Did you go or listen to the commentary? It certainly sounded to me as though we’ve had an obscene amount of luck tonight to only concede one. It sounded like Ipswich missed countless chances and we eventually conceded a really, really soft goal.
In fairness though some of the posts on here of late have been ridiculous with individuals thinking they know more than José and saying how simple it is to play 4-4-2 with McBurnie up top alongside Moore.
I don't think luck enters into it. Listening to the game after the first 10 minutes we did absolutely nothing of note. I expected us to get nothing against a side and manager who always raise their game against us for whatever reason.
I am afraid that losing games like this one is a sign of a team that is going down. Still hope, but see ominous signs. Time running out. The game in hand against Forest, another team on the beach, is everything.
Oops that should have been everyone. My phone comes up with suggestions and when I tap them it puts in something completely random every time. For example (trying to force one now) when I type the letters 'cur' I get 3 suggestions, one of which is currently but when I tap it here's what happens 'curcercurrtly'. God knows why.
It drives me crazy. We’ve been playing well and creating chances playing the way that José clearly wants us to play but some just can’t accept it. We’ve been here before with 4-4-2 and the fact is that it doesn’t make us personally any more attacking or any greater threat than we are when we play 4-3-3 with McBurnie wide. When you go 4-4-2 you also lose the theoretical protection that a third central midfielder offers as you’ve got two banks of four as opposed to a four and a five when you’re defending in a 4-3-3/4-5-1. Alas, I’m sure the 4-4-2 clamour will come again before the season finishes.
Let's be reyt, 442 is a better formation for poor players as it's far simpler. Its a better formation for our strikers too but our abject failure to sign a decent central midfield pairing in the last three transfer windows means we are unable to play 442 because we don't have 2 midfielders good enough. Instead we have to play 3 midfielders to do the job of two men
I don’t understand what point you’re making. The manager picks a system that gives us the best chance of getting a positive result taking into account the opposition and the players at his disposal. It’s blatantly obvious that the system is one which encompasses three central midfielders, it’s as simple as that. McBurnie has scored 6 when operating in 4-3-3, I’ll add. So I don’t necessarily buy into the idea that 4-4-2 is automatically best for our forwards as there’s no evidence to suggest that’s the case.
What's my point? That a refusal to break from the spreadsheet and piss poor recruitment means we don't have good enough midfielders to play 442 meaning that 433 is indeed our best formation but isn't necessarily the best formation in general if we had better players
You can’t say that one formation is better than another based on unnamed hypothetical players that we don’t have at our disposal. Also, if 4-4-2 was the best thing since sliced bread then how come none of the best sides in the game, each with excellent recruitment, utilise that system? I still don’t understand why you’ve raised this point as the OP is about people clamouring for 4-4-2 with what we’ve got at our disposal and nothing else.
From what I’ve seen of him Brad Potts can’t play in a midfield 2. Wasn’t the clamour when we had Gardner & Williams? I don’t really think any of Mallan, Potts & Moncur are good enough defensively to play in a 2. Also - We’ve spent the last 2 months only playing 4-3-3 so most of the current squad have played very little of 4-4-2 & won’t have done much training playing the system. To get them into comfortably playing the system you’d need several games. I imagine we’ve only gone 4-4-2 as a one off tonight as Williams is injured, Moncur is ill & Morais doesn’t rate Mallan. If Moncur’s fine I’d expect a return to what was 4-3-3 but has become more of a 4-5-1 in the last two home games
Fair enough. You obviously want an argument so I'll leave you to it. I have my opinion of which I am entirent
I listened to the game on Radio Sheffield and we started out 4-4-2. Then on about 35 minutes the commentator said we swapped it about and he wasn't quite sure what system we were playing.