Formation and out of position players

[Grewks]

After watching our first two league games of the season i am shocked at the lack of tactical knowledge that a manager of the calibre of sven should have. Although only 2 league games have gone and im sure it will improve ( 8 new signings in the first 11 today means gelling time) we, in my opinion do not need to worry too much about a striker, not yet anyway, afterall we appear to struggle to create chances. I personally put this down to the lack of real support on the flanks in our first half 4-3-3 system.

Instead of signing mills for around £5 million, could we have not kept hobbs and then either played him or st.ledger with bamba (who i have to say is our best center back for a long time). I know that this was our area of weakness last season as we conceded too many goals ( i dont believe the constant switching around of hobbs, mee, bamba and vitor helped matters). Afterall if we had the same defence as last season i believe it would concede less than last year as we have better protection in front of the back 4. But this is another problem, in my opinion playing abe, fernandes and wellens is all good away from home, and i am very glad that we are taking a different approach to away games compared to previous seasons, but at home when you are looking to control the game then 2 defensive midfielders are not needed unless against a very strong side or a side which is on top form.

Now onto the second half and a different formation 4-4-2 diamond. This formation worked well away at cov and did to an extent today, we were controlling the second half up until their goal so was really disappointing to concede, but we have to take our chances no matter how difficult they are. My main concern with this formation was the midfield 4. None of them knew where they were playing and i saw less of neil danns than the inisible man Andy king. We really have to inject some pace into our side, we have players like kingy and gallagher who are top players and it is a shame they do not have pace as they would be quality prem players, but we do need pace to take advantage of the technical ability of gallagher and to allow kingy space for his trademark late runs.

My other problem on the whole with Sven is that he likes to play people out of position. We today saw schlupp who is a st play lw and rw and we also saw danns who can play anywhere in cm play rw and lw. Now that we have the money why do we need to do this, we have gallagher who is not a natural winger but is more adapted to these positions and we also have lloyd dyer our most accomplished winger in the squad, which doesnt say a lot about our strengths out wide even though i love the lad. Vassell is often played wide right also and as we saw last season, particulary the doncaster game, this is where he can have a much bigger impact as not only will he score from this position but he will also create room for other players, similar to a heskey type role. Abe is also played out of position every time he is in the starting line up and not on the bench.

If i was manger of our beloved club ( i do not claim to be better than Sven or any other pro or amateur manager as i am clearly not) then i would not have payed £5 million pounds for Matt Mills ( he may turn out to be worth even more) or any other CB who we can realistically attract. one defender cannot on his own make a huge difference to a side e.g 20 clean sheets, where as a forward thinking player can e.g. 20 goals or 15 assists etc. There is nothing to suggest from what i have seen so far of matt mills is that he is worth 5 times the amount of jack hobbs or st ledger ( i didnt even either when at hull and preston last season) or 20 times the amount of bamba. The reason why we have lost 4 consecutives times to reading is largely down to 1 person, not brian mcdermott or shane long or matt mills, it is because of jimmy kebe, we have all seen in those 4 games that he is the best winger in the league and is the best player we can get to fill the wide man role. If we had kept the money from the Matt Mills deal then we could have bought kebe and, on a good day, had a couple of million spare.

If we want to get the best possible league finish this season then we will need good wins at home and solid draws away. If we play abe fernandes and wellens in midfield then which out of the 3 will score the 15+ goals that kingy is capable of, now they would be long odds. Jimmy Kebe wont score that amount but he will create a lot more opportunities as well as an out option purely because of his pace.

New poster so no hate please, most gramatical errors down to dyslexia while others due to ignorance at this late hour

.....................Grewks..........................

[Salieri]

Some very good points made there and

[Grewks]

Some very good points made there and

Thankyou its good to be here, i just think that we only need 1 defensive midfielder at home. In my opinion it should be fernandes as he seems quicker, stronger, better talker, more energetic, better work rate and a better committed team player. playing abe just means that the ball stays in our half longer which then means the chances of counter attacks diminish. We need to take note of how Norwich played last season as they were the best team to come to the KP last season.

[cc_star]

They don't all know what they're doing

yes it's partly down to gelling but seeing as almost all of them were there before the whole tour I'd say it must be a training ground issue too. I'd expect a lot of work to be done this week, despite how early it is the top 2 nearly always win 7+ from the first 10 games

Sven has got to pick the best formation from the players at his disposal you cant force square pegs into round holes which is what is happening with Fernandes, Abe & especially Danns. We've lost the guile of King & the creativity if Gally too

[ithuriel]

A lot of peeps are blasting pantsil but i thought defensively he was very good, his crossing might not be the best yet but this was his first full game this season ?

