So when do you think Bruce will bring himself into 2012 from the 1990's and drop the outdated wing-back formation? We must be the only club in England using this style of play, he's transformed us from one of the best defense's into one of the worst in 3 months. He needs to revert back to Barmbys formation 4-5-1/4-3-3 with McKenna & Evans playing and Aluko in the hole, we'd be tighter with good attacking options, going all out attack and forgetting about defending doesn't and isn't working!
If you play 3-5-2 then you need to have 2 holding midfielders to protect your back 3. We only play with 1 (Oli) with Koren and Quinn free to roam. The unpalatable answer for some is to drop one of the two roaming players or revert to a more solid looking 4-4-2.
Oli is supposed to win the ball back and impose himself on the match, but he doesn't. Nobody in the midfield seems to be able to get stuck in at the minute.
And to have Oli playing over McKenna or Evans is a joke in itself, also at 2-1 and 2-2 why wasn't we thinking "lets tighten up a bit here" especially when Blackpool were bringing strikers on? There's no plan B and no tactical awareness, it seems.
Think we look a lot better in the middle with oli there, very calm and composed on the ball and fantastic passing range. People look at his size and expect him to be a bone crunching hard tackler and a serious presence in there, but he's not that type of player. He's a more forward thinking creative midfielder and shouldn't be left to do the holding role alone. He'd be perfect in a 4-2-3-1 alongside McKenna with Koren in front.
I don't mind Bruce trying out 3-5-2 but he's got to realise that after 3 defeats and 9 goals that it's not the answer ALL the time..that's the kind of thing you'd expect Homer Simpson to do.. Since we are missing our 2 best CBs then at least put on our best defensive midfielder - McKenna
Apart from the fact we played 4-4-2 the second half and conceded two goals and got beat. So 4-4-2 must be rubbish then. I think we need to go with bob's 1-10 formation, plastic that he is.
If he started defending at 2-2 people would have been furious. I've seen nothing to suggest the system is to blame. If we didn't keep making mistakes and having to play **** like McShane in defence we'd have won our last 2 and no one would be complaining.
There's a difference between defending a lead and tightening things up, if you can't tell that the system is to blame then what have you been watching? Yes we conceded 2 with 4-4-2 but again the player selection was wrong for a 4-4-2, we had a powder-puff midfield, it's obvious what needs to happen to make us tight again.
You're right. Unaccountable defensive errors are causing us to lose depite playing well, so instead of being rational, keeping the players calm and confident and tweaking things defensively, he should go apeshit, change the entire team and system and tell them all they're ****. It's obvious.
O.K, I'll predict this: The longer we keep playing 3-5-2 the quicker we'll drop like a stone, if we change to a 4-5-1 we'll start to win again and stop conceding. The reason why we have so many errors is not becauce of bad luck, it's because the players are under pressure defensively as the formation is WAY too easy for teams to counter attack us. I'll repeat 3-5-2 is an old fashioned formation and I'd guess no other team in our country uses it, I also find it a shame that we have better players sat on the bench each week then our starting xi, Bruce must change or we are screwed.
1) Who are the better players on the bench? 2) Like I said to Bob the other day - you don't win and lose games based on formations. There are way more important factors. Yesterday I'd say the fact that the officials gave us nothing affected things more than our formation. As did our defensive frailty, inability to turn pressure into goals and lack of midfield big man. It really isn't as simple as 4-5-1 wins and 3-5-2 loses.
McKenna and Evans are better then Oli, Rosenior is the best full back at the club. So you don't win or lose games based on formations? Why do teams bother with formations then? So if we started the game against Blackpool with 1 defender and 9 strikers we'd of still lost 3-2? Of course formations effect the result, anyone who's played football knows that and it's crazy to say they don't.
McKenna & Evans are not better than Oli but i do think McKenna should have a role to play in the squad. I think we will go 4-4-2 at Hillsborough
It wont be changed. Why should it ? What Bruce must change is his use of the subs bench as well as know when players need to be changed. It was obvious to many that we needed fresh legs in the midfield and quick when we led 2-1. 4 - 4 - 2 is old hat but he may have to go back to that for now due to injuries.
Why should it? Have you not seen the last 3 games? It doesn't work, 4-4-2 is a step forward from wing backs
