Looking at recent team sheets, I cannot understand what formations we are playing. We seem to have 5 defenders and 4 attackers and the midfielder of pack. We have 4 centre backs, one wide/ wing back of Cunningham, 3 strikers, 1 attacking midfielder and Pack. It is evident from this that we have no structure and little midfield. The team is almost set up around 4 predominant centre backs and 3 strikers with no real connecting midfield other than players in odd positions having a half effect. Why don't we go back to the 3-5-2 that made us look good and achieve results against Walsall, Stevenage and Watford (home)? It may help to reconnect the attacking/defensive divide.
Basicaly the dimwit has four centre halves across the defence to accomadate his signing- el ab. No proper left back or right back.
I think that he should've got the players in to be able to play 442 rather than 352. Now we just have a sh**y compromise.
Have to feel sorry for the likes of Reid, Bryan and Burns. What do they have to do to get a start??? or is the one of our pillars crumbling?
We can all see that the defence - which was starting to improve - was sh***ed when El-Bad was parachuted in. Every sane fan wants to see El Abd dropped and Osborne/Williams (take your pick) at CB instead with proper FBs (ie players who are used to playing there). However our Numpty of a manager won't drop his new signing. In the long term he may come good but SC himself said that long term is no good if you have no short term. He is just compounding our problems by shoving players out of their best positions to accommodate someone he signed who isn't even playing well. He also seems not to rate Moloney and is stubbornly refusing to play him unless totally desperate - hence we end up with CBs playing at FB. NUTS - winner my *ss.
Reid and Burns get knackered within 30 minutes, Bryan doesn't seem to be progressing as we'd all like to
I am sure Winner wants to get more centre backs on tne pitch tnan four. Why stop stop at four when five or six is more?
The one positive that I can see from our time in this league is that we still seem to be scoring a decent amount for a team at the bottom of the league. For this reason, and because I think our stand-out players are at the front of the pitch, it might be worth playing 5-3-2 or 5-4-1, either with five at the back or four and a sweeper. All of our problems stem from being poor at the back, so perhaps adding some additional help at the back would stop us falling apart when the other team has the ball.
Well at least I found something to make me smile in this thread..."El-Bad"..... The feeling of doom and gloom is on all other threads
Not quite. All of our problems stem from being poor in midfield Creative yes, but offering no protection to the defence from the midfield. I put the reason for this inadequacy down to SOD's inability (and SC's) to replace the injured Kelly with an effective midfield rottweiller, and standards of coaching over the past 5 years that have ignored the fact that a team needs to defend as a team, not as 4 players. Clubs have been having a party against us since Cisse left. These days you need to defend with at least 6 players, and close down quickly from midfield, or else the opposing midfield can just open up like a can opener. We have a very substandard midfield. Wynter may have been the player to change that, but Cotterill has his brains up his arse and cant see it. Instead we get Gillett, not a bad player by Lg1 standards but not a match-winning midfield assassin exactly, or anything else particularly. People slag off JET (our best player and the only one worth the admission on his day), but the problem lies with the rest of midfield. What exactly is it that Pack does, apart from play pretty balls across our halfway line ? It seems to me that Bristol City players are all in some comfort zone la-la land, chronically lacking in self confidence and hoping nobody notices them in case we realise how crap they are
Not sure Burns flags after 60 mins hasn't had enough starts to gauge, Reid at least when on the field attempts to go forward, Bryan seems to get played left side of midfield, I thought he had good games at wingback/fullback.
