Ever since last years World Cup I've been impressed with the 4-2-3-1 formation as a way forward. However, you have to have the right players in the right positions, and after 3 games now, I don't think we have. We are fine when we have the ball, but when we lose it, the 3 attacking midfielders MUST get back to flood the midfield quickly otherwise the defensive two will usually have to face up to 4 opponents coming at them. This is what we are NOT getting right, Stewart, Brady and Koren are very threatening in posession but none of them are good enough when the play breaks down. McLean to be fair is a striker anyway so he is well out of his comfort zone coming back into midfield. Time to concentrate on defence. Plenty of people (and I wasn't one of them) criticised Pearson's ethos of stop the opponents from scoring and then try and nick a goal, but it's surely time now get back to basics and defend the space in front of the back four properly. I'm afraid that means moving Koren back out to the left and playing McKenna and either Cairney or Evans in the middle with Stewart on the right and McLean and Fryatt up front in a standard 4-4-2. If we don't stop the flood of goals soon confidence will be shot and it will be season over. We must re-establish control when we don't have the ball because right now we are wide open with so many players in attacking positions.
I said it at the time and I'll say it again, Koren on the wing isn't that bad. He's done some very good things for us from that position. With Garcia still out and Brady out of sorts (and probably suspended) the team you suggest seems a good idea to me. But if you think about it it's the exact same personnel as in the 4-2-3-1 system, so we can easily change around throughout the game, which judging by Barmby's recent comments, is what he wants to do anyway.
Battening down the hatches is exactly what Phil Parkinson did after two defeats against West Brom and then Barnsley at home at the start of his tenure in 2006 and looked what happened to him after that. Everyone needs to work hard to defend collectively on the pitch - no better exponents at this than Barcelona.
Battening down the hatches is knee jerk reaction rubbish. Stick to playing football and attack. Its the best form of defence.
We could quite literally just get a bus and drive it onto the pitch and park it infront of our goal. Always imagined that happening, I wish the day would come, would be a sight to remember.
Yes. can you immagine listening to burnsie and swanny telling radio land that Hull City have just parked the bus. Does the driver get a Red or Yellow Card for that ? or simply arrested for entering the playing area ?
Some people have short memories. What is the Judas Pearson's philosophy that proved so successful? Was it "Attack is the best form of defence" or was it "Stop the Opponents from scoring and try to nick a goal"? I'm not panicking and I'm not suggesting Nick Barmby's formation is wrong, just that we MUST remember how to defend FIRST then build from that. That I have seen in the last few games has been very attack minded and it hasn't worked because we haven't defended properly. Surely putting that right is a priority? How long before confidence begins to wane?
The whole idea that NP was defensive is nonsense. We spent a year playing frustrating football but not conceding a lot because that was all he could do with the money available. This year once he had asit was a completeorted the squad out top to bottom, it was a completely different story. We attacked and went for 3 points home and away every game without fail, do you not remember the West Ham and Barnsley games where we dominated from start to finish but were just caught out at the back because we were concentrating so much on attack? The reason we conceded very few goals was that we had a good set of defenders all playing well. Whether NB can get the defence playing as well as NP did we are yet to see, but it certainly isn't down to a radically different philosophy. For the record, I still hate NP the greedy bastard for for walking out on us at a very vulnerable time for no reason other than money, but people making out that we were so defensive under him is disrespectful to our players that were doing so well under him. I've seen some bloody horrible teams this season and not one who showed anything like the footballing mentality that NP's City were doing before he jumped ship.
We have to change something, because something is wrong. Remember even though the personnel are the same this Barmby's team are not NP's team; what I mean is that something has changed in their attitude to defending. Nick said he wanted almost a free role for certain players, well that is ok with discipline, but because they aren't ready for that yet, I agree with Strov that we need to go back to basics; have a defensive mentality whenever they have the ball in our half. By that I mean we should get tight to the opponents, and ensure all players are in good positions, and attack on the break, without wasting away possesion. We need to stop the flood of easy goals, and make us tough to beat. In Jan we need a midfield general of the Ash model and a proven hold the ball striker in the King type, ie better than Adi, unless he gets a chance and shows us more in his play. But not hoofball!
If I was NB I get them all to look through the tape of the Spurs v PAOK games last night, that's how to defend a 2-1 winning margin, with only 10 men.
If we intend playing attacking football then you've got to score goals! The premise being if they score 2 we'll score 3. If we can't score goals then we should consolidate defensively! Remember play to your strengths UTT