I've had a thought for a more defensively responsible lineup: ---------Gazzaniga--------- Clyne---Fonte---Yoshida---Fox (sigh) Davis-Schneiderlin-Ward-Prowse-Reeves --------------Lallana -------------Lambert Obviously there's a case to be made for a different keeper or left-back, and Richardson and Ramirez deserve to be in the team when fit, but I think this shape makes sense. Reeves and Davis are both very capable on the wings and are both pretty good defensively. Schneiderlin and Ward-Prowse have very good ball retention, and Lallana will be largely free of defensive responsibility, even though his dribbling ability would perhaps be slightly limited in the middle.
Does seem ok. I'm going to Leeds and would love him to play something like this. I hiope he plays a strong side at Leeds and they get a win to put some confidence back in the players.
I don't really know, tbh. Prior to this game, I would have said that Saints need to keep pressure off the back four and work at controlling the game. Even if that means slowing things down and knocking it about meaninglessly for spells. But while I still don't agree with the decision not to start Lambert, Saints for the first half did more-or-less what I had in mind. And it still didn't work. As a broader, more long term strategy I agree with CBK in that I too, have always felt the Saints needed a stronger, and more physical midfield presence. Someone who can win some balls in the air and generally takes away space and comfort for the other team. It's fine that Saints make a lot of tackles and interceptions but its important to slow down attacks and prevent throughballs by stifling creativity which I don't think they have done well. An example for me today might have been where I think it was Jarvis got the ball and made a run down the wing. Schneiderlin raced back and made a great sliding tackle. But to me, if there were someone back there to begin with, then Jarvis might have had to hold the ball up to start with. Schneiderlin stops attacks, but he doesn't stop teams from attacking... if that makes sense. But there's nothing we can do about it now, and anyway that wasn't the problem against West Ham (Everton and the draw to Fullham, maybe). I personally think that crowding the midfield may be hurting Saints. It seems like players are often unintentionally getting in each other's way. I think the midfielders we have possess good enough ball control that they can be given space on offense. And by spreading them out it also takes away some of the threat of counter down the flanks. For this reason, I'm starting to feel like 4-4-2 is the answer even though I was all for changing formations this season initially. Get two wide players with pace but who are more Bale-like as opposed to Puncheon types who look to attack and cut inside all the time. The only thing Saints can do for now is to abandon the high line and work on a more defensive game team-wide. Not park the bus, but more like what we saw first half at West Ham. Tell Clyne to stay more at home and in general play deeper. That has a lot of risks as well, as it really just gives the defense more time with the ball and we see what happens when they do. And I'm not sure it's going to work. But if they want to try something, I think that's the only thing left to try.
I like the 3-5-2 idea. would give us a lot more protection in games when under pressure. I thought we were ok 1st half today. I woukd also play Kelvin. I think he will be hungry to impress again. something different needs to be done though
I've thought for a long time we should play 3-5-2 away from home, for all the reasons listed above. The defence has to be given more bodies, but to use Morgan would be a waste of his creative flair. Besides, he gives away too many free kicks in midfield, just think of the penalties he'd concede if he was used as a sweeper! No, use our 3 CB's for what they're intended, and give Morgan a more attacking role, behind Ramirez, Lallana, and Lambert.
I think 3-5-2 has it's strong points but in reality I still think it would leave us weak out wide defensively when actually put into practice. It would isolate us with one wide player on each side of the pitch, their attacking wide players wouldn't even need to track back and would just be sat up the top of the pitch, which would mean our two wider CBs would have to stretch out to cover them, which would leave us wide open and incredibly vulnerable on the counter. Then even when they aren't on the counter, if they are just attacking normally with a winger and a full-back, the only way to not be double-teamed out wide would be to bring across the nearest centre-back or centre-mid, but they would have nowhere near enough time to get across to stop full-backs from freely delivering crosses, so the only way to stop that would be if there was an exchange and our full-back left his winger and went to their full-back, and our centre-back took up their winger, and with our defensive organisation that's bound to end well isn't it! Just too many holes in the wide areas when that is already probably our weakest point defensively. On paper it might be an improvement on some things, but this isn't Fifa or FM, you can't just radicalise you're whole system and expect it to work immediately, especially one as complicated as playing with 3 at the back. Very few teams outside of Italy where the system has a strong history of being used at the highest level, and it's almost as standard as 4-4-2 here in England taught from the youngest levels, have actually been able to use it well. Look at Man City, best team in England last season, and they tried to introduce a 3 at the back system into their repertoire at the beginning of this season, with a much higher quality of defenders than us and even a defensive Italian coach in Mancini, it was practically a pathetic failure. Only team that has done it in England is Wigan and even they are hit-and-miss with it and not exactly doing it at the highest level, and that's off of a huge amount of effort and practice into system.
I've got no idea what I'd do to be honest. 5-3-2 or 4-4-1-1 would at least make us slightly harder to break down, but I still don't see it resulting in many clean sheets. When you've got individuals falling asleep at this level, it doesn't really matter what formation you're playing. But any way, that's not the main reason why I'm not too keen on that idea (except away against top sides). It's more because we'd no longer be able to get Lallana, Ramirez, Puncheon and Lambert in the team. And they've actually been big bright sparks so far. So leaving any of them out just feels like shooting ourselves in the foot. Today was a rare occasion this season where we haven't looked/sounded too dangerous in front of goal. And surprise, surprise we had no Ramirez and only 30 mins of Lambert.