Mills needs to get into the swing of things as well it seem's.

Peeps seem to forget these players are still gelling.

[Grewks]

They don't all know what they're doing

yes it's partly down to gelling but seeing as almost all of them were there before the whole tour I'd say it must be a training ground issue too. I'd expect a lot of work to be done this week, despite how early it is the top 2 nearly always win 7+ from the first 10 games

Sven has got to pick the best formation from the players at his disposal you cant force square pegs into round holes which is what is happening with Fernandes, Abe & especially Danns. We've lost the guile of King & the creativity if Gally too

surely with the money that sven has spent there should be no square pegs for round holes, and totally agree about king and gally

[cc_star]

surely with the money that sven has spent there should be no round pegs for round holes, and totally agree about king and gally

I know, I'm self editing else i get blasted

[Grewks]

A lot of peeps are blasting pantsil but i thought defensively he was very good, his crossing might not be the best yet but this was his first full game this season ?

Mills needs to get into the swing of things as well it seem's.

Peeps seem to forget these players are still gelling.

My problem is not with the current players we have it is the current players which we dont, even if danns did fully gel and play out wide he would not be as effective as an established wide man, you wouldnt expect dyer to play cm so why should we expect danns to play out wide?

i agree about pantsil though he was one of our better players and was gutted because we lost, he only got clearance 2 days ago, also looked very athletic and mobile.

[marbelladave]

We have been struggling with our shape for some time, Mills apart the back 5 is looking pretty solid, I think Mills is suffering badly from missing much of pre-season but that is not our biggest problem.

For me this is still the midfied, too many players doing the same job, some asked to play totally alien roles, I simply can not see how we are getting it so wrong.....

Danns as a wide man, hopeless, Wellens as the holding player, nonsense, King as attacking midfield, just plain wrong! No point wharsoever playing Abe and Fernandez in the same side, simply a waste of a player.

Sort this out or we are going nowhere....

[Grewks]

We have been struggling with our shape for some time, Mills apart the back 5 is looking pretty solid, I think Mills is suffering badly from missing much of pre-season but that is not our biggest problem.

For me this is still the midfied, too many players doing the same job, some asked to play totally alien roles, I simply can not see how we are getting it so wrong.....

Danns as a wide man, hopeless, Wellens as the holding player, nonsense, King as attacking midfield, just plain wrong! No point wharsoever playing Abe and Fernandez in the same side, simply a waste of a player.

Sort this out or we are going nowhere....

all the points you make i agree with except maybe kings and i tried to implement them into my first post, abe should be the player dropped as the only attribute which he has the advantage of fernandes is that he speaks better japanese. with fernandes in front of the back four wellens should be given a free role between fernandes and nugent, he is the only player out of the 3 cm's which started today which can create something, he is a very intelligent footballer.

[Fox92]

One up front is wrong, especially at home. We need two wingers and a striker, if I had 5million to spend, I would have looked at Kebe first.

I think Sven has to many midfielders and he doesn't know where to play them all. I know I don't rate King but if he is going to score goals and we haven't got a striker to assist Nugent then get him in. Thats another thing, a striker. We should have gone for Yakubu who has the proven quality in the Prem never mind in this division.

And, our depth is not that good. The three players that come arn't exactly impact subs.

[RumbleFox]

Good morning. Right, whilst not knocking any post here and acknowledging the right of anyone to put forward constructive criticism I do feel you are being slightly too hasty. We were poor yesterday, good for 45 minutes in the cup and lucky againt Coventry but it's three games in with a lot of new players. Look at Arsenal and Liverpool yesterday. Both looked pretty bad but I would put money on both being in the top five come the end of the season. I am pretty darn sure we will get it right. We have to put some faith in the team and the management at this stage. We just have to. We can vent our frustrations if we are in a similar position to last season after 10 games but not after two league games surely? Surely we should try and remain positive at least for a little while? Booing the players and leaving before the end? So embarrassing and how arrogant does is make us look that we think we have a devine right to win every game. We got three points away at Cov after having a man sent off after 10 minutes. We had the emergence of a genuine star at Rotherham in a thrilling second half and we lost yesterday against what is a very good team. Sven does not know his best 11 yet or formation and you can say that he should by now but it is not that simple. What looks best on paper sometimes just does not work in real life and in a few more weeks I'm sure we'll see a more settled side and a system that works. And don't get me wrong I like playing manager more than anyone! I have 65 different formations in my little jotter in front of me and I actually just held a mock press conference using my action fugures as the press. I have little to no life and I still play CM01/02 every day. You can imagine I don't get much action. I'm miserable actually. Please help me. Oh God, what man is this!!!

