Diamonds are for never??

Ok! The diamond formation allowed us to dominate possession in midfield first half and created the chances for us, but this only seems to work when we are in possession of the ball. As a defensive structure, it has considerable weaknesses and well done Shaun Derry and his County team for recognising that and exploiting it to the full in the second half last night. The problem with the diamond formation with our current players is that it is too narrow in midfield, so that an opposition team which works the ball into wide positions finds the space we don't fill. If they can get full backs forwards in support of the players in those wide positions, as County did second half last night, they have got us on toast, because our full backs are hopelessly exposed to a double-pronged attack. I don't really blame Bree, nor Nyatanga, but they would both have benefited if we had defended our lead with a 4-4-2, as it would have given us wide midfielders to support both full-backs. In hindsight (what a benefit it is) Brown might have been brought on for Berry, rather than Bree, who could have gone wide midfield to counter the outstanding Petrasso. In the event, Brown showed young Bree in less than sixty seconds how not to defend against a speedy winger - ie give him even more space to run and move.

Treacy came on too late, but the move to 4-4-2 was right.

Some very good attacking last night and we should have been out of sight by half time, but the tactical switch was too late and I fear other teams will have sussed our weakness in that system.

 

Agree with much of that. I've never been a fan of the diamond formation either but we did work it superbly at times last night when in possession. It seemed to me that once Derry had worked out to push his wingers wider and push them on that we had no answer. Surely, even with a diamond, we can defend better than that. I thought Bree was doing really well again with no protection in front and when Brown came on he immediately backed away and gave the winger even more space to run into.

If we are to persist with the diamond then we need to understand how to play it when we haven't got the ball.

 

Think we are giving Derry too much credit, we ran out of steam they stopped playing hoofball although they got a goal back from it, they then realised they could run with the ball at us and we weren't too clever defending