Will Davey drop Brian Howard?

Thats fine when you are a supporter. You can advocate that stategy and complain that the manager / players / tactics are rubbish when you get beat by a sack load. But if you would lose your job if results did not follow, would you still advocate those tactics. Surely we would have to be extraordinarily good at keeping the ball, passing and scoring goals to be gung-ho attacking. Surely the players would have had to have been playing together for a long time so that they could read eachothers minds, appreciate eachothers strengths and cover for eachothers weaknesses. Are you sure that this team has all those qualities?

 

I am no lover of Davey or his tactics, but he does change tactic during matches. In support of this opinion I offer the Plymouth game. Holloway changed his tactics at 3-0 to go 3-4-3 against our 3-5-2. He played his front three up against our 3 defenders and told them to rough us up. It worked and they got back to 3-2, whereupon Davey changed to 4-4-2 and stopped the rot.

 

I'm not talking about gung-ho attacking

Playing attacking football does not mean you have to be gung-ho about it. A 4-4-2 system is not gung-ho. It gives you two banks of 4 when defending. Attaciking football is a mind set where you concentrate on your own strengths rather than worry about the oppositions strengths. That means playing Brian Howard in a central position. That means getting crosses in to the big forwards we have purchased this summer.

If all we do this season is put out a side to try to nullify the opposition then we'll be down by Christmas. If we play to our strengths and really try to give the opposition a game of it then we'll do much, much better.

 

Did he ?</p>

When Werling went off poor bloody Ricketts was slotted in at wing back. He had no-one in front of him until Christianson (sp) came on and started working the left channel. Up to that point Ricketts basically hoofed the ball upfield to no-one in particular. imho we were an absolute shambles for the last 20 minutes.</p>

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My point was that we have changed so many players that there is little understanding in the team at the moment. You cannot start playing expansive football before the team has solidified. In such circumstances you have to play safe until the team gels. When the side settles we can gradually release the better players to play with more freedom. It may be in Davey's mind to safrifice Howard in order to improve defensively.

 

Wouldn’t surprise me to see Howard dropped with Davey in charge.

How dare a player look to do something positive and try to attack during a game. Shame on you Brian.

Don’t you know your supposed to concede as mush possession as possible to give them as much chance of wining as possible and hardly venture into the opposition half of the pitch.

 

That is not how I saw it. The back 4 was Kozluk, Foster, Souza and Nyatanga. Ricketts played in front of Nyatanga. The back four squeezed together to give them a four v three and Ricketts and the rest of the midfield worked to close down the passers. For a while we were just kicking it aimlessly, I agree, but towards the end of the game we could have scored again as Christensen missed a header at the back post and then had a shot saved. I addition Brian Howard picked the wrong pass against a retreating back three on at least 2 occasions.

 

eh?

How can the team play safe as you put it if they dont understand each other?</p>

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Take Scnuthorpe for example, are they 4th in the league at this early stage due to been negative.

Imagine us away at Charlton on the 1st game of the season. Scnuthorpe went to the Valley and where unlucky not to get the full 3 points. Imagine that been us, would we have gone there and attacked them?

Most likely it would have been a comfortable stroll in the park and maybe a 2 or 3 -0 win for the home team.

Colchester are the same, they knew last season they where not good enough to sit back and defended the best way they knew which was to attack.

Odejayi playing as a right back as he basically did until Ferenczi went off last Saturday is not and should not be an option.

 

From Ponty end it looked to me like Ricketts was at Nyatanga's side at times.</p>

They were camped in our half which is when we hit them on the break. Agreed that if Howard had got his head up and passed to his left then we were in.</p>

 

Also if Christensen could bring the ball under control and run towards the goal we might have scored a couple on the break.</p>

Especially the hopeful punt by Ricketts that stayed in play.</p>

 

In order to pass the ball accurately through an opposition defence you need to understand the type of run the player will make. The forward will have to bend his run to stay onside. He will have to understand how the passer likes to deliver the ball. When there is no understanding, passes cannot be delivered accurately. This makes attacking much more difficult than defending. OK, defending also needs the understanding of the back four but stopping goals does not require as much skill as scoring them. Therefore, when a team is in trouble they always start building confidence from the back. They play safe by keeping their banks of four in that formation rather than letting one of the four get out of line by running past the front two.

 

I watch from the east stand upper tier. I believe that you get a better understanding for what is happening if you watch from the side and a better view of formations if you watch from above. Course we do not get much atmosphere up there.

 

Will Davey realy know what tactics will beat Scnuthorpe?

With or without Brian Howard. He can pick who he wants but if he gets the 'game plan' wrong dunt matter. (doh) (doh)

 

If Howard is dropped then SD is officially useless as a manager. Anybody with half a brain can see that he is head and shoulders the best player at our club. Only way I can see him being dropped is through injury and then McCann is a direct swap for him. He should play centrally all the time too. We have enough wide players now to mean Howie should never be needed to play on the left.

 

Give him a free role

If we play 4-4-2, play the two defensive midfielders, 1 winger and give howard a free role.

 

No

That's it.