Width killing us

[FTPE]

I dont get involved with tactical conversations too often as a lot of it goes over my head and seems to over complicate what I believe is still a relatively simple game. Today however, if you'll allow me to self indulge a little, I'd like to point out a glaring fault we appear to have. Our width.
If I was an opposition manager I'd keep narrow out of possession, keep men behind the ball, stay tight and out of possession and stretch as wide as the pitch will go.
Our only threat from a wing is Burrows, technically excellent at delivering a ball, but not only is he not a winger, but he's not even a wingback. A flat back 4 means not only do the left and right backs get forward a lot less, but they're quite late to the party. Alfie is a solid defender and is one of the main reasons our defence has done so well, but as far as width or attack goes he struggles. Gus, inverted winger (at best) JRS doesn't go wide and hardly ever crosses the ball. Brewster, I'm not sure what we want his new role to be but it certainly isn't a winger. COH is really growing on me but he isn't an outlet like wingers need to be.

We're finally decent through the centre, which is probably harder to do, but not having the option of width, triangles, overlaps is making us predictable (no matter how much Wilder praisers our patience when we knock it aroun the back line). When we lost Blaster a pretty clue up poster on here claimed that he was our only player that can attack through the middle, but while he might have been one of the stronger ones I do think Gus, Davies, O'Hare, Vinnie and now Peck can all unlock a defence through the middle. The problem is, it's overcrowded and easy to defend when that's our plan A, B and C.
Now I'm not saying Wilder only has one style/plan, he's actually playing to our strengths, but looking at the squad we lack a Paul Devlin, Peter Ndlovu or more recently a Michael Tongue. Today (and this is not disrespect to the players) he only had our second choice left back, a low confidence Brooks, a centre half and a teenage striker to come on and change things.

It's not all doom, not only will Wilder see this but he'll also despair at the service Moore is currently getting, its also a week before the window opens.
My actual concern is the targets we'll go after. The only winger I've seen mentioned is BBD. He's big, strong, direct and a fan favourite, but isn't that just another inverted winger/striker like Campbell and the midfield 3?

I've had this locked and loaded since 60min into the game, but now our spine seems to be depleted too we need reinforcements everywhere. I just hope one of them is a chalk on his boots, fast, tricky, game changing winger.

Agree? Or is that just an off day?

 

[Snowflake]

I dont get involved with tactical conversations too often as a lot of it goes over my head and seems to over complicate what I believe is still a relatively simple game. Today however, if you'll allow me to self indulge a little, I'd like to point out a glaring fault we appear to have. Our width.
If I was an opposition manager I'd keep narrow out of possession, keep men behind the ball, stay tight and out of possession and stretch as wide as the pitch will go.
Our only threat from a wing is Burrows, technically excellent at delivering a ball, but not only is he not a winger, but he's not even a wingback. A flat back 4 means not only do the left and right backs get forward a lot less, but they're quite late to the party. Alfie is a solid defender and is one of the main reasons our defence has done so well, but as far as width or attack goes he struggles. Gus, inverted winger (at best) JRS doesn't go wide and hardly ever crosses the ball. Brewster, I'm not sure what we want his new role to be but it certainly isn't a winger. COH is really growing on me but he isn't an outlet like wingers need to be.

We're finally decent through the centre, which is probably harder to do, but not having the option of width, triangles, overlaps is making us predictable (no matter how much Wilder praisers our patience when we knock it aroun the back line). When we lost Blaster a pretty clue up poster on here claimed that he was our only player that can attack through the middle, but while he might have been one of the stronger ones I do think Gus, Davies, O'Hare, Vinnie and now Peck can all unlock a defence through the middle. The problem is, it's overcrowded and easy to defend when that's our plan A, B and C.
Now I'm not saying Wilder only has one style/plan, he's actually playing to our strengths, but looking at the squad we lack a Paul Devlin, Peter Ndlovu or more recently a Michael Tongue. Today (and this is not disrespect to the players) he only had our second choice left back, a low confidence Brooks, a centre half and a teenage striker to come on and change things.

