Minority Report - Burton Albion

We have a young team, a team that has only recently been thrown together. It is a team that is short of an old head or two to pull them together when things go wrong. What it needs is a system that everyone understands so that at least there is some common ground to work with. What LJ has given them to play with is a system that requires the players to have a degree in the football arts. It is too complex, no-one understands it and they are finding it impossible to work with. Give them a break. Start them on something easy.

The system I refer to is 3-5-2. This is not the system that we remember from the promotion glory years which used wing backs. This is a system that employs the two full backs as mid-field wide players and two players out of the back three in a starting position so wide, they are effectively marking the opposition wide players. This creates huge gaps between the centre backs that teams with more pace than Burton will be eager to exploit. The two full backs are not wide mid-field players and they struggled in this role.

The central mid-field trio were arranged in a triangle with Rothwell at the attacking point. He was effectively cut off from the other two (Pearson and Scowen) who had to work their socks off to cope with the mis-match created by Rothwell’s ineffectiveness. Up front, Watkins and Winnall looked like they had not yet been introduced. I felt that the first half performance was a mess of the managers making.

As usual half time discussions revolved around the changes we expected. I expected us to revert to 4-4-2 with the removal of Smith. The manager went for 4-5-1 with the removal of Smith. I felt really sorry for Smith. He is repeatedly a victim of the manager’s indecision. The manager rates all three of his big defenders, and in fairness they had all played quite well, but a back four must have balance, and with Nyatanga at left back in the second period, it lacked balance. He really does need to be brave and decide which two of the three will be his first choice central defenders, and he needs to stick with those two. I thought that Roberts was the pick of them today, but sadly, he would be sitting on the subs bench next week if I was manager.
Sam Winnall has been tried up front on his own before and he struggled. The second half showed that he has not managed to find the necessary skills in the intervening period. He was not the only weak link in the second half. If Dan Crowley is to play regularly on the left of mid-field he is going to have to be more disciplined. Nevertheless, you can see the Arsenal academy training in him. He will never shoot as long as he can see one more pass. Marley Watkins looked no more effective on the right side of midfield than he had in the first half supporting Winnall. Both wingers were guilty of allowing the Burton full backs to cross unchallenged though lack of concentration (Watkins) and poor positional sense (Crowley).

We were lucky to win. Burton were nothing special, but they worked hard and they knew their system. There will be stronger tests. This was my first view of Barnsley FC 2015/16 vintage and it is fair to say that I was under-whelmed. Of course we will improve when the players get to know one another, but I felt that one or two of them are simply not of the right quality. I looked down upon the team to see at various points 4 loan players, all of whom could disappear after Christmas. None of them had brilliant games, but nevertheless, we will invest 4 months work into them which may be lost and we could have to start again with 4 others come January. I began to muse upon what Patrick Cryne has achieved since he began investing in the club. For all the £millions he has invested in the Club, it has so few decent players contracted to it, the manager cannot even get a team out to play in the third tier without the benefit of loanees. I wonder what John Dennis thinks about the situation.

 

Spot on. The loan situation is just ridiculous. We should never have more than 2 at any one time. How can we build & progress with so many players that don't actually belong to us....?

 

Footballs a simple game. Some players can't play 5-3-2 hence he changed it and we looked better. We can analyse to the Nth degree but just one poor win doesn't need a full post mortem.

 

patrick cryne has kept the ship afloat thats what he's done,without him there may not be a barnsley fc.Whatever john dennis thinks is irrelevant,john was a fruit and veg merchant and imo doesnt have anywhere near the finances that crynes got and i very much doubt we would have a club had he been still in charge,
john dennis had a vision and passion for the club but as soon as the itv money dried up that was the end of the road for him..

the best years i've had at oakwell were under john dennis,promotion to the premiership,flying high in the first division,attracting great players etc etc,however,in this day and age if you cant keep things steady financially you've ****** it and this i'm afraid is the reality of this era of football,without a really rich owner buying the club we are where we are,as of now even if we did manage to get promoted we'd struggle just like we did under robins,hill and flitcroft.

 

Interesting, Red Rain.

You were formerly a big supporter of Mr Cryne, were you not?

 

Once again. Best contributer to this forum.

 

My feelings about Mr Cryne are somewhat more complex than I feel I can do justice to in the short format that is a bulletin board. Obviously, I am grateful to Mr Cryne for stepping in and saving the club in its hour of need. It is also right that whatever Mr Dennis says on the matter, the reason the club went bust is down to him. Nevertheless, Mr Cryne made a spectacular misjudgement in handing the club to Mr Ridsdale, which meant that the club had to be rescued for a second time just 1 year after the first. It is true that Mr Dennis has little money, so his first mistake with the club's finances was his last. It is also true that Mr Cryne does have money, so he can make mistake after mistake and use his own money to set the mistakes right.

