I'm not sure about this - the diamond didn't seem to work all that well when it was used last season. Having said that, something has to change. Playing Holt alone up front and hoofing the ball to him whilst having a packed midfield who see it winging over their heads is not very smart. A terrible first day. Not just our own score and performance, but lots of the teams who are supposed to be potential relegation fodder (WBA, Swansea, West Ham) get off to flying starts.
If we play Holt, yes. And I am worried that our whole attitude seems to have become let's be frightened of the other team and stop them. We went from bottom of Div 1 to mid-table Prem through having the courage to take on teams and go for it.
---------------Ruddy---------------- R.Martin Turner R.Bennett Garrido --------------Howson--------------- Snodgrass -------------- Pilkington -------------Hoolahan--------------- -----------Holt Morison------------ ...depending on any signings that may or may not come in...
Again, not sure about Holt and Morisson together - it hasn't gelled all that well in the past. I'd prefer Holt and Jackson/Vaughan. Then use Morisson as a sub to replace Holt if necessary. I certainly feel Hoolahan does that linking role much better than Surman or, from what we've seen so far, Snodgrass. I feel a bit sorry for Wes. He's been every bit as important in our rise as Holt has, but he gets far less credit and it's looking as if Hughton sees him as surplus to requirements now we have all these new midfielders.
We simply cannot start games with neither Fox nor Hoolahan starting, simple as that. I was astonished by the absolute lack of any kind of creativity or movement for the entire 90 minutes, nobody looked interested, I just couldn't work out what the hell was going on!!
I think we need different systems that work against different teams. Swansea played 4 -3-3 against QPR and destroyed them with Routledge and Dyer supporting Graham.
That's fine and certainly fox helps but he was injured, Wes could have played off holt but I'm not sure it would have made a huge difference. I think the system just doesn't suit the players. It's fair enough that we are away from home and we could "nick a point" but these are attacking player, we must allow them to attack. I really hope they are feeling it next week, because these are not **** players, there's No real excuse for what happened yesterday
For three years we have been all about attack attack lets just revert to that please with Garrido and Turner now in the back 4 hopefully they will give Ruddy more cover than last year