It's not all doom, not only will Wilder see this but he'll also despair at the service Moore is currently getting, its also a week before the window opens.
My actual concern is the targets we'll go after. The only winger I've seen mentioned is BBD. He's big, strong, direct and a fan favourite, but isn't that just another inverted winger/striker like Campbell and the midfield 3?

I've had this locked and loaded since 60min into the game, but now our spine seems to be depleted too we need reinforcements everywhere. I just hope one of them is a chalk on his boots, fast, tricky, game changing winger.

Agree? Or is that just an off day?

Agree totally.

 

[steve26272]

Wouldn’t disagree mate

We’ve got Moore upfront and then no recognised winger to hit him?!

Not the pingmaster Norwood himself, but we are missing someone who can “ping”

Maybe move Gus into that position as he’s probably only player who has ability

We either pass through the middle, or long ball down the wing where we don’t have wingers so lose possession

 

[McGrath]

What we having wouldn't give for a pacey left winger like what Burnley had

 

[John Street West Terrace]

We have nothing offensively down the left … that’s why I was gutted we didn’t bag Mikey Johnson ( WBA ) .. on the right Gilchrist an able centre back converted to full back but isn’t great going forward . We get away with outside the the better sides but been exposed against Leeds , Boro , Burnley & Sunderland

 

[Houston_Blade]

I dont get involved with tactical conversations too often as a lot of it goes over my head and seems to over complicate what I believe is still a relatively simple game. Today however, if you'll allow me to self indulge a little, I'd like to point out a glaring fault we appear to have. Our width.
If I was an opposition manager I'd keep narrow out of possession, keep men behind the ball, stay tight and out of possession and stretch as wide as the pitch will go.
Our only threat from a wing is Burrows, technically excellent at delivering a ball, but not only is he not a winger, but he's not even a wingback. A flat back 4 means not only do the left and right backs get forward a lot less, but they're quite late to the party. Alfie is a solid defender and is one of the main reasons our defence has done so well, but as far as width or attack goes he struggles. Gus, inverted winger (at best) JRS doesn't go wide and hardly ever crosses the ball. Brewster, I'm not sure what we want his new role to be but it certainly isn't a winger. COH is really growing on me but he isn't an outlet like wingers need to be.

We're finally decent through the centre, which is probably harder to do, but not having the option of width, triangles, overlaps is making us predictable (no matter how much Wilder praisers our patience when we knock it aroun the back line). When we lost Blaster a pretty clue up poster on here claimed that he was our only player that can attack through the middle, but while he might have been one of the stronger ones I do think Gus, Davies, O'Hare, Vinnie and now Peck can all unlock a defence through the middle. The problem is, it's overcrowded and easy to defend when that's our plan A, B and C.
Now I'm not saying Wilder only has one style/plan, he's actually playing to our strengths, but looking at the squad we lack a Paul Devlin, Peter Ndlovu or more recently a Michael Tongue. Today (and this is not disrespect to the players) he only had our second choice left back, a low confidence Brooks, a centre half and a teenage striker to come on and change things.

It's not all doom, not only will Wilder see this but he'll also despair at the service Moore is currently getting, its also a week before the window opens.
My actual concern is the targets we'll go after. The only winger I've seen mentioned is BBD. He's big, strong, direct and a fan favourite, but isn't that just another inverted winger/striker like Campbell and the midfield 3?

I've had this locked and loaded since 60min into the game, but now our spine seems to be depleted too we need reinforcements everywhere. I just hope one of them is a chalk on his boots, fast, tricky, game changing winger.

Agree? Or is that just an off day?

To simplify what I see when we play (and there might be a bit of negativity towards us on my part here I must say) is that opposition wingers and wide forward players seem so much more capable of beating a player than we do.

On the flip side we seem to toil defensively in wide areas against most teams irrespective of their league position.