My problem is not that Mr Cryne has money and can set his mistakes right. My problem is that in spite of his money, the club does not seem to function as well as it did under Mr Dennis. In those days, the function that is currently performed by Ben Mansford was split between an administrator and Mr Dennis, who did all the contract negotiations with players and their agents for no pay. There was no need of a Cryne figure, someone to rubber stamp transactions or provide the funds when they were needed. In spite of that, we had 20 years in the second tier football and during that time we always managed to keep our heads above water. It was the Premier League that ruined Mr Dennis's judgement, and the desire to return to the promised land that ultimately broke both him and the club.

I have no problem with Mr Cryne's money, indeed I am happy that we have it. I do have a problem with Mr Cryne's judgement and management and indeed some of his ill considered public pronouncements.

 

It was not just BFC that received the ITV digital money. It was only BFC that used the money recklessly, and that recklessness was caused by Mr Dennis chasing the dream.

I think that Mr Dennis' record prior to our brief visit to the Premier League was brilliant. He kept us in the second tier for 20 year, during which time the local economy suffered the damage inflicted by the miners strike and subsequent closure of the mines and local factories. To say that this was not a hugely significant achievement is to forget what that time was like in and around the town.

 

Great understanding of the game from Red Rain and the current start to the new campaign. The current system with three at the back will not work and this is the second league game the manager has had to change the system at half time. As Red Rain says he needs to stop favouring three centre backs; he has clearly made promises to them about game time which is unfortunate. The system should be 4-2-3-1; we would then have a clearly defined defence with midfield support when needed. We could then use five strong midfield players; we have enough of them. This would leave one up front; our area of weakness so it should probably be Wilkinson as none of the others have even looked liked scoring.

 

As always, I find your posts to be constructively informing and full of substance. However I have to take issue with your opinion. 352 is neither complex, nor does it require a degree in the footballing arts. It allows expression when attacking whilst providing stability when defending. Our footballers, albeit young footballers, certainly have the capability to assimilate the knowledge required to play to this formation. Footballers are able to adapt. Primarily they play on instinct. If the modern day player can't adapt to changing formations he has no place in the modern game.
What don't you understand about 352? Pray tell. How do you know they don't understand it? How do you know they're finding it impossible to work with? They could be working on this and other systems throughout the week. I woul expect them to do that. Given your penchant for rational thinking I'm surprised to see you develop an argument based on our assumption. Football is not a science.
Today's game. I disagree with you. For 30 minutes we were the side out footballing the other side. The system was working. Smith and Bree were deployed as wing backs in the way you describe. Our back three were the rock. Our problem wax that both James and George weren't providing the service by way of incisive crosses into the box. That's not players not understanding the system. That's down to ability. They didn't struggle. More practice needed. Bree will be a better player than Nicky Eaden and George Smith will develop into a good full back wing back a large Neil Thompson. Give them time and they will develop.
I totally disagree with you about the first half. Rothwell flattered to deceive and should have been more aggressive. Pearson and Scown were excellent.
However the service to our strikers was ineffective.
The manager didn't go 451. He went 4141. He attempted to employ width thru Rothwell and Watkins, with Pearson holding and Conor and Josh providing the central thrust. Despite the fact that we are under par I thought we looked balanced throughout. In what way did we have imbalance ?
I'm intrigued by your comments about the midfielders. Whoever said that Crowley woul be engaged wide left all the time. Having seen him last week at Chesterfield and in the pre season it's obvious he can play anywhere across the "three" behind a lone striker. He oozes class and whilst we have him we should play him.
Marley Watkins needs time. He will be an asset. I'm intrigued Aldo by your comments re Winnall. What skills should he have learned "in the intervening period"?
Don't make it complicated. He had **** service. Strikers need service whether playing 451 442 352 3412 or 10 1.
We were fortunate today but we will improve. Your post is very downbeat and, whilst understanding that football is a game of many and varied opinions, you need to be careful of descending into the pit of underwhelment without giving the current manager and his current group the opportunity to prove themselves .
Loanees? Why not? Patrick Cryne? Thank god we have a benefactor with our club at heart.
John Dennis? Love him to death but couldn't really give a flying f1ck about what he thinks right now.

 

Ps apologies for the typos

 

Good post 55, i agree with all your comments.

I always thought that when you played 5 across the mid field, the wide men were wingers when you were attacking and left and right backs when you were defending. They clearly need a good engine to be able to do that for 90 minutes. Sometimes i think managers set the team up to negate the opposition, instead of letting the opposition worry about their own team, a bit like chess except less interesting to watch.

 

First of all, thank-you for your comments.

The system that we employed yesterday was different to that employed during Wilsons first period in charge. The starting point for the Wilson system was 5-3-2 with the two wing backs starting in a back 5 formation. The wing backs would move forward once we had secured possession of the ball. The system that we employed in the first half yesterday was 3-5-2 because the starting point for the full backs was ahead of the back 3. This left Nyatanga and Roberts marking the Burton wide players in the initial phases of play and leaving huge gaps between Roberts (right), Mawson (central) and Nyatanga (left). Wide gaps in the last line of defence means that there is plenty of space to thread balls through to runners. It means that the central defenders can be easily drawn out wide, resulting in space appearing in central defence that has to be filled by the two defensive midfield players. I appreciate that the idea of the system is that the wing backs drop back into the wide position when the are able, but in practice, this gave the players a difficult transition between their attacking and defensive formations. For example, I could see that Nyatanga was supposed to hand over marking responsibilities of their #10 to Smith so that he could reinforce central defence, but the actual mechanics of this hand over were not well understood by either player, and my sympathies were entirely with young Smith who does not have much experience to draw upon.

