Has to start with a win at West Ham....but definitely not a loss. We need to get ourselves back into the position where we are outside the drop zone and it is in our own hands....then we only have to match those below us. Part of me thinks that the FA Cup is a hindrance because of the need for midweek matches, but on the other hand it could suit us to get on a roll. A win could fire up the team and another match soon after could suit us.
Yes, but if we are to get the requisite number of wins, I would like to put in a request that we do it at the beginning just to settle the nerves. Three consecutive wins (4 if you count the FA Cup) would be grand.
One game at a time. West Ham is massive. But the FA Cup is magic, something to deeam about. And Hughes had to get a quick win (not an encouraging performance, an actual win) to look like turning our season round; Wigan might just have been it.
Agree 100%. Many of us have highlighted the contrast between the first and second halves against Wigan. If Hughes can get us playing like that second half straight out of the blocks and keep it going for 90 minutes, we will definitely pick up enough points. Hell, we could even beat Chelsea in the Cup as well as the league!
I said it as soon as I saw the line up against Wigan, play that team in a PL game and we will get battered. We were battered in the first half (again I put this more down to the weather but the tactics helped them) but Wigan didn't have the quality/were very unlucky not to score. If we go into the West Ham game set up like that we could be out of the game inside half an hour. Yes we need to be more attacking than under MP, but we also need to ensure we aren't just flat out from the first whistle as in the PL we will get slaughtered.
Yeah I was going to do a thread on 4-4-2 as people have been calling for it but I think we'll get torn apart personally.
I’m guessing Hughes knows enough about the Premier League not to go all out from the whistle. You can raise the intensity an awful lot from where we were without being full-on though, and improved fitness levels will help a lot in that respect.
4-4-2 Diamond would be good. I know Puel got slated for using it but we actually played some of our best football when we used that formation.
I think the tactics/mindset are more important than the formation itself personally. I'm still more than happy to stick with 4-2-3-1 and just get more players forward.
Exactly. having 2 strikers doesn't really matter if you only have one of them actually get into the box at a time like under Pellegrino.
I just don't think having only 2 midfielders will work very well in the pl, we struggled against wigan ffs and it looked like they had more players no matter where the ball was. Fear we'd get torn apart even against average sides lining up like that. The way to play two up top is with a back 3 imo.
I don't know what everyones obsession with 2 up top is. 1 up top is fine as long as there are people supporting him and the 3 behind are getting into dangerous areas aswell. 2 up top is actually more defensive than a 4-2-3-1 where the 3 are told to attack.
Because the squad we have is better suited, imho, to two up top. Gabbi doesn’t work as well as a lone striker, and Carrillo hasn’t shown he can do that job. Plus the three supporting players aren’t blessed with multiple goals (unless you play Gabbi in the hole).
Mind you, going to contradict myself slightly in saying that last season showed that Gabbi could be effective there when the support was there, and coached to play low, near post crosses, and through balls to him. Not lump ‘em in jobs. Before anyone says ‘but Charlie’ - he breaks too often.
We don't have the quality in defence/midfield for a 4-4-2 against most teams though and in any case in that formation you need one of the front men to drop in which essentially becomes another midfielder. If we're to play two up top then it needs to be with a 3-5-2 imo as a 4-4-2 would see us get absolutely slaughtered by most sides in the division.
