I think we lack one thing so often up front.... Height .....so many crosses go over every ones head...
Exactly what I'm saying, an because we have no height teams have no fear defending deep as we're not likely to score from crosses and headers, because they drop so deep it becomes near impossible to play a ball behind the defence and have someone latch onto it, and even if we do manage it they're usually pushed too far put wide and we have to restart and do it all again.
Personally Id go back to a 442, maybe not from the start but at least for the last 25 mins or so if need a goal, drop Evans (not because I think hes poor just rather drop him out of the two defensive mids) and just play one holding midfielder with Koren playing slightly deeper but still as an attacking centre mid and play 2 strikers
the football we play is fantastic, nobody call slag it off as it's great to watch.. amazed we didn't win really.. we've just got to keep doing the same things, the pitch doesn't help, there was one occasion where Fryatt took longer than usual (and he is one to chalk the cue carefully as we know) to get the ball under control losing valuable time.. I'd be happy for Nicky Barmby to stay manager all my lifetime, I'm proud of our style.. goals will come, he's right..
With a club-record clean sheet run currently ongoing, I don't see how you could change: ------------Mannone----------- Rosenior Chester Hobbs Dawson -------McKenna - Evans-------- The question is the four in front of that. The problem is that you can't drop Koren, so you can't really go for a standard 4-4-2, unless you put him wide, but we all know that he is clearly far better for us when central. So it is a bit of a "catch 22", the current set-up just isn't working, but in order to change it, you have to change the best parts of the team. Maybe i'd try: ------------Mannone----------- Rosenior Chester Hobbs Dawson ------------McKenna----------- Stewart------------------Brady -------------Koren------------- ------Mclean-------Fryatt------ That is incredibly harsh on Evans - but you can only blame luck for so long before making some tough decisions.
I can't say that I agree on Evans - I'd happily sacrifice him in aid of getting another striker on the pitch, but I pretty much agree with your second lineup; I'd have Simpson starting ahead of McLean, purely because he I think he'd make a bigger impact on the game from the bench.
The front two is flexible for me - we haven't seen much of King, nor of Simpson in a while, so I just went for the obvious pairing.
I'd put Liam cooper up there so we have someone who can head a ball, he's fairly classy and composed with the ball at his feet anyway.
If we had another defender to play we could put Chester up front to make use of his anticipation of the game...On second thoughts, he missed a sitter on Wednesday as well didn't he?
