http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...act-down-to-lack-of-fear-and-343-7654774.html There's an interesting article in today's Independent newspaper. It talks about Wigan's fearless 3-4-3 formation. It's well worth a read and the philosophy behind it is, is what has been missing from our game. Especially when playing away from home. When you consider the amount of damp squibs weve had away from home this season, we've often found ourselves scratching our heads in bemusement at the complete lack of performance. ( Arsenal, Liverpool, Sunderland, WBA and Spurs first half to name a few. ) This has often occurred following decent home performances, and has filled us with great expectation, to only end up coming on here and bemoaning yet another dismal away showing. Can this system and mentality suit Rangers? We certainly have the players.
For some reason 3-4-3 looks like it has less players than 4-4-2 or 4-3-2-1. I think I may be having an aneurysm.
Too late to change now. It is the system Barcelona regularly use but it requires a mega work-effort from all the players as you are often using five or six players box to box repeatedly. I don't think we have enough players who are comfortable on the ball and can place passes in the right area to team-mates, Saturday was a prime example of not stringing more than two or three passes without losing the ball...
Wigan played it really well, I agree its probably too late for us to change now this season. Can imagine we could play it with Ale back in the team.
Was just about to say the same, Diakite and Faurlin in the middle could suit the requirements of 3-4-3, and Mackie on the right wing with all of his energy, Traore on the left. I'd put Hill, Ferdinand and Young/Onuoha at the back. And imagine a front three of Cisse, Zamora and Taarabt... worth trying it against City if we're already down?!
My own view is that we have only just learnt to keep the ball.... maybe a bit advanced... play like we did against the Swans we should give anyone a game. Technically Wigan rode their luck against Arsenal but they got the result ... which seems the only things fans are interested in
We've been far too defensive away from home under Hughes,it's looked like we'd be happy not to lose rather than going all out for the win.Even though he's been fantastic for us,i wouldn't have brought Derry back in against WBA.Buzsaky played well against Swansea and would've given us an extra attacking threat.It's too late to change it now,we've just got to try and survive the way Hughes has got them set-up!
Fortune favours the brave and great stuff by Wigan on Monday. Id rather lose 3-0 having a go and creating some chances and possibly scoring some goals than sitting back as we did at Liverpool, Arsenal, Man U and WBA and lose 1-0 (or 2-0 at Man U). Martinez has certainly taken the fear factor out of Wigan and deserve to stay up over there last few games.
343 takes time for a team to adapt to because of the box to box stuff Sooper referred to above. Different energies needed. However, that level of effort is not needed when either you're defending or pressing for a period of time as happened for long stretches of the Arsenal Wigan game. Wigan really played the system well and always seemed to have a man or two over to break up opposition play. I don't know but maybe Wigan's lowly position for much of the season was about them adapting to the 343 system... Agree, too late for us to experiment further now.
In that case.....more of the same, let's have a repeat of our previous three home games and continue onto our first back to back victories of the season.
Wigan lost the fear factor because everyone had them relegated, probably including them in their own minds, so they could play with freedom. Now they are expected to stay up - lets see if the fear returns. Remember them at LR? I like Martinez though - dignified bloke whose teams try to play good football.
The formation is almost irrelevant. What matters is attitude, application and execution. He got some wrong but I really think Warnock lived up to his promise in a couple of memorable away day performances with Wolves and Stoke being the highlights. Norwich to some extent without the right result mind, and the second half at Spurs and Swansea. MH has only gone for it once and that was his first game at Newcastle. If he looks back at his away games since joining he could do a lot worse than look back at that performance and try to emulate it with the current crop of players. If we had Diakite, Zamora and Cisse at St. James' Park I think we would have won that one.
As i keep saying, its the standard and the performance of the players in a formation that wins games!!
