Just got back and have to say that I think colin got the tatics wrong again today.Why does he keep playing 451 when all it did today was invite Liverpool forward and gives us nothing.We seem totally lost when we play that formation. As soon as he bought DJ on and went to 442 we looked a different team,this has happened now at Fulham and Tottenham.Bothroyd cannot play upfront on his own ,in fact today I thought he was awful. SWP and Mackie are not quick enough in this formation to give us surprise counter attacks. Please NW stick to 442.
To be fair, he really only had Bothroyd to play there after HH dropped out. Not sure about SWP "not being quick enough"....he must be one of the quickest in the league! However, I do agree that NW seems to be struggling a little of late, although to balance that, he hasn't had a lot to pick from and it will be interesting to see how he does with (hopefully) a better squad after January.
We tried 4-4-2, got totally over-run in midfield and had to revert to the 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1/4-5-1 or whatever it was. With the players at our disposal today (assuming Campbell wasn't fit to start) we had one recognised striker.
You can't carry players every other week at this level. As fantastic a player as he is sometimes he's a liability in many games and it's just not worth playing with 10 men when he doesn't fancy it.
Agree Col about the players available but what a difference when we went with two upfront.They looked nervous towards the end.
Smith on the left, SWP on the right, Mackie up top was how I saw it for the first 10 mins or so. We hardly got the ball out of our own third anyway but that's what I thought we were trying to do.
We were 451 til he bought on DJ.Sorwds,he is quick but not like he used to be.When he goes on a run now he can never quite make it all the way and ends up stopping and passing.I think hes a good player and much better than we had before but when you play 451 and attack on the counter you need players with pace ie Sinclair and Dyer.
I feel it's still worth bringing Adel on as a later substitute, especially if nothing is working or we're already winning. We need to see if he's got anything to offer still. With that said, he doesn't deserve infinite chances... but maybe just a few more.
Has a deal been done for Adel in January, and that's the reason he is not even in the squad so he doesn't get injured and said deal falls through?
Come on we can all read between the lines on the adel situation, he has agreed terms elsewhere and won't play for us again. A real shame as he had a good run prior to the fulham game and I was hoping he would come back again. It would appear not
