We've gone to 4-4-2 with attacking full backs - we now have quick, skilful players who suit this system, but it will always leave us open at the back. Last week, Wigan had acres of space in the final third but failed to capitalise as they were so poor. I wasn't at Colchester so can't comment. Hourihane isn't massively suited to a 4-4-2 but who cares? He scores goals for fun and chips in with plenty of assists. Our centre halves are weak and slow, and our full-backs don't convince me. Hammill and Watkins aren't great defensively, particularly against good players. My gut feeling is that decent teams will tear us to shreds. But guess what? This is League One. It's awful. We can afford to be elaborate because most teams won't punish us. I'm happy Johnson has seen this and has ditched the stupid holding midfielder role which isn't needed at home to Shrewsbury Town and Crewe. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Scowen comes back.
When have Hammill and Watkins come up against "Good players" the division is dog ****, we lost 9 on the trot and we aren't cut adrift, a run of wins like we have had under Johnson last season and we could be on the fringe of the play offs.
Thing is, we shouldn't be setting up worrying about other teams. That has been the problem all season and we've been hit with the sucker punch time and again. Had we played to OUR strengths and shown faith in the strengths of our players Vs Shrewsbury, Crewe etc, instead of being defensive and negative, I'm sure we'd be much higher in the league. Too much over-thinking a simple game. Hopefully LJ has turned the corner by playing to our strengths.
Precisely. LJ still hasnt turned the corner though, he's won a couple of games. He seems to have stumbled upon a formation many have been calling for all year but what happens when he needs/wants to change personel/formation again? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Against Shrewsbury and Crewe we didn't have Adam Hammill and we didn't have Ivan Toney. I'd argue we tried playing to our strengths but our strengths were few and far between. It's worth looking at the team Johnson selected in both games (and others where we all think we should have done better) and then at what was available to him on the bench. I'm sure people can select a team and formation from those players that they believe would do better, but I bet it includes players that they have previously called *****. It's also worth noting that along with the two goals Colchester scored yesterday (the same amount that both Crewe and Shrewsbury scored), they missed a couple of sitters. Plus Davies pulled off some fine saves. I remember us missing chances when we played both Crewe and Shrewsbury, but, in the case of Crewe in particular, they barely got out of their own half. We didn't have Hammill and Toney to finish off the chances back then; yesterday we did. I didn't go yesterday, I listened on the radio. Sounded like we completely dominated first half but were under the cosh for much of the second. Same players on the pitch asked to do the same job. In the first half they did it, in the second they didn't. That's what you get from young, inexperienced players: inconsistency. Not just from match to match, but different periods within the same game. Not sure you can blame Johnson's tactics and formation for that. I don't put our improved form down to a change in tactics or formation. I think it's entirely down to the fact that in Hammill and Toney we've signed better players. I think we would be a much more potent attacking force, and therefore win more games, whatever formation we play, if these two are in the side. I think we would have won more of our previous games, like Shrewsbury and Crewe, if Toney and Hammill had been available to us. Unfortunately, as yet, we haven't improved the defensive side of our game. We look as vulnerable at the back as we ever did. Maybe even more so. Not every team are going to miss the type of chances that Colchester missed and we've conceded 2 or more goals in 9 of the last 12 league games. The player we brought in to help address that got himself sent off and has been missing for the last 3 games. His loan period runs out on the date of our next fixture so I'm not sure if that means he's available to us or not. It's great to see us scoring goals again, but it seems we need 3 to stand a chance of winning the game. That's not going to happen every week, however well Hammill and Toney play. More often than it used to, but we're going to continue to struggle until we bring in a nasty bugger in midfield to play alongside Hourihane and an experienced centre half who can organise the defence. At the very least. And that will be the case just as much with 4-4-2 playing to our strengths as it will with any other formation. Plus we'll need another forward with the same attributes as Toney if he returns to Newcastle on January 9th when his loan runs out.
I think the truth lies somewhere in between Matthew and Jay's points the change in formation suits the players we have better. Playing Scowen and Pearson together in central midfield pretty much stifled all creativity and left the forward players isolated and without support. At the same time we have signed Hammill and Toney who are strong players in this league and offer us more dynamism and attacking quality. The defence is a shambles. Mawson is a poor man's Martin Cranie. Nyantanga without a leader at the side of him looks woeful. Since the last time we kept a clean sheet I have had two mates have kids and grown a beard and shaved it off not good enough. I guess this has to be the biggest disappointment of Johnson's tenure to date. Prior to his arrival and in the winning streak afterwards the team Danny built had very solid foundations though was playing dour football it's a shame that these have been dismantled.