Sorry, lost the plot a little. All I was saying is that whilst I love to talk formation and try out systems in my feeble little head I think that at this early stage we should try and be positive and give the team all the support we can. If we are still doing shat in 10 games you can call me a mongtwodder and I will gladly felate myself into oblivion but until then come on! Let's get together and support our team! Come on you beautiful Foxes, I believe in you!!!

Rumble.

X

[somebum]

Too hasty? Poor tactics and playing people out of position are characteristic of Sven's entire career, it is not a recent phenomenon.

[ThurnbyLodgeFox]

i agree with the gally and king.. why to fook did he start Schlupp over gallagher 1 good game against a league 2 team doesnt warrant a starting position in a competitive championship game against a team TWO leagues higher than Rotherham. that was the first mistake. second i felt that this formation we are playing doesnt create chances. we need to play our best players, ie King, Gallagher. Was a little frustrated with Sven's tactics yesterday. You only have to look at last season stats on King to argue that he deserves to start. You could tell of our lack of strikers when BAMBA had to play upfront for the last 15 mins. all in all i was disappointed with the game yesterday and to be honest we deserved to lose

[Heart-Shaped Fox]

Agree with all of your point Grewks, and have been saying that Sven isnt the best tactically for a very long while now. (Though unlike you I got criticised and didnt get a popular star for my posts!)

My major problem with Sven is that he puts square pegs in round holes, just to accomodate players. We have too many centre midfielders, so he tries playing 4 of them without any wingers leavung us very narrow and each centre mid looked liek they didnt know what their specific job was. And I dont knwo why King isnt in the midfield, people say we lack goals from up front, but he will chip in with his fair share from midfield so he should always start.

I raised the Jack Hobbs point yesterday. People on here say Sven got rid of Hobbs as he isnt a good footballing defender who likes to get rid of the ball rather than pass it around. Well from what I have seen of Mills he is far worse, not even attempting a pass just kicking it anywhere, usually to the opposition. I'm not sure who is better Hobsb or Mills, but selling Hobsb for about a million and spending 5 million of Mills isnt good business and certainly doesnt make sense.

Steve Claridge has gone on record to say he isnt Sven's biggest fan because he thinks that we arent set up properly in terms of formation or player selection, meaning we ahve players all over the place. He was again proved right yesterday as the formation and tactics were a shambles.

People say Sven is a good manager and I still beg to differ as he has nothing to show for it for years, but we need to give him time before judging him further.

[Leicester_Loyal]

Kebe is a beast, amazing player, really wish we'd signed him to play LW/RW.

[shade]

I think Sven has to many midfielders and he doesn't know where to play them all.

this. all day every day. it also makes him shiit a brick about playing 442 because he has 8 central midfielders in the squad that he wants to shoehorn in the team.

[SMX11]

I don't think it is the case that we need buy x,y or z to solve out problems, we just need a bit of logic in the composition to the midfield. Abe and Fernandes in the same team, at home, is just negative and counter productive. There aren't any goals going to be coming from the midfield with the current selection and there isn't enough creativity with the two defensive midfielders. I haven't been to a game this season yet (going Wednesday) but it isn't that hard to see that the current set up in the front 6 is not producing/ will not produce enough goals to fire us to anywhere near the top two. I think Sven should ditch this 4-3-3 into the memory banks of last seasons misery and start using the diamond 4-4-2.

[lcfc for life]

I always think Darius Vassell has an impact on the game and it's just a shame that he has been suspended. It's also a crying shame Sven realised too late that 433 is not the answer when we don't have two experienced wingers on the field. When he implemented the new diamond in the second half we looked extremely dangerous for the first 20 minutes up until Reading's goal. I think the goal knocked the wind out of our sails and we were reduced to urgency and were always trying to look for a final ball too early. Before the goal we looked calm and collected and looked like we could have scored a couple easily. I think Nugent has potential to get 20 goals but he just needs adequate support from a fellow striker.

