On my way home

[Joe90]

Why play with two strikers who aren't getting service? All we're doing is limiting service further and having 2 players do Sweet FA. Much rather see us just play with a legitimate winger on one side of a 433.

Ingram/Lumley
Kakay Leistner Anyone Anyone please
Luongo Scowen Freeman
Wszolek Sylla/Smith Eze

Bring on Samuel and Smyth later in the game when legs are tired on the other side. Freeman with the most freedom in the midfield to drift, Luongo running into the box late for those headers (Surprisingly good in the air offensively) and Scowen playing front to goal out to the other two early.

Okay, sounds like your more tactically astute than me! What I've noticed is Bidwell ends up out wide linking up with Freeman and struggles to get around players, pass and cross. I'm assuming he's being used as a wingback which he doesn't seem suited to. Do we not have any proper wingers who can do that?

[nasser95]

Okay, sounds like your more tactically astute than me! What I've noticed is Bidwell ends up out wide linking up with Freeman and struggles to get around players, pass and cross. I'm assuming he's being used as a wingback which he doesn't seem suited to. Do we not have any proper wingers who can do that?

What I see happening is that we play Eze as the 'winger' but he drifts in so Freeman moves wide to give width... usually when that happens, clubs will have their full back move a bit narrower to cover in the middle, or will have the third CM (in our case Scowen) move into the space to fill the gap... instead, Bidwell decides to move even further wide and tries to make a run past freeman, obviously he doesn't have the pace to track back when the move breaks down and we're left with a totally empty left side defensively.

What we should have is a proper left sided winger playing as a pure winger so Bidwell can stay deeper or at least he can drop back to cover when Bidwell overlaps. The other side can then be more of a narrow side. If your full back is slow, you really need a pacy winger able to play the same side and we don't at the moment.

[hal9thou]

Why play with two strikers who aren't getting service? All we're doing is limiting service further and having 2 players do Sweet FA. Much rather see us just play with a legitimate winger on one side of a 433..

4-2-3-1 is SMac's favoured formation. It presents two major problems for us. Smith's ratio - as you will be well aware - is remarkably good for someone who both here and at Fulham did not get the service required, ie from deep and wide. The minute he gets a) an authenitic winger and b) someone to pick up the pieces alongside him, there will be goals on the menu. So problem one with 4-2-3-1 is a lack of width. Problem two is that we simply don't have a quality back to goal striker who can play one up.

4-3-3 would be an improvement as you suggest, but on that basis so would 4-4-2 (although 4-4-2 diamond would take us back to a lack of width).

Lack of width where it really does damage is a big problem for us since it prevents from utilising a proven asset.

[Shepherds Mush]

Kakay is keen but not very good

Definitely saw a different Kakay to me.

[qprjeff1882]

4-2-3-1 is SMac's favoured formation. It presents two major problems for us. Smith's ratio - as you will be well aware - is remarkably good for someone who both here and at Fulham did not get the service required, ie from deep and wide. The minute he gets a) an authenitic winger and b) someone to pick up the pieces alongside him, there will be goals on the menu. So problem one with 4-2-3-1 is a lack of width. Problem two is that we simply don't have a quality back to goal striker who can play one up.

4-3-3 would be an improvement as you suggest, but on that basis so would 4-4-2 (although 4-4-2 diamond would take us back to a lack of width).

Lack of width where it really does damage is a big problem for us since it prevents from utilising a proven asset.

And yet we have more players suited to a 442 with wide players than anything else. The main problem were seeing time and again is Scowen, Luongo and Freeman all being used as central midfielders and no one seems to be able change it which in turn creates it's own problem for the rest of the forward part if our team having to put wingers out of position.