Go back to basics and we will climb the league and be a lot more watchable. Simple tactics and formation along with solid players in the spine of the team are all basic minimum requirements for a team to do well. Lets hope that within the next batch of defenders that we sign is someone that can tackle and mark a man. Quality rather than quantity is the way forward.
The formation he's stumbled on is called Adam Hammill. Lets hope he stays free of injuries otherwise were back to square one. Defensive recruits in the transfer window are a priority
I'd argue that playing 5 across midfield in those 2 games (and other games), at the expense of an additional striker, was not playing to our strengths in those games. I think LJs obsession with having to offer his young midfield "extra cover" is what cost us.
Our options for a second striker for the Crewe game were Michael Smith, and I think you've made it clear what you think about him. And Harry White, who none of us really know anything about. Against Shrewsbury we'd been playing with two up front for 20 minutes when we conceded the winner. With 5 in midfield we'd looked like winning the game. When we brought on a second striker we went backwards. For the first time in the match Shrewsbury started taking the game to us and eventually scored in the 90th minute. We brought Smith and Harris on to go 4-4-2. I've no doubt at all had that been Hammill and Toney it would have been a different outcome. I just don't think we had the quality.
I've had a pre match chat with friends for every home game. Pretty much every week we've said the same thing - Why are we flooding midfield/ defence? Why aren't we playing to the strengths of Winnall? Why aren't we imposing ourselves on teams from the off? I can't remember why Jackson was not included for the Crewe game, but he was available for selection for the Shrewsbury game. I'd have picked him. I agree that we haven't had the quality of Hammill and Toney for some games, but I really do believe for the majority of home games we have not played to our strengths. Instead we have been preoccupied with countering the opposition's strengths. My view is that if we'd have played 4-4-2 every single game this season, with someone alongside Winnall, we'd be in a much higher position, and Winnall would have bagged more goals. It's all conjecture though. We'll never know.
That is based on the premise that 4-5-1 is a defensive formation though which played properly it isn't. Although I agree Winnall was unsuited to it which was the problem
When Johnson came to Athersley Rec he said that Ben Pearson had never played 4-4-2 in his entire footballing career and simply couldn't do it. Academies just don't play that way. He also said that both Hourihane and Scowen weren't very good at it. They'd been working in training for weeks to get them playing together in such a formation so they could use 4-4-2 on match days. It's difficult to argue that the results could have been much worse had we adopted 4-4-2 from the start, but if the manager has reservations about his players in such a formation and the players themselves aren't comfortable with it, I can understand why we didn't play that way until everyone concerned thought they'd nailed it.
I know time moves on but look at the side Ritchie had. He mixed up no nonsense players (Kay, Richards, Burns) with quality (Howard, Hayes, McPhail, Nardiello) and had the experience of Hassell, Reid, Heckingbottom, Cogan to back up the young players like Austin, Tonge, Williams etc. It took us 4 years to get out of the division and we spent a lot of time trying to "football" our way out. Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk
the division is what it is.the manager has cost us many points with his failure to have a proper game plan and failure to reconise the team needs a shot of experience.Do you go to games ? just a question like
I've been thinking about this today, and the more I think about it, the more I think, "what utter ******". Not your post - but Johnson saying that (or using it as a reason to justify not using 4-4-2). Pearson can't play in it? He's never done it in any academy? Ben Pearson, the professional footballer? Ben Pearson, Manchester United? It's up there with. "well it was on his weaker foot". These are professional athletes. They should be adaptable. And the 4-4-2 is Primary School level in terms of understanding. It's simple. The simplest. If these pro footballers are really so dim that they can't pick up the easiest system there is, then they should not be playing the game. I doubt that they are that dim. I doubt that they are that inept. And once again, it shows to me that LJ was not playing to our strengths, but to compensate for perceived weaknesses, that may not have even existed.
Agree entirely. Although I think he is correct about Ben Pearson in that he cannot play in a 442 AND allow us to keep clean sheets. Not because he's the wrong kind of player or better suited to another formation but simply because he is not good enough. He isn't good enough at tracking his man, anticipating the next move or at tackling to be the sole defensive midfielder, he isn't good enough going forward or has enough vision to be the attacking midfielder either and as a middle man, neither attacking nor defending he just goes missing. Playing 5 in midfield solves the defensive problem because there is somebody there babysitting him. Not because it suits him or us better but simply because it covers up for his weaknesses. If he had been a Barnsley academy player he would be playing 2 games a season for us like Abbott and digby. It is only because he comes from man utd that we have played him so much because we, or somebody anyway, has fallen for the old 'big club signed him so he must be good' trick. What they fail to realise is that Manchester united are a lot LESS selective with their youth players than other clubs because they can afford to sign 100 in the hope that 1 works out. Being a youth player at man utd isn't a sign of greatness at all.