I'm new by the way so please don't slate me

[Grewks]

I don't think it is the case that we need buy x,y or z to solve out problems, we just need a bit of logic in the composition to the midfield. Abe and Fernandes in the same team, at home, is just negative and counter productive. There aren't any goals going to be coming from the midfield with the current selection and there isn't enough creativity with the two defensive midfielders. I haven't been to a game this season yet (going Wednesday) but it isn't that hard to see that the current set up in the front 6 is not producing/ will not produce enough goals to fire us to anywhere near the top two. I think Sven should ditch this 4-3-3 into the memory banks of last seasons misery and start using the diamond 4-4-2.

I also do not believe signing x, y and z is the answer to our problems, i think the x, y and z which we have brought in are very good players but are not going to help us going forward. The reason why our defence conceded so many last season was not because of the quality of center backs, but instead the defensive abilities of our full backs and midfield.

Kyle Naughton was my favourite addition to the squad last season, very energetic up and down the flank all day and gave us an option going forward aswell as chipping in a few goals, his defensive ability was a little to be desired and in my opinion peltier and pantsil look better defenders, the less we say about PVA defensive ability the better. The other area which saw us concede goals last season was lack of protection from midfield, for me yuki abe is not strong enough, quick enough or fit enough to play that role. He never wins any 50 50 balls and is always giving the ball away, this could be the reason why wellens played so deep yesterday and against co because he feels he has to cover for him.

The full backs we have now in the form of konchesky and pantsil are very solid and accomplished at prem level and played every game in fulhams europa league venture. They may not be the best going forward but they do not need to be if we have creativity further up the field. Reading had exactly that in the form of Kebe and mcanuff, the later is one of the best wingers at this level and had a very quiet game possibly due to being in pantsils pocket. Therefore if we have the back for of Pantsil Mills Bamba Konchesky with gelson fernandes playing the anchor man role then that is a huge improvement on last year. It should allow the likes of wellens king and gallagher to play their football in the middle as they know that pantsil and konchesky will not venture forward very far so there will be adequate cover.

even though we constantly hear alan young say that in the 4-3-3 the full backs should provide the wide play they should not. If so what is the role of 2 of the final 3? they need to hug the touchline to try and split the oposition defence. Reading yesterday were the prime example of this. In the midfield they played leigertwood and karacan who are more defensive midfielders than creative ones, their full backs in griffin and harte were both happy to be sitting at the back in a flat four which allows the other players with the more creative ability to control the game. The reason reading controlled the game yesterday was because they gave freedom to all players which werent in the the back four something which norwich also did at the KP last season, we need to do the same.

Bristol game should be

Schmicheal

Pantsil/peltier bamba mills konchesky

Fernandes

Wellens

King

Dyer Galagher ( or new natural wide man - Kebe should already be here )

Nugent

Dyer although not the best player in terms of technical abilty he will take players out of the game as he has the flair and pace to do so, whether it will be by taking them on or by being man marked out of the game by 2 players. a poor mans kebe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FoxyPV]

Grewks - welcome.

An incisive winger is one of the main things missing from this team. Kebe took us apart at Reading last year and caused me to have some serious man love for him.

[tewkesbury-fox]

Spot on post,this is exactly what i have been thinking since the game,and haven't we been down this road last season ?,i was hoping for some improvement on last season but yesterdays performance was abject..

[Sods]

Don't believe it was 4-3-3 in the first half, felt more like a very defensive 4 5 1, maybe Sven is looking for it to be 0-0 at half time then go for it in the second which is very risky. Second half we were unlucky if we had scored first we would of won the game, we applied the pressure and were beginning to look strong but then forgot to defend set pieces, which is where they only looked deadly.

[ta-fc]

Thankyou its good to be here, i just think that we only need 1 defensive midfielder at home. In my opinion it should be fernandes as he seems quicker, stronger, better talker, more energetic, better work rate and a better committed team player. playing abe just means that the ball stays in our half longer which then means the chances of counter attacks diminish. We need to take note of how Norwich played last season as they were the best team to come to the KP last season.

Completely agree, Fernandes, Abe and Danns in the same side @ home is nothing short of a joke!

[cc_star]

According to OS

9 midfielders on the books. 7 of them are out & out central midfielders, 1 is Moussa who can play on the right, but isn't really a wideman and the 9th is Dyer, a genuine wideman, it's not the most varied pool of players to draw on