Well that was more due to our system rather than a lack of quality. We were playing defensively to leave us in with a shout of winning the game late when Lambert and Mayuka were introduced, but two lapses of concentration in 2 minutes cost us and scuppered that plan when it was on the verge of working. I think even with the players on the pitch in the first half, we could have been more threatening if we pushed forward more, but we were just playing conservative even despite knowing we were partly nullifying our attacking threat. Even with that we were definitely more dangerous than West Ham, even in the second half, we basically gifted them their goals and they legitimately created very little. *EDIT* Wow, I hadn't actually had my usual perusal of the stats of the game, but decided to as I was curious about how much we'd actually controlled the game... We had 61% possession and 81% pass accuracy to their 67%, and we even won 53% of the aerial duels in the game, which is meant to be their strength. Crikey, how did we lose that 4-1 haha? Well we know the answer to that but still...
Some good opinions on here and some good debate, thanks guys. I notice there was no contribution for one particular poster. I find it very interesting that in a thread that is not controversal in any way yet has lots of genuine opinion and discussion, he couldn't find a decent contribution in himself.
Of course you set it all up to attract a balance of criticism and good discussion (sneaky). A lot of people are concerned about our defenders, and you can bet that they all feel pretty miserable as well. Nigel's got to pick them all up for the next ten games because whether you like them or not, they're all we've got. I don't envy him that job, but I reckon he can do it. It's certainly not all down to the back five though. But hey, tomorrow's another day.
A settled back 5 would do the world of good. Too much messing around means they are all still strangers to a certain extent. Boruc clyne fonte yoshida fox . Morgan and Davis sitting in front.
Undoubtedly true. The greatest asset a defence can have in their favour is stability, and boy oh boy have we not had that. A lot of it down to injury more than 'messing around' though, to be fair. Harsh on Gazza who showed moments of promise and could hardly be blamed for the the goals shipped during his time between the sticks, but Boruc is the best option in goal. Then I think it's fairly clear our best back four at the moment is the one you listed, the Richardson RB, Clyne LB combo worked well against Villa for a half, but not so well against Everton, and Fox had a good game against Fulham so probably deserves the benefit of the doubt. Hooiveld has had some shocking moments this season, but to be fair apart from not closing down on their second goal, had a very good game against West Ham, but it was a game suited for him, most games won't be, so Yoshida wins that battle. He also gave away a few too many fouls on Carroll, but I feel for him there as Carroll was the guilty part just as much as he was if not more throughout the game, but got the majority of the decisions, which could only have served to frustrate Jos more and more as the game went on. Have to say, unrelated but I have watched Carroll many times and he doesn't half get away with a lot of backing/leaning in, pushes and elbows, and I think he knows it despite how much time he spent in the game sitting on the floor moaning to the ref. But yes, I think the sooner we can get our best defence and keeper playing for a few games together, the better, could be a huge difference in no time at all, things can change around very quickly in the world of football.
Very true about Gazza. did nothing wrong but needs time to improve as he's still very young for a keeper. Boruc should play for now but Gazza is ready and waiting to step up in a couple of years time and will serve us well.
Bring Kelvin in from the cold, play Jack Cork at RB and Clyne at LB. Sounds a bit desperate, but things are getting that way now.
Our biggest problem at the moment is letting in soft goals. I haven't counted, but I'm sure it's accurate to say that we've giiven away points and lots of goals through momentary lapses of concentration in games that we've actually played quite well in. We can't add players until January and I don't think a formation change would help if the players are still making the sloppy errors.
Whilst I completely agree that a settled defence and keeper is important, if you asked 10 different people on here what their preferred personnel is (and in what position) I suspect we'd get about 5 - 7 different answers. We're just not blessed with quality options, and as a result I can understand why we keep on chopping and changing. Obviously the injuries haven't helped either. I think we'd all pick Fonte as the right-sided CB, but that is probably where the complete agreement starts and ends.
It says nothing. The logical reduction of your statement is, if all other teams remained as they were but we went back and imagined ourselves more points then we'd be second. An utterly pointless observation.
Norwich fan in peace. I posted on several threads at the start of the season saying that you shouldn't worry too much about goals against. You should just make sure your goal difference remains below -20. In your early games, e.g. against Man City, you were beaten but scored goals and your negative goal difference was kept down. I haven't been following all your games in detail, but my impression is that, having become over-concerned about your defence, you have sacrificed attacking threat. We (Norwich) didn't keep a clean sheet until well into the second half of the season, and only had a couple even then, but we were pretty confident of survival by Christmas because we picked up points by scoring goals. You can't sign defenders until January, but you have a potent attacking threat if you use it. My advice would be to stop trying to shore up defensively and get back to attacking teams from kick-off to final whistle. There are plenty of teams in the division who are defensively frail if you really go at them.
