Today's Formation

[cc_star]

Was trying to debate the positives/negatives of this in the post match thread, but its been crashed by wind up merchant, so apols for the separate thread, but as this is the first time Sven has changed things I thought it was worthy of talking about more.

I've had a nagging doubt (not a criticism, more a thought) in the back of my head that Sven is sometimes slow to play his 'plan b' to the point that I wondered if he had one.

But today I think our change of formation worked really well, I often think our 4-3-3 is very poor when the opposition has the ball, when it should naturally default to a 4-5-1 but it's sometimes quite ineffective at that as the wide forwards aren't very good at tucking back & getting stuck in for a bit.

Well today that changed with the 4-4-2, I don't know if that was a result of playing higher quality opposition which can exploit either wing, or that fact Sven though he needed a change thanks to PVAs injury.

but I saw positives all over the pitch. Yakubu was far more involved than he normally is & I never got the thought we were carrying him like we often seem to when he's in the middle on his own.

The midfield had a much better shape to it, especially when QPR had the ball, this led to not everything getting through to our defence for a change

King still had plenty of chances

Having the extra-man in the middle never stopped our defenders getting forwards; Naughton, Mee & even Bruma & Bamba were all over their half at times

Obviously we got sucker-punched after Gally lost possession in the middle, but on the whole I thought our shape worked really really well - especially when you take into account we were away (where we're normally crap) at the division champions elect, who have only lost once there all season.

All-in-all it gets a thumbs up from me, I hope we continue with it away from home.... Thoughts?

[Babylon]

We know it's Svens preferred, time will tell if the players we have can play in it. Worked today though, thought Mee was great LB.

[shailen]

Formation worked well, but we went for the win and pushed everyone forward, they countered on us got a goal. Even though this cost us a point its a tactic we have to employ, we have to win as many games.as we can now, we need 3 points, 1 point is similar to a loss at this stage!

[Socks]

worked really well I thought, defence was a bit jittery though.....

Mee was out standing and our midfielders and attackers played much better (if only yak's lob would have gone in!)

but gutted we lost and got knocked down the table a a bit and now 5 points from leeds... but it can still go our way

i had to stop listening to the match after 55 mins, were we the same for the last 35 ?? was QPR's goal lucky ? or class ? or a defensive/goalie error ?

only just got back home but was nice to drive down the embankment in Nottingham (where I live) and see the forest fans glum faces!! that cheered me up a little.

bring on the Canarys !!

:chant:

[zynxus]

cardiff are losing

[Brown Fox]

It wasn't actually a 4-4-2 as such but more of a 4-1-3-2 which I thought worked very well. I'm not sure if we an utilise it at home though because I think Sven did this because the picth at qpr is so narrow therefore allowed us to play with relatively little width in midfield and allowing the full back to provide width with Mee in particular having lots of freedom on the left side. Not sure it will be played at home due to our pitch being much wider and we could get killed on the flanks but hey Sven will work his magic!

[unreachable]

It wasn't actually a 4-4-2 as such but more of a 4-1-3-2 which I thought worked very well. I'm not sure if we an utilise it at home though because I think Sven did this because the picth at qpr is so narrow therefore allowed us to play with relatively little width in midfield and allowing the full back to provide width with Mee in particular having lots of freedom on the left side. Not sure it will be played at home due to our pitch being much wider and we could get killed on the flanks but hey Sven will work his magic!

Good analysis. Abe was sitting in front of the defenders with good effect. The negative nature of the formation nullified QPR and we now have the advantage of the back four being very comfortable on the ball and being able to distribute the ball very well. I may sound like a broken record but we seem to lack that killer ball in the final third and the ability to finish our chances.

[shailen]

worked really well I thought, defence was a bit jittery though.....

Mee was out standing and our midfielders and attackers played much better (if only yak's lob would have gone in!)

but gutted we lost and got knocked down the table a a bit and now 5 points from leeds... but it can still go our way

i had to stop listening to the match after 55 mins, were we the same for the last 35 ?? was QPR's goal lucky ? or class ? or a defensive/goalie error ?

only just got back home but was nice to drive down the embankment in Nottingham (where I live) and see the forest fans glum faces!! that cheered me up a little.

bring on the Canarys !!

:chant:

We battered them last 35 mins, waghorn had 3 good chances, a king header which hit the bar...generally we were the better team and they broke on us after i think gally lost the ball and scored!

[Guest ttfn]

Today's formation was mental.

Routledge did a good job keeping Naughton penned back so we had little width.

[MC Prussian]

Four central midfielders (three of them defensive-oriented) on the same pitch just don't work.

Sven, sort it out.

[Kenners]

I thought it worked well

[MC Prussian]

I thought it worked well

Nullifying the QPR attacks maybe, but it certainly didn't help going forward.

[Kenners]

Nullifying the QPR attacks maybe, but it certainly didn't help going forward.

You have to remember we're away from home and against the top of the league

[davieG]

When you play on a pitch that is sized for schoolboys then that's a decent reason to change the formation.