Attacktics

[Keyblade]

Literally just play an attacking fullback where Taylor is, it would make a huge difference. I'm tempted to play Guilbert there again and have Elmo on the right with Trez.

[Smartin]

1 hour ago, kurtsimonw said:

If we go 4-4-2, we might score, but we'll get hammered. We look hopelessly open in midfield as it is.

Spot on. Suicidal imo. I like some of the others above though.

[Skruff]

                   Wes 

McGinn  Hourihane Grealish 

          Nakamba Luiz 

 

Plenty of freedom for McGinn and Grealish to run in behind Wes. They're both capable of beating a man or drift wide and get a cross in. Both of them got a decent shot as well. And they both have the technical ability to play in small confined areas. They would probably give Wes an easier job as the opposition would have to "spend" some men to keep Grealish and McGinn covered as well. Instead of just isolating our wingers out wide where they, so far, has been left completely isolated. 

Hourihane can serve as a link. Spray passes. Has a great shot from outside the box. And most importantly his crosses/free kicks. 

Nakamba and Luiz to do the dirty work. Both of them are capable of working tight areas, holding up the ball, breaking up play and winning free kicks. Luiz also got a great range of passing, and would be able to pick out our fullbacks making runs, or find other outlets if our main outlets gets isolated. 

 

Subs:Jota, Landsbury, Trez, El Ghazi. 

[KenjiOgiwara]

1 hour ago, Keyblade said:

Literally just play an attacking fullback where Taylor is, it would make a huge difference. I'm tempted to play Guilbert there again and have Elmo on the right with Trez.

Yep.  I could see that being an option. 

It's effing unreal we play a tactic hugely reliant on wing back involvement and we have to watch Taylor learn the basics of going forward. 

[avfc1982am]

5 hours ago, wilko154 said:

Personally I would give this a try against Arsenal.

McGinn would be played out of position, but he's played fairly advanced recently making some great runs for the cross field ball. The need to play an out and out winger isn't as great on the right hand side with Guilbert getting forward and McGinn would have the legs to cover him better than Jota.

This allows us to sit in two defensive midfielders whilst being able to take advantage of Hourihane's set pieces in the side.

 

I'd swap El Ghazi with McGinn, Then McGinn and Conor(Who I would play more advanced as McGinn has the engine in Midfield) and this could offer more purpose in the final third. And more of a goal threat.

[AntrimBlack]

I would like to see them shoot more often rather than fannying about on the edge of the area.

And Taylor adds nothing offensively. That is a big problem - again something that we all knew was a problem and should have been sorted in the summer.

Not sure about Targett, we really needed someone like Guilbert for the left.

[KentVillan]

I'm not a big fan of formations as the solution to a football team's ills. It all feels a bit Premier Manager (the original version on the Amiga, where you could win the Premier League with Wycombe Wanderers after 4 seasons).

I can't see us playing a back 3 any time soon. We never did it last season, our back 4 has just kept a clean sheet, and there's no sign that Dean Smith has much time for it.

There's also no way we're starting with a front 2 until Kodjia is fit.

So that leaves us with 4-3-3, 4-5-1, 4-1-4-1, 4-2-3-1, 4-3-2-1 (etc.) as our options. They're all more or less the same formation, depending on who you pick.

The only scope Dean Smith has to really change how the look of this side is to bring more of our central midfield talent on to the pitch at the same time. A few ideas:

• Play McGinn at left back. I have no doubt he would be better than Neil Taylor, but would we be sacrificing too much in the middle of the park? Also, would he be happy playing out of position while he's still trying to develop as a central midfielder?
• Play Hourihane at left back (as he did for Ireland last week). This does bring his set piece and crossing into the game, but is he good enough defensively? He would definitely be happy playing out of position because at the moment he just wants minutes in the Premier League.
• Play Grealish out wide. I could definitely see this working (and this is probably where Spurs would have played him had they signed him) but do we want our most talented player stuck on the wing, where he might have much less influence over the game?
• Play Hourihane out wide. I don't see this working. He's too slow.
• Play Luiz out of position - I think the only choice with Luiz is whether you play him deep or advanced CM. Far too slow to play on the wing.
• Play Nakamba out of position - he's a natural DCM from what I saw against West Ham, so no. He'd be my first pick now actually, always in that DCM role, as I don't think anyone else has his natural instinct to break up the play and make the easy pass.

