Barnsley Player commentators are putting all on Wilson

Strange changes to a winning line-up. Lost the game before kick off.

 

I was surprised he changed a winning team.

 

Clueless

 

Yes and he saidin paper we were not going to Swindon to lie down and have our tummies tickled we are going there to try and win,then he pick a team like that.

 

Did they predict that before kick off? IMO we had to be at our best to win today and the chances were there we didn't take them which encouraged them to pressure us. we lost but could have got something which IMO is an improvement as at Donny and Mk we were lucky to get nil

 

Mourinho et al often change winning sides.

Granted, they get more opportunities...........

 

How dare they question Wilson, he is the messiah. He confuses even me never mind the team.

 

Some of our players weren't at their best today. Pearson, Scowen, Waring, none of them anywhere near as good as on Tuesday.

But we were set up to draw from the start. One up front, a left-back playing left-mid, and Digby thrown in from nowhere to do god knows what. It was both frustrating and mystifying travelling all that way to see us barely venture into Swindon's half other than 10 minutes in the second half, where admittedly we should have scored. Sixth away loss in a row and after going to all of them, I won't be travelling to Crawley to witness a seventh.

 

I'm sorry but I don't buy the "don't change a winning line up" argument one single bit.

Swindon play 352 with wing backs right? Couldn't listen yesterday but assume they went the same. If so, does anyone realistically think that we have a strong enough centre 2 to go against 3 in the middle of the park, away from home, against one of the best teams in the league?

I did quite a bit of reading on that formation when we started playing it under Flicker, and the prevailing consensus is that it's great for overloading the opposition and creating chances but that it can be weak against teams that play a lone striker as you end up with a spare centre back. Obviously this depends on having good enough support players to ensure that your striker doesn't get isolated, in particular your wingers. Unfortunately we've been light out wide all season, and with Jennings relegated to the tubbs bench at the moment we were always going to struggle.

I'm not saying people that have travelled all that way don't have a right to have a view, or be angry. But I do think that the argument of just sticking with what we played on Tuesday is a bit simplistic. And anyway, it's not like we dominated Oldham and Port Vale, they were two close matches which we just did enough to win. Do we really think that would have been good enough vs Swindon, when in all likelihood both the strikers and centre midfielders would have been outnumbered?

I think anyone hoping for a return to us being more expensive, and having a go at teams might have to wait until we've ground out a few more points. Think pragmatically Wilson will want to make sure we're guarantees safety before trying to take the shackles off again. At the end of the day it's easy for people to sit here and say we should have been more attacking, but to make that argument you've also got to be realistic about what you'd sacrifice in order to do that, and I don't yet think I've seen a convincing view of what would have worked better.

 

We have lost last 6 away games trying to set up not to lose and paying too much respect to opposition . Doncaster beat Swindon at home , by going for the win . The tactics away ain't working

 

I don't disagree with some of that but setting out to stifle the opposition and trying to second guess things isn't working as shown by 506 defeats on the trot so maybe it's time we just time we selected what we believe to be our best team and go for it. Can't be any worse.

 

Fans have quickly forgot that as well as losing 6 away games playing with this formation we also managed to beat Rochdale and the Blunts with this setup. Selective memories I think.

 

I would rather see us have a go and try and upset them for this sort of match. We are not good enough to sit back. We were always going to lose this match . So why not play to win?

 

Disagree with this. He picked a team at Donny that had 6 attacking players as the front 6 & the closest thing we had to a holding player was Berry

 

But what do you mean by playing for a win? Playing a more attacking formation, or something else? I've seen this argument loads but nobody seems to have articulated what 'having a go' actually means, apart from being better at football.

Listen I've seen us try to play those more expansive formations against better teams at home and get smashed. It's easy to say you'd prefer that now but I'm not sure there'd have been consensus around the 'at least we set up to have a go' line if we'd had 4 or 5 put past us.

The argument seems to be that if only we would have had a go we'd have got a better outcome, with complete disregard for the fact we may have achieved a worse outcome.

For what it's worth I hate us playing 1 up top and there's numerous times home and away where I've disagreed with us playing it. Pragmatically yesterday I thought it was the option that gave us the best chance of getting the most points yesterday. I Can't comment on how we played within that formation yesterday as I've not watched the match yet. There may have been things we could have done to make it work better, or maybe not.

I'd be more disappointed if we adopted the same approach vs Crawley, but I've every understanding of why we would go away to a high flying team with the aim of keeping it tight.

 

A 4-5-1 is virtually the same as a 4-3-3... it's just about how high up the pitch the wingers are. And it was hardly a counter attacking goal that won us that game, it was a header from a corner and I heard we had a few of those type of chances yesterday aswell. If one of those had gone in we'd have got a point and the moaners would be strangely quiet.

 

You make some good points ELT. However, Swindon played with one up top yesterday. Their manager even admitted it was to counter what he thought would be a 4-4-2, as that's what we'd played (and won playing) in the last two games.

The one up top might have worked for us if there wasn't a colossal gap between Waring and the midfield. Literally every time he managed to win a header or trap the ball in the first half (which wasn't that often tbh), there was no-one near him wanting the ball, making a run or challenging for the second ball. He was totally isolated with no support. The midfield 3, if they were there to stop Swindon playing through the middle, failed to do so as Swindon were allowed to carry it almost to the edge of our box every other time they came forward. If we'd gone there with the intention to stop Swindon playing football, you'd expect a lot of hassling and harrying, and quick breaks upfield when winning the ball from them. Other than for 10 minutes in the second half (when admittedly we should have equalised) there was none of this. Just a desire to sit back, invite one of the best teams in the division to attack at their leisure, and hope they were profligate in front of goal. As it happens they were pretty profligate, and they still won 2-0.

So in that sense, it wasn't so much the formation as the tactics. Sixth away game in a row where that's been the case, and we've lost all six.