Now I know this sounds stupid because we are/were top of the league so we’re better results wise than the rest of the league, however we’ve had some exciting forward players and full backs in recent years and we just seem to be a bit weak in both areas this season.

 

[Bladezz]

But in regards to wingers we don’t have any. It’s the exact same when we had Jok. We wanted to play a formation with wingers and didn’t sign wingers.

Wilder wanted another winger from very early on. Everyone knows we wanted Johnstone who went for £2m to WBA. We didn’t even get anyone else.

We are drastically short and the squad has absolutely zero balance and we are relying on the kids. Today we bring on Brooks (LG1 Level) One (League 2 Level) this is drastically short in attacking players.

Some people scream for no reason to have Hamer in the middle but we don’t have any wingers to go out there!

 

[Weasel]

We are missing Seriki.

Been a few times when we needed to have more offensive width down the right and he's taken off Gilchrist and put Seriki on. With the latter being injured, it means we have lost that option. Injuries are starting to kill us slowly.

 

[FTPE]

I understand playing with 2 holding midfielders allows the other 3 to play higher up, but no only does that make us extremely narrow (regardless of personnel) but it almost dictates where the creativity will come from, and if that 1 up top is Moore, where's the bleeding crosses coming from?
Playing out wide allows for overloads (as we more than anyone know) gives an outlet ball, and stretches play. The ball out wide doesn't have to be as clinical as a beautifully weighted through ball. Killer passes are almost impossible with how crowded we make the edge of opponents boxes.

I haven't even got onto defending width after today.

 

[Tony_Kaufman]

The problem for me is that we don't play it through the middle enough. How many times do we put players through with a defence splitting pass? When we do the pass comes too late from the back passes that came first where we try ti slip it through a wall of players on the edge of the 18 yard box. It's too easy to defend and never works.

Most of our play is get it wide to Hamer/Burrows and they'll cross it in to Moore/Campbell. If we get it right to Rak-Sakyi then the attack breaks down as he's predictable and poor down the right and Gilchrist often passes back instead of crosses.

For me, if you're going to play through the middle then you need the midfielders to keep the ball and run with it. They don't, O'Hare aside. The second the midfield get the ball they either pass sideways or back to "keep possession" or attempt the Hollywood ball to put a lone striker through on goal against two defenders who can see it coming from a mile off. We make it way too easy for teams. A huge difference between Davies and Peck is that Davies holds onto the ball for as long as he can. If he has to go backwards then he tends to run back still with it in possession then tries to find a wide outlet or forward pass. As soon as Peck gets the ball he's looking for a safe pass backwards, more often than not under no pressure.

This current system doesn't suit the squad we have and square pegs in round holes is my biggest irritation in football. We're not getting the best out of Hamer or O'Hare as they don't suit this formation. They either need to both play together in a middle two, or as a midfield three with Souza/Davies in a 4-3-3.

Our attacking play is too slow through our own doing as no one other than Hamer is willing to gamble with the ball. The rest are obsessed with keeping possession and it allows teams time to drop back in numbers when we should he hitting them quickly and trying to exploit the gaps.

It's going to take a miracle in recruitment next season or we'll go down without a fight again, as we have been poor for most games all season, despite the results and league position. This season is scarily reminiscent of our Hecky promotion season where the table flattered us and we went up unconvincingly but for a tight defence. Takeover or not there's a lot of work to be done in the summer, but more importantly in January. We don't need squad players to bolster us in the run in. We need players who can go straight into the starting line up, something we've failed to do for the last for five seasons. We started to put that right in the summer but were held back by the sell before you buy policy in place.

 

[steve26272]

.

Some people scream for no reason to have Hamer in the middle but we don’t have any wingers to go out there!

Put your best players in their best position, then fill around them

agree we don’t have wingers, Souza Peck DM, Gus CM and Davies out wide?

 

[blader]

it’s quite hard to agree when we are top of the league!