The reason 5-3-2 is used so sparingly in the modern game (not that we used 5-3-2 v Burton) is that its deficiencies were exposed by the 4-5-1 system. The way that it worked was this. The lone centre forward in the 4-5-1 system was pitched against 3 central defenders who found it hard to decide whose job it was to mark him as he moved across the front of them. The two wide players in midfield 5 were advanced to mark the two wing backs effectively taking them out of the game and meaning the spare central defenders had to become passers when in possession. Central defenders are not usually good passers, having a tendency to want to hit the ball long. In midfield, it is easy to argue that this leaves 3 players v 3 players which seems an even contest, except that this does not take account of the 2 full backs in the 4-5-1 team who tend to join midfield on an ad hoc basis. So in practice, the team playing 5-3-2 is always out numbered in midfield. This means that the central defenders, who have become the first passers out of defence cannot find an unmarked midfield player ahead of them, so they tend to miss midfield out and go from back to front. This is not a good idea as it automatically hands the advantage to the 2 big players at the heart of the opposition defence. Essentially, 4-5-1 has won the battle of formations because it is dictating how the game will be played.

The contents of the above paragraph is well known within the game, and was even described by the Chesterfield manager last week. LJ also knows the score and this is the reason he did not use 5-3-2, opting for 3-5-2 instead. However, I will stick by my original analysis. The 3-5-2 system is too complex to introduce to an inexperienced team full of young players because it has difficult hand over procedures with respect to opposition wide players and it put our two young full backs into areas they were not comfortable with.

I have described above how the process works where a team starts a game with the intention of passing the ball through midfield, but because one system dominates over the other, it gradually turns defenders into the principle passers, who hit the ball from back to front missing out midfield entirely. I entirely agree with your assessment of Rothwell, but midfield ceased to function not only because of Rothwell. As an attacking force, both Smith and Bree just did not work effectively. Perhaps they both had Tuesday night still in their legs, they are very young to play two long games in just 4 days. For whatever reason, as the half progressed the ball was launched more and more from back to front to two forwards neither of whom is noted for their aerial ability. The team structure was not working and it was clear, to me at least that the system had to be ditched.

You are correct that our system was 4-1-4-1, but I have never been fond of increasing the number of lines when describing formations, so I will stick with 4-5-1 if you don't mind. The imbalance in that system came from Crowley reluctance to retaining his position on the left side, from Watkins lack of ability on the right side and from the fact that (as I have said on many occasions before) Winnall cannot play up front on his own. The team lacked a big man up front and it lacked pace out wide. Crowley may be a good player in the future, but he is not a good player at the moment because his decision-making lacks maturity.

You make the point that Winnall's service was poor, which it was, but you do not link this to any specific reason. Clearly Tuesday was still in the players' legs, clearly the players are still getting used to each other, clearly many of our players are very young. But equally clearly, at least to me, the manager did not help by giving them a system to play in that first half that they struggled to get to grips with. I am not calling for the manager to be sacked, in fact I hope he stays for 10 years because there have been too many changes of personnel at Oakwell and it is time that we had some stability. But equally, if I think he is wrong, I believe that I have the right to point it out.

Thank-you for reading if you got this far.

 

Never mind the typo's come and sit wi me ,I lost all all sense of formations when the inside left/right positions went extinct .would love to sit with someone of your understanding of the modern game.I ent a clue.

Also goes for redrain.

 

Fantastic post.

Best I've read on yesterday.

Agree about the system, Bree & Smith are still learning playing as full backs in men's football & now they're been asked to play as wing backs

 

Some great posts here, but like reading war and peace. Red rain why would you put Roberts on bench as he's been our best defender in the 3 games we've played ? Stronger in a tackle and headers than Nyatanga so surely drop Nyatanga. Also LJ said last season he doesn't like centre half splaying full back, in 2 league games that's what he's done so if he's no faith in Smith we need a new left back.

 

A new LWB in vital of we're going to play 3-5-2. Smiths attacking play is poor.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

 

No interest in what formations we play as long as we ARE ENTERTAINED!!!!!!

Something that's been lacking all too often at Oakwell.

Like Springvale Red states it's like reading War n Peace reading some of the posts and I quickly tire after the 2nd paragraph.

Come on LJ let's play to entertain not to bore folk to death!

 

First of all, I think the centre backs work better with a left foot / right foot combination. However, my main reasoning is that Roberts is less established and more likely to take being left out in the proper spirit. I did think that he was the pick of the three at the back yesterday, but not by much, and certainly not enough to risk upsetting either of the others. He would be unlucky.

 

It's a difficult one. On the performances this season, preseason and cup, Roberts and Mwson would be my pick in a back 4. Although that would mean we lose some experience. I think Smith is ok at LB but doesn't cut it right now as Wing Back.