defensive cover from your wingers in a 4-4-2 otherwise your central midfielders will be up against it as soon as you lose possession.

4-4-2 with wingers who are told not to drift up the pitch too often, and are replaced in midfield by full backs when they do, is more balanced than what we are doing now and I think it'd produce better results.

I'm not sure I can agree that 4-4-2 is ever more solid in midfield than 4-5-1 is all things being equal.

The advantage of the extra man in midfield has been demonstrated many many times.

And as said a 4-5-1 can easily become a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3 and to an extent allows greater movement and freedom.

I'm not sure a rigid 4-4-2 creates more chances either.

It might if you are just lumping balls into the box from all angles but we generally aren't doing that. It also allows less midfield players to get into the box late unless you leave yourself open through the middle on the break.

[Hoboh]

See I don't see a manager making a formation work as being a "trick". I think in general you have to buy to the system you want to play. And thats where the trick is (if there is one).
Before that you have to pick the system that best suits what you have available.

I've never claimed Freedman was good, just that he will need time to turn us around and also that so far I don't think he's done much that worries me.

For me there was plenty of movement in the system on Saturday but the problem was (and has been for a while) that our creative players in LCY/Eagles/De Ridder didn't create very much. I then think it becomes an issue with Sordell up top in that role as he doesn't do so well with his back to goal. And thats where the issue was for me, individuals didn't spark. I think fundamentally it was the right system, just some performances were not up to scratch on the day.

The first really decent cross we put in we scored from. It helped that Craig Davies offered some presence and movement.

Sordell is an "in behind" striker, but we had nobody in the side on Saturday in midfield, really capable of supplying him with that kind of service. Eagles and LCY can but neither had great games.

I don't think we have ever looked convincing with a 4-4-2. I think to make that work in this division you need two very direct wingers and a very structured central midfield. For me we've had neither.

You then have to factor in as Caps says Mark Davies and how he fits in to the 4-4-2 and LCY. LCY is not an out and out wide winger. He is akin IMO to someone like Stelios in the way he plays. So in a 4-4-2 you can become narrow. If LCY drifts you can also be exposed at full back with less midfield ability to cover, you might as said get away with that if Holden comes back as good and Medo is half decent. But thats a big set of IFs. So currently, if MD and LCY are involved I think we don't suit a 4-4-2 as it stands.

Just my view.

You need pace and brains to interchange between formations unfortunatly both qualities lacking in our players!