I see I think Ekwah was doing well until he was dropped in the holding role when Dan Neil served his ban from the Boro game. You could see he wasn't up to it, yet TM stuck with it and played Dan further forward for a few games. For me you get a defensive minded player in there with both Neil and Ekwah/Bellingham making up the other man in the middle.
Mix it up depending on who were playing. 4-3-3 away possibly 3-5-2 at home but FFS let's just go out and try to win every game.
I don't think MB has went out to do anything but win. For me the crowd needs to get behind them and roar them over the line. We don't need people booing them off when it's 0-0 at half time, or getting on their backs for wayward shots outside the box. I think we've also even very unfortunate with some ref decisions+ deflections going in favour of the opposition. Roll on Saturday.
I wasnt having a pop at MB there mind. We just seem too rigid and unbalanced recently. In my humble opinion it isnt working at the minute so go 2 men upfront. Hemir/Mayenda plus Rusyn. We seem to have lost our way so stick a big target man up there. Neither Hemir or Mayenda are the finished article but at least they have a physical presence. Opposition CB's have had it easy against our forward line.
I agree fully about Rigg and Jobe, however I think Ekwah has improved in the last couple of games, his passing is as always like silk at times , and he played the lone holding role in the last game very well , in spite of him, like Dan Neil not being a natural defensive mid fielder. Like Neil he is a future star imo. not the finished article by any means but the potential is enormous , and I look forward to the day he is undroppable, its not far off imo.
Attack Attack Attack...with pace and put the crosses in early for the 2 up top and turn their centre backs...well worth a try with lots of pace in the team which has been lacking .
With this new lad joining, maybe we are going to look to go 3 at the back with Pembele and Styles as wing backs? Or potentially, have them as 2 attacking fullbacks getting ahead of Clarke and Roberts?
I would worry about Roberts out wide in a 3 tbh , he simply cant defend to save his life, and when his stats are so poor, what does he bring to the table, very little other than holding on to the ball, which is not what any striker needs. he needs to pull his socks up imo.
It’s probably been mentioned and sorry if it has, but I thought we looked great how we set up against Leeds. I love it when rather than picking the same team and formation for every game, we suit it to whoever we’re playing against. It was a tactical choice by Dodds and it worked. it’s an extreme but I always think of a rare Bruce masterclass against Chelsea where we won 3-0 at Stamford bridge. **** like playing Richardson RW Just to stop Ashley Cole was genius.
I would tend to agree, but I do wonder if he might get a bit more joy with Pembele bombing past him. Might leave us exposed to the counter attack though
I like this but would probably swap Pritchard and Neil as I think when Pritch is next to Clarke it creates more space for Clarke on that side of the pitch
The truth is that we can change formations as much as we like but until we can find a way to get back to a high press with a ball winning mentality and a fast paced game we are always going to struggle a little bit and at the moment with our slow ponderous defensive play we are actually conceding as many if not more goals than when we adopted the high press, that coupled with less goals means we are really not adapting well to this new tactic. Couple that the fact that players brought in last Summer were bought to play the aforementioned fast paced high press then it is easy to see why we are struggling tactically and why our strikers are not scoring.
Exactly mate rather see a bit more protection tbh , I dont go along with this view that we can outscore teams, , as we only have one reliable goal scorer up front this season in sharp contrast to last year when both Ross and Amad made vital contributions.
Thats a fair point. Would it be worth sacrificing the attacking for a solid defence and play more counter attacking? Maybe more long balls. Which ever way we go, i still believe we have to pick up the tempo in both attack and defence, the slow tempo is killing us at present
I think it would , but it wont be as entertaining, so it has to be successful to keep the supporters happy the two games againt WBA and Leeds showed we can do it with the right players and formation, I could not understand why we sacrificed that system to go back to the TM formula, and never will , it was so obvious it suited our squad down to the ground, down to the ground , as JA would say. .
I may be going senile as I get older, but I'm sure we have played O9 a number of times as a holding midfielder and it rarely went well as fans were calling him a liability, because he kept giving stupid free kicks away and was regularly carded for rash challenges. Did I dream it all?
Looking forward to seeing what pembele offers us rest of the season Rusyn needs to start, really like him and think he will be a big player for us this season n next yr Hjelde looked the part today, helped with the balance
3 goals from strikers since MB came in, it’s not pretty but results come first then the performance. He’s not perfect but given time I think he’ll improve us Missed chances and easy ones at that along with not attacking the 6 yard box are the players fault. But we’ll get there.
