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There's obviously pros and cons about playing two proper wingers. We definitely look more solid with three more central players but it makes it harder to break teams down at home and makes us rather predictable with most of the play going down whichever side Black or Gower is on. Against some sides who will come to Roots Hall looking for a 0-0 (and I don't include Tranmere in this) I think we could do with more width than our current formation offers us. Although if/when two of Steve Hammell, Simon Francis and Kerrea Gilbert get into the side part of that problem could be nullified through the balance and drive that they offer on the overlap.
 
There's obviously pros and cons about playing two proper wingers. We definitely look more solid with three more central players but it makes it harder to break teams down at home and makes us rather predictable with most of the play going down whichever side Black or Gower is on. Against some sides who will come to Roots Hall looking for a 0-0 (and I don't include Tranmere in this) I think we could do with more width than our current formation offers us. Although if/when two of Steve Hammell, Simon Francis and Kerrea Gilbert get into the side part of that problem could be nullified through the balance and drive that they offer on the overlap.

We had no problem with balance against Gillingham when Bailey and McCormack got forward. The key to breaking teams down isn't width on both flanks, its movement. We lacked the movement in midfield and up front against Tranmere.
 
We had no problem with balance against Gillingham when Bailey and McCormack got forward. The key to breaking teams down isn't width on both flanks, its movement. We lacked the movement in midfield and up front against Tranmere.

We scored early against Gillingham which opened the game up. Plus they're ****.

You don't need width to break sides down but it's obviously easier to defend against a side who are very narrow than one who use the full width of the pitch. There's merit in your arguement that we played that way in our promotion seasons but particularly in 05/06 in this league we didn't win many home matches by a distance, they were often tight affairs where we weren't creating that many chances and were often won by the genius of Freddy Eastwood who created and finished chances by himself.
 
We scored early against Gillingham which opened the game up. Plus they're ****.

You don't need width to break sides down but it's obviously easier to defend against a side who are very narrow than one who use the full width of the pitch. There's merit in your arguement that we played that way in our promotion seasons but particularly in 05/06 in this league we didn't win many home matches by a distance, they were often tight affairs where we weren't creating that many chances and were often won by the genius of Freddy Eastwood who created and finished chances by himself.

In the 05/06 season we didn't win many home matches by a distance because we didn't have to. We were good enough to be able to shut up shop once we had a lead. I think we went something like a year winning every game we had a lead in and indeed at least drawing every game we'd equalised in.

It is easier to defend against a team with width than a team with movement.
 
Yet the NOTW still had him in their team of the week and gave him an 8...



NOTW team of the week must be right :thump:


In all honesty i thought he was very poor yesterday and that is despite his woeful distribution, 2nd goal was mainly due to a completely pointless foul from Barrett but Richards got beaten all ends up by Taylor.

Though on that note i think maybe Harrold could learn from Taylor about playing as a target man, oh and this is not a criticism of Matty but Taylor is a class above in that role.
 
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It didn't matter who partnered Eastwood last season if you concede 80+ goals and give your forwards no service. Part of our defensive woes was the fragility of our midfield. Playing with two wide midfielders we were not nearly as solid in the middle of the park.

Playing JCR and Gower didn't work in the championship, it didn't work in our title season and it didn't work at the start of this season.

For XXXX's sake will you stop posting sense. I HATE having to agree with you. :minger: :hilarious: :minger:
 
NOTW team of the week must be right :thump:


In all honesty i thought he was very poor yesterday and that is despite his woeful distribution, 2nd goal was mainly due to a completely pointless foul from Barrett but Richards got beaten all ends up by Taylor.

Though on that note i think maybe Harrold could learn from Taylor about playing as a target man, oh and this is not a critiscm of Matty but Taylor is a class above in that role.

That was more an observation of their half-ar$ed reporting than a disagreement with the statement I quoted to be fair! :guns:
 
In the 05/06 season we didn't win many home matches by a distance because we didn't have to. We were good enough to be able to shut up shop once we had a lead.

Can't agree with that, sorry. We were hard to score against, full stop, because of the narrow formation that we played and because of the work ethic of the midfielders who covered a lot of ground and closed down most things. I can't say that I ever saw us try to shut up shop before the final few minutes and I don't think that that kind of attitude is in keeping with the manager's football philosophies.

Playing three central midfielders obviously makes us much more difficult to score against from open play because we're so compact and are usually able to win the midfield battle. But there's a clear trade-off there which means that we lose a lot of creativity and become rather predictable when we play that way. Whilst maybe it was naive to play a wide 4-4-2 in the Championship, at this level my concern is that playing a narrow formation at home could be our undoing as we no longer have a player up front who can create chances on his own. We're scoring for fun at the moment so obviously something is right but going into the winter months I worry about our ability to break some sides down playing the way that we do.

It is easier to defend against a team with width than a team with movement.

I don't know why you're saying that you need movement as if it's a case of you can't have movement without width. Obviously you need movement and if you haven't got movement (which we didn't have yesterday) you'll struggle in the same way as you'd struggle if you can't pass the ball, shoot or tackle. That doesn't mean that we aren't easier to defend against when we play a narrow formation than we are when we play a wide one though.
 
Can't agree with that, sorry. We were hard to score against, full stop, because of the narrow formation that we played and because of the work ethic of the midfielders who covered a lot of ground and closed down most things. I can't say that I ever saw us try to shut up shop before the final few minutes and I don't think that that kind of attitude is in keeping with the manager's football philosophies.

Playing three central midfielders obviously makes us much more difficult to score against from open play because we're so compact and are usually able to win the midfield battle. But there's a clear trade-off there which means that we lose a lot of creativity and become rather predictable when we play that way. Whilst maybe it was naive to play a wide 4-4-2 in the Championship, at this level my concern is that playing a narrow formation at home could be our undoing as we no longer have a player up front who can create chances on his own. We're scoring for fun at the moment so obviously something is right but going into the winter months I worry about our ability to break some sides down playing the way that we do.



I don't know why you're saying that you need movement as if it's a case of you can't have movement without width. Obviously you need movement and if you haven't got movement (which we didn't have yesterday) you'll struggle in the same way as you'd struggle if you can't pass the ball, shoot or tackle. That doesn't mean that we aren't easier to defend against when we play a narrow formation than we are when we play a wide one though.

Maybe shutting up shop is the wrong phrase, but having gone into a lead we use to play well within ourselves and rarely let the opponents back into the game.

My point was that movement is more important than width on both flanks. A lack of movement was more our undoing than a lack of width. It maybe that if we establish ourselves as a top 8 team, teams will come to Roots Hall with 10 men behind the ball. In that case Black is an important option from the bench, but you need the ball in order to be creative.
 
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