Tom Cleverley continues to play his same formation and playing players in not their natural positions.
Says who? Who’s he playing out of position?
To me, the problem is that we’re conceding too many goals against the run of play and that’s because the CB’s available to him aren’t up to the job, not as a group picked together anyway.
He’s lost the best two we had last season without replacement. Katic - brutal. Maxi - fist pumps after flying tackles. Warriors, the pair of them.
What he has left are adequate individually but their sum-total as a three is not good enough. Of the ones he has, Pleggy is the one who you’d take into the trenches with you but he’s injured.
He doesn’t have the option of playing traditional full-backs in a 4 or 5 because he doesn’t have any. Edwards and McKenzie (who I know little about) are injured leaving him only with Sorinola, and Mumba, both of whom are attacking wing-backs rather than defenders.
We are in a desperate situation but it’s important armchair warriors don’t start picking the wrong targets . Cleverly has little or no choice who he picks in defence at the moment or in the formation he plays back there. We’re in League 1 and he needs at least one League 1 defender - a big, strong blood and snot type. Someone who’s commanding and demanding. Dan Scarr and Sonny Bradley would be ideal.
If it was me, based on what we’ve seen so far, I’d forget the No 9 and get two CB’s and maybe a DM. We’re scoring goals it’s letting them in at the other end that’s the problem.