New system that was played today

[Mattyqpr]

I'm glad we tried it, but it didn't work for me. We were far to open and if we play that against Wigan in the playoffs we'll get battered.

It's a no brainer for me to play 4-4-1-1 in the playoffs.

Austin upfront with Morrison in behind.

[maidstone_hoop]

We should be playing 4 4 1 or 4 2 3 1 in play offs....

Barton carroll

Benaryou/Kranjar Morrison Traore

Austin

That would be my preferred midfield line up - with hoilett and zamora on the bench again

[tommyqpr]

Agree with above.
3-5-2 was terrible yesterday. Lineup looked strong when looking at it on paper but they looked completely lost in the formation.

[westsussexranger]

all depends on who we play. against the weaker sides we need hoilett playing to add pace and penetration but we cant decide what side to play in the playoffs until we know who were playing and if were home first or second. if were 2-0 on agg before we play our home leg in the playoffs why play a team thatll try and go all out for it?

[Bluehoop]

all depends on who we play. against the weaker sides we need hoilett playing to add pace and penetration but we cant decide what side to play in the playoffs until we know who were playing and if were home first or second. if were 2-0 on agg before we play our home leg in the playoffs why play a team thatll try and go all out for it?

To be fair it is pretty much nailed on now that it will be Wiggin, second leg at home.

[Qprchris]

I'm all for experimenting with new formations but shouldn't we know our best system with 3 games left?

We've tried the 3-5-2 against Charlton (a) and Blackpool (h) and we were poor so why have we persisted with it? In this formation you need quick wing-backs (Traore is perfect for this role) but as we saw yesterday, Simpson just isn't quick enough to get up and down the wing enough.

The three centre backs also looked confused as to who should mark Deeney and Barton and Carroll simply didn't offer them enough cover.

If we still had Mcclaren as a coach I think it would be a lot more effective as he can actually organise a defence whereas Harry and his current staff don't seem to be as capable.

[Geng]

The key problem when we play 352 is our CBs are all terrible on the ball. The formation asks them to get involved a lot more than in a 442, and play breaks down with them far too often. At least one of the CBs is generally left free to run the ball into midfield (as few teams would press all 3 centre halves in a back three), which would be great if we had Luiz or Vertonghen to do something with it; less so when its Hill/Dunne/Onuoha running into traffic and then hoofing it into the channels or panic passing it back where they came from

[fisnik]

What it looked like at least in the second half was a rotational 352 with the two wing backs switching between attacking and depending based on the movement of the other. So if traore attacked, hill would move to left back and we would go into a 4 at the back as usual, until traore got back. Then when Simpson attacked, onuoha moved to right back and the same happened. This gave us a really good fluidity in switching between defending and attacking.

This was exactly what was going on, at least until Hoilet came on.