If you want to shoehorn Nakamba, Luiz, Hourihane, Grealish, and McGinn into the starting 11 it's going to have to involve one or more of these suggestions (even the so-called midfield diamond always results in someone occupying the wide spaces).

I don't see any of this happening tbh, since it's not in Smith's nature to play people out of position.

[cheltenham_villa]

I dont see wholesale changes, I expect us to try and be difficult to beat until we have played more games as a team. I wouldnt be surprised to see grealish play further forwards though, once weve bedded in marvellous and luiz

[TRO]

I think we still had enough chances to have won the game 2-0.....finishing needs to be more clincal.

We need better quality on the ball.....the team may improve, in which case that concern will be negated, but formations will not compensate for lack of quality in our play.

as tempting as formations are to tinker with, they will not necessarily cure poor execution of play.

Edited September 18, 2019 by TRO

[Guest av1]

We need a system that gets players closer to Wesley. 

[omariqy]

We need Targett on the pitch really. 

[TRO]

On 18/09/2019 at 15:40, omariqy said:

We need Targett on the pitch really. 

I haven't seen him play for us.

is he one of those, haven't seen him so he must be good?

[sne]

8 minutes ago, TRO said:

I haven't seen him play for us.

is he one of those, haven't seen him so he must be good?

Rather that we've all seen Taylor and well.

We kinda need Targett to not suck.

[TRO]

On 18/09/2019 at 01:22, KentVillan said:

I'm not a big fan of formations as the solution to a football team's ills. It all feels a bit Premier Manager (the original version on the Amiga, where you could win the Premier League with Wycombe Wanderers after 4 seasons).

I can't see us playing a back 3 any time soon. We never did it last season, our back 4 has just kept a clean sheet, and there's no sign that Dean Smith has much time for it.

There's also no way we're starting with a front 2 until Kodjia is fit.

So that leaves us with 4-3-3, 4-5-1, 4-1-4-1, 4-2-3-1, 4-3-2-1 (etc.) as our options. They're all more or less the same formation, depending on who you pick.

The only scope Dean Smith has to really change how the look of this side is to bring more of our central midfield talent on to the pitch at the same time. A few ideas:

• Play McGinn at left back. I have no doubt he would be better than Neil Taylor, but would we be sacrificing too much in the middle of the park? Also, would he be happy playing out of position while he's still trying to develop as a central midfielder?
• Play Hourihane at left back (as he did for Ireland last week). This does bring his set piece and crossing into the game, but is he good enough defensively? He would definitely be happy playing out of position because at the moment he just wants minutes in the Premier League.
• Play Grealish out wide. I could definitely see this working (and this is probably where Spurs would have played him had they signed him) but do we want our most talented player stuck on the wing, where he might have much less influence over the game?
• Play Hourihane out wide. I don't see this working. He's too slow.
• Play Luiz out of position - I think the only choice with Luiz is whether you play him deep or advanced CM. Far too slow to play on the wing.
• Play Nakamba out of position - he's a natural DCM from what I saw against West Ham, so no. He'd be my first pick now actually, always in that DCM role, as I don't think anyone else has his natural instinct to break up the play and make the easy pass.

If you want to shoehorn Nakamba, Luiz, Hourihane, Grealish, and McGinn into the starting 11 it's going to have to involve one or more of these suggestions (even the so-called midfield diamond always results in someone occupying the wide spaces).

I don't see any of this happening tbh, since it's not in Smith's nature to play people out of position.

ditto

but sometimes a bit of "trial and error" can produce surprising things.

Edited September 19, 2019 by TRO

[KentVillan]

4 minutes ago, sne said:

Rather that we've all seen Taylor and well.

We kinda need Targett to not suck.

The problem is that not rating Taylor doesn't suddenly imbue Targett with all the qualities you think Taylor lacks.

Ultimately Targett is a very good passer and crosser who lacks pace and has very suspect defensive positioning (worse than Taylor's). Is his introduction to the team going to transform our season? I doubt it, to be honest.

