it cannot work in the championship, teams are just getting in behind us too easily,the gaps for through balls to be played are scary,we leave 2 at the back when we attack and when our attack breaks down, the space to run into is scary, take Fulham they just dropped Parker into the centre of defence ,the central defenders moved wide ,used the goaly as a 4th man with the ball, winnall and watkins chasing shadows, then as soon as they had bypassed winnall and watkins, they had 5 midfield against 4, forcing hammill and kent to track back and negate their attacking use, if they were outwide Fulham had 5 v 2, no wonder it was so easy to pass through us We got to ditch 4 4 2, it cant work in this league
Thing is if we ditch 4-4-2 completely we go back to the ***** we had to put up with in our last spell in the championship. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
and thats all we will get if we carry on 4 4 2, now teams are into their stride and the seasons well up and running, they've worked us out, there was no way we could keep the energy levels for the pressing game up all season, we need to be able to get more men in the box, 4 4 2 is not going to give us enough possession to do that
That isn't true though. Plenty of teams play good football in a range of formations. I'm not necessarily saying we shouldn't play 4-4-2. Hourrihane lets us play 4-4-2 because he's that good, but if he is injured maybe we should look to something different? Each formation has its merits, and often it depends on personnel. I don't think we were too exposed last night personally but I don't think we should be blindly wedded to something
So passing the ball sideways and plying 4231 will allow us to get more men in the box? The two goals we conceded last night were nothing to do with systems. They were to do with poor decision making.
4 4 2 is causing us to get turned round too easy and teams get in behind us too easy, it is also not allowing us to build pressure as we have 2 wide men and as soon as our attack breaks down we are swamped in midfield
The system worked last night. They scored from a bit of luck / bad marking at a corner & a bad error of Davies. We could've quite easily scored twice with Jackson's header & Bradshaw just missing Kent's low cross late on. Fine margins. I felt we held our own, didn't feel anywhere near as down as I did after the Fulham game where we were out played by a weaker side than Newcastle. The big issue is the two wingers. Both out of form. Hammill' just not involved & Kent seems to be the oppositions key player with how many times he gives the ball away & allows them to counter. Between the two they had about 160 minutes on the pitch & the only chance they created was Kent's low cross in injury time.
Don't get concerned about all this formation crap.its mostly slightly tinkering with 442.coaches trying to sound clever and journalists repeating it to try to sound clever and fans ringing phone ins to try to sound clever.when the opposition get the ball take it off em.pass it to your mate and run so he can pass it back to you if he wants. don't let the other buggers score,make sure we do.leave it to Hecky.He doesn't have to try to sound clever because he is. Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
think we should go back to infant school tactics then ,no formation ,just chase the ball everywhere,cos as you say we dont need a formation
Last year we played 4-4-2 and played it with great success. The system relied heavily on our two wide players for its success. Isgrove worked like a Trojan and Hammill provided the inspiration. Now you can just blame the wingers for the lack of success of the system this year, and there is no doubt that Hammill lacks pace at this level and Kent does not cover the full back like Isgrove did. Or you could look at the system and question whether the opposition at this level know how to stop 4-4-2 and that is why no other team is using it. As an example, last night Hammill received the ball and was immediately surrounded by 3 players. Undeterred, he took it around the outside of the first, who stayed on his feet and in position, ready to block Hammill's trademark turn onto his right foot and cut in from the left and shot into the top corner. The other two players shepherded Hammill into the corner and dispossessed him. That is just an example, and the system that Newcastle played meant that they had the players in the right part of the field to do that. Benitez knew exactly how he was going to make our 4-4-2 system ineffective. He simply made our two wide players ineffective. Not only is the quality of players better at this level, but the quality of thinking from opposition managers is better. Rafa Benitez sacrificed some of his team's effectiveness going forward in the hope that we would eventually make a mistake, which we did. In contrast, Fulham used Parker's ability to dominate the middle of the park and conduct his midfield orchestra ahead of him. Fulham were much more dominant, and their control of the match was much more obvious, but the end result was the same, a defeat by 2 clear goals. I have said elsewhere that I did not think that the formation made any difference yesterday, and I do not think that it did. But equally, I think that it is harsh to blame the performances of our two wide players for our defeat. Opposition managers are focusing their attention on the way that they can win the game, just as we do, and they have identified that taking our wide players out of the game is important to that strategy. We have two options. Carry on with 4-4-2 and hope for a change in outcome, or change our strategy and hope to find one that offers a better balance. Changing players is not something that we can do in the short term, and even changing strategy is hard because we locked in to 4-4-2 with the players that we acquired in the last transfer window.
yes ,but its football in its simplest form and the higher up the leagues you go it ,is easy to stop and eventually defeat
Systems didn't take the ball off our wide players,quality defenders did.far higher quality than they faced last season.keeping the ball better and not switching off will make a difference to the result.unless we do that changing the system will make no difference whatsoever Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
This. I hope we keep trying to win games rather than go back to 4231, square balls and boring everyone to death. The fact is that some teams have better players. In fact most. Only through hard graft and our own bits of quality will we succeed.