One of our strengths is the fact we have decided to play through the middle and I remember many a cute goal we have scored through playing to Hamer and O’Hare’s strengths.

We saw today that O’Hare just cannot play wide, but we were forced to pick him there.

It’s hard to say it’s disastrous when we’re top, but what we do lack is the ability to be tactically flexible due to lack of depth in the squad. Plan A through central areas has worked pretty well thus far, but when it’s not working we don’t have any answers, that’s where the real issue lies for me

 

[Houston_Blade]

We are missing Seriki.

Been a few times when we needed to have more offensive width down the right and he's taken off Gilchrist and put Seriki on. With the latter being injured, it means we have lost that option. Injuries are starting to kill us slowly.

Baldock and Bogle would have been ideal this season. I get why we didn’t keep either of them but the balance between attacking down the right and defending down the right we had with those 2 in the squad will take some replacing.

 

[FTPE]

Most of our play is get it wide to Hamer/Burrows and they'll cross it in to Moore/Campbell. If we get it right to Rak-Sakyi then the attack breaks down as he's predictable and poor down the right and Gilchrist often passes back instead of crosses.

It's not wide- wide though is it? It's slightly left or right of the box. Where it's still congested. The killer ball wasn't there today admittedly, but is Moore the right man for that type of ball anyway? You're right we cut them open fairly easily through the middle twice with Brewster, but both came to nothing as we were playing balls through that only Ndiaye and (purple patch) Moose would have latched onto.
I dont mean slow build up, all their team in their box, width and crosses. I mean ball down the line, beat a man, cross it to Keiffer when he only has ONE defender to contend with type width.

 

[b1ade4life]

I thought this was a post from my missus

 

[FTPE]

Baldock and Bogle would have been ideal this season. I get why we didn’t keep either of them but the balance between attacking down the right and defending down the right we had with those 2 in the squad will take some replacing.

Balance is a fantastic way of putting it.
On the left and young, confident, technically gifted wingback. Ahead of him a midfielder almost wasted on the wing. On the right, an inexperienced center half, and an inverted striker/number 10 that's extremely inconsistent.

 

[FTPE]

Baldock and Bogle would have been ideal this season. I get why we didn’t keep either of them but the balance between attacking down the right and defending down the right we had with those 2 in the squad will take some replacing.

Let me try that again...


Balance is a fantastic way of putting it.
On the left and young, confident, technically gifted wingback. Ahead of him a midfielder almost wasted on the wing. On the right, an inexperienced center half, and an inverted striker/number 10 that's extremely inconsistent.

 

[Tony_Kaufman]

It's not wide- wide though is it? It's slightly left or right of the box. Where it's still congested. The killer ball wasn't there today admittedly, but is Moore the right man for that type of ball anyway? You're right we cut them open fairly easily through the middle twice with Brewster, but both came to nothing as we were playing balls through that only Ndiaye and (purple patch) Moose would have latched onto.
I dont mean slow build up, all their team in their box, width and crosses. I mean ball down the line, beat a man, cross it to Keiffer when he only has ONE defender to contend with type width.

I agree. This formation is designed for wingers and we don't have any other than Rak-Sakyi who refuses to stay out wide and is ineffective as a result. We badly need a winger for each side coming in or the performances will remain disjointed and inconsistent. Maybe Wilder needs to find a formation that suits what he has and plays to their strengths rather than asking players to play out of position and against their natural footballing instincts. As much as I despise it, maybe our old tried and tested 5-3-2 is all we've got. This 4-2-3-1 is certainly suffocating O'Hare and Hamer as creative and attacking outlets.

 

[Keep the faith]

I'll get caned for this but play gus next to vini instead of peck,get the best out of ohare too,then train the wingers to do defensive work,then on transition open the game spread the pitch.

