I know Bruce has been saying that we won't change the way we play for anyone and can beat anyone on our day blah blah blah, but to play 3 5 2 away against promotion rivals like Palace is suicidal. Or at least play Evans or Fathi alongside Meyler, not Meyer and Koren. Palace's weak spot is centre mid. Their wingers are their strengths. We played into their hands tonight.
Extremely dubious penalty and perhaps if we'd scored first things may have been different, but once we go behind, as at Bolton, and are chasing the game, our current formation just leaves us too open to the counter.
I hate this idea that the formation is to blame whenever we lose. The only thing I'd suggest in terms of team selection is we need to stop picking the same XI just because we won the last game. It's a stupid unwritten rule in English football that you can't change a winning team. The one person who does change it is SAF and it works pretty well for him.
We are in an amazing league position as a result of this formation. I agree that we should probably have had a more defensive midfield 3 (though I can't really say too much, haven't seen the game), but to suggest we change formation with 10 games to go seems a little off.
I think we should stick with the 352, but tonight I would have gone with a 442 (easy to say in hindsight, however). We've still looked good going forward when we've used this formation and it would've helped to combat their wingers and it sounded like Zaha and Williams ran the game.
We wouldn't drop anyone after the best result of the season. We lost, get over it. As ISTPLT rightly says, the formation bollocks coming out every time we lose is becoming a broken record. We're scoring 3 goals a game at the moment... Would you sacrifice that as well?
As ISTPLT said, it's not the formation that's to blame, it's the squad selection. It seems we need different approaches to home and away games. We need to be more defensive away, maybe go into a 5-3-2 with Elmo and Brady being utilised as counter-attacking options. Meyler doesn't seem to perform away from home, and I'd play Fathi in that defensive midfield role to give the defence that extra help. At home we can get away with being more attacking because teams are more conservative against us at the KC and we take the game to them.
I'm not suggesting we ditch 3 5 2 as, as many have said, that has a lot to do with our current league position. But to suggest we can just turn up and play our normal game whoever the opposition is is a tad naive. We're good but not quite that good. As can be shown by the fact when it goes wrong, it goes very wrong. We don't just lose 1 0 or scrape a point, we get thrashed. Just because something worked at home against a weak Birmingham team doesn't mean we should play the same way against one of our promotion rivals with two of the league's quickest and most dangerous wingers. It would be nice to keep it tight sometimes when maybe a draw wouldn't be the end of the world. Instead we end up with a demoralising tonking. Anyway it's still in our hands so onwards and upwards.
Last night notwithstanding! Of course, SAF has enough good players in his squad that he can change the team, change the formation, change everything and still have more than enough to beat most teams. And that is without the miracle that is Zaha.
I'd start Fathi over Koren on monday, Koren is so so weak and at home when we're dominating we can afford to have him playing in centre midfield but in games like last night its hard, he was awful and to be fair Fathi did really well.
Hopefully Fathi can come in and get up to speed as our DM - cannot continue to play 3-5-2 away from home with Koren in the midfield. Far too lightweight in mdfield with a tiring Quinny, Koren and even Meyler.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees this. I have been saying for a while now that RK is too weak for a position in a 3 man midfield, and I dont fancy him as one of the strikers either. Disappointing, but perhaps his days are coming to an end with us.
Still no reason to change a winning side. Had he changed things last night and we'd still lost it, everybody would have asked 'why change a winning team?/What did he have to change things for?' It would have been a silly choice to alter a line up which had just played a team off the park, be it Birmingham or whoever. Plus, as we always say, there are no easy games in the Championship, so to suggest we only did well because it was Birmingham is rather narrow minded of you. Peterborough, a club bottom for much of the season, have beaten us, Cardiff and Leicester. A quality performance is a quality performance, regardless of who it's against. Every player deserved to keep their place.
If Koren isn't suited to the formation then he shouldn't be playing or the formation should be different but I don't see how that's his fault. People calling for our class players to be sold will regret it when we end up not having strength in depth. I wasn't at the game last night but apparently Boyd was off the pace too, if they are taking out Koren who is to say he will do any better in the same formation? EDIT; Fahti hasn't actually played at all so to say he is going to be an answer is really a stab in the dark, he isn't match fit or he would be playing also he was no good in our league the last time round. Not to say that he might be better this time but again that is guesswork really
Different teams pose different problems, as does playing home and away, we simply don't take these things into account. That's not being narrow minded, it's being practical. Which is hopefully exactly what we will be ahead of Burnley, as if we set up like than again, we're likely to see the same outcome(just with a little less diving).
