That's very true. Pollock is one. I would hope with his guidance he could help train up another (Abankwe?). Matty looks out of place in a back 5, I think. I talked to an ex-pro I know regarding an 11 a-side thing I was coaching, and I was getting her to look over my formation, which included 5 at the back. She said "Unless you have to contain extraordinary opposition, you are placing half your team in defence - that's a waste and it's difficult for your defence to find an outlet." I know the maths is obvious, but sometimes it's easy to forget that when you are tossing around formation ideas - 5 at the back is fine on paper, and common, but you invite too much pressure. And we did against a mediocre Millwall. And we couldn't find much in the way of outlets when we had possession because we lacked a necessary number of forward players. She's ex-Arsenal and her partner is ex-England. I think this was astute.
Mine would be 3 at the back, 5 in midfield two of which are essentially wingers and two up front who can score goals given the right service Our best formation under Pearson was 4- 2 - 3 -1
If we did that back three, I'd have Matty in the middle. I just want to see the ball in the danger area far more often. If we are going to cut the ball back diagonally, we have to practise shooting too. I like 4-2-3-1, as long as players are mobile and will commit to flooding the area when the ball goes in the box. And to defend!!
Definitely true. But I think we have to be more aggressive. We have very good, if young, forwards, and I’d rather we went back to “Let’s score one more than the opposition” as a mantra rather than “We must maintain higher possession level than our opponents.” Our strength is our attacking players so I’d rather they had the ball than the defence passing backwards and sideways to each other. Get Baah and Irankunda on the ball, Louza thread through to Luca, balls fed in to Luca, cut back crosses going in to Luca, all with supporting midfielders to mop up anything loose/rebounds etc.
Well if Baah and Vata do start they get a chance to get on the ball and have an impact on the game . They seemed to be easily marked out last game .