I think the introduction of Nakamba is far more important. As he settles, I see our front 5 starting to play with more freedom higher up the pitch.

[sne]

1 minute ago, KentVillan said:

The problem is that not rating Taylor doesn't suddenly imbue Targett with all the qualities you think Taylor lacks.

Ultimately Targett is a very good passer and crosser who lacks pace and has very suspect defensive positioning (worse than Taylor's). Is his introduction to the team going to transform our season? I doubt it, to be honest.

I think the introduction of Nakamba is far more important. As he settles, I see our front 5 starting to play with more freedom higher up the pitch.

I've not seen much of Targett but at the time I thought we overpaid something silly for him.

If he is not a massive improvement of Taylor we have messed up big and (the first half of) our season will be a massive struggle.

And with the way we are (trying) to play it's baffling that we didn't fix the LB situation.

It's not as if Taylor is a solid defensive LB, he's iffy at best and always positions himself too central leaving acres of space to the winger.

And in possession he's about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

[zab6359]

A front 3 hasn't really worked that well for us so far, I'd like to see something like this it would stop Jack dropping deep all the time.

 

[VillanousOne]

It could come down to the fact that Grealish and McGinn can't play together in this team, at least not in the roles they are currently. They maybe two of our best players but you can't change the rest of the team just to accommodate something that doesn't work. I would at least sacrifice a wide player if we are going to flog this horse.

Edited September 20, 2019 by VillanousOne

[Pimlico_Villa]

On 18/09/2019 at 01:22, KentVillan said:

I'm not a big fan of formations as the solution to a football team's ills. It all feels a bit Premier Manager (the original version on the Amiga, where you could win the Premier League with Wycombe Wanderers after 4 seasons).

I can't see us playing a back 3 any time soon. We never did it last season, our back 4 has just kept a clean sheet, and there's no sign that Dean Smith has much time for it.

There's also no way we're starting with a front 2 until Kodjia is fit.

So that leaves us with 4-3-3, 4-5-1, 4-1-4-1, 4-2-3-1, 4-3-2-1 (etc.) as our options. They're all more or less the same formation, depending on who you pick.

The only scope Dean Smith has to really change how the look of this side is to bring more of our central midfield talent on to the pitch at the same time. A few ideas:

• Play McGinn at left back. I have no doubt he would be better than Neil Taylor, but would we be sacrificing too much in the middle of the park? Also, would he be happy playing out of position while he's still trying to develop as a central midfielder?
• Play Hourihane at left back (as he did for Ireland last week). This does bring his set piece and crossing into the game, but is he good enough defensively? He would definitely be happy playing out of position because at the moment he just wants minutes in the Premier League.
• Play Grealish out wide. I could definitely see this working (and this is probably where Spurs would have played him had they signed him) but do we want our most talented player stuck on the wing, where he might have much less influence over the game?
• Play Hourihane out wide. I don't see this working. He's too slow.
• Play Luiz out of position - I think the only choice with Luiz is whether you play him deep or advanced CM. Far too slow to play on the wing.
• Play Nakamba out of position - he's a natural DCM from what I saw against West Ham, so no. He'd be my first pick now actually, always in that DCM role, as I don't think anyone else has his natural instinct to break up the play and make the easy pass.

If you want to shoehorn Nakamba, Luiz, Hourihane, Grealish, and McGinn into the starting 11 it's going to have to involve one or more of these suggestions (even the so-called midfield diamond always results in someone occupying the wide spaces).

I don't see any of this happening tbh, since it's not in Smith's nature to play people out of position.

Agreed on the 3 at the back point. If we aren't scoring goals then it is vital we don't concede. Playing Targett would likely be neutral: what we'd gain going forward would be offset by more defensive fragility. Plus, playing Targett implies we would get balls into the box, which is not effective as Wes cannot head the ball. So, not sure we would gain anything. 

In saying that, though, the Arsenal game is a free punt (pains me to say that) where Smith can at least try and be attacking. At the very least he should play Grealish further forward. Sneaky suspicion that his approach is more 'solid at the back and score on the counter'. 

[omariqy]

I thought we looked much more solid with Nakamba in the team. If we play Targett we need a really mobile DM to cover.