 

[FTPE]

I agree. This formation is designed for wingers and we don't have any other than Rak-Sakyi who refuses to stay out wide and is ineffective as a result. We badly need a winger for each side coming in or the performances will remain disjointed and inconsistent. Maybe Wilder needs to find a formation that suits what he has and plays to their strengths rather than asking players to play out of position and against their natural footballing instincts. As much as I despise it, maybe our old tried and tested 5-3-2 is all we've got. This 4-2-3-1 is certainly suffocating O'Hare and Hamer as creative and attacking outlets.

There's quite a lot of bite, class, legs and creativity in a midfield of Souza/Gus/Davies I suppose. That would mean Campbell staying fit to partner Moore though.
Would Femi and Burrows be your wingbacks? Or would you still go more out and out widemen?

 

[FTPE]

I'll get caned for this but play gus next to vini instead of peck,get the best out of ohare too,then train the wingers to do defensive work,then on transition open the game spread the pitch.

I tend to agree.
Carlton said the more Gus touches the ball in a game the better. It makes sense. We all want to push him higher up the pitch, but he can make us tick wherever he is. It's not like he doesn't graft or let's us down defensively. That's taking him away from a wide position, and it makes sense, but who goes wide then? Because it's looking like BBD to me

 

[Frank the tank]

I tend to agree.
Carlton said the more Gus touches the ball in a game the better. It makes sense. We all want to push him higher up the pitch, but he can make us tick wherever he is. It's not like he doesn't graft or let's us down defensively. That's taking him away from a wide position, and it makes sense, but who goes wide then? Because it's looking like BBD to me

The more he touches it the more he gives it away

 

[FTPE]

The more he touches it the more he gives it away

You know why he loses possession so much though? He tries things. Robbo probably has a 90% pass completion. Norwood used to have a 110% one. If he played deeper he'd have more simple passes to play, and if we had a true wideman he could spray it into space from time to time as well.

 

[Frank the tank]

You know why he loses possession so much though? He tries things. Robbo probably has a 90% pass completion. Norwood used to have a 110% one. If he played deeper he'd have more simple passes to play, and if we had a true wideman he could spray it into space from time to time as well.

That's a myth he just hurriedly gets rid of it as he's blowing out of his arse

 

[John Street West Terrace]

You know why he loses possession so much though? He tries things. Robbo probably has a 90% pass completion. Norwood used to have a 110% one. If he played deeper he'd have more simple passes to play, and if we had a true wideman he could spray it into space from time to time as well.

Bang on the money my friend …he’s prepared to be brave & show for the ball & try and create as opposed to a safe square pass or backwards .. some of our lot on here have never played the game & would be happy with a team of stat fillers

 

[Roygbiv]

We are in the middle of a huge rebuild and we're playing players in roles that they aren't suited to. The fact we are so high is a testament to the manager and the players. Today showcased that you can't get away with it against the better sides. It's no real fault of anyone, it's just where we are.

 

[CarlMcBlade]

I dont get involved with tactical conversations too often as a lot of it goes over my head and seems to over complicate what I believe is still a relatively simple game. Today however, if you'll allow me to self indulge a little, I'd like to point out a glaring fault we appear to have. Our width.
If I was an opposition manager I'd keep narrow out of possession, keep men behind the ball, stay tight and out of possession and stretch as wide as the pitch will go.
Our only threat from a wing is Burrows, technically excellent at delivering a ball, but not only is he not a winger, but he's not even a wingback. A flat back 4 means not only do the left and right backs get forward a lot less, but they're quite late to the party. Alfie is a solid defender and is one of the main reasons our defence has done so well, but as far as width or attack goes he struggles. Gus, inverted winger (at best) JRS doesn't go wide and hardly ever crosses the ball. Brewster, I'm not sure what we want his new role to be but it certainly isn't a winger. COH is really growing on me but he isn't an outlet like wingers need to be.

We're finally decent through the centre, which is probably harder to do, but not having the option of width, triangles, overlaps is making us predictable (no matter how much Wilder praisers our patience when we knock it aroun the back line). When we lost Blaster a pretty clue up poster on here claimed that he was our only player that can attack through the middle, but while he might have been one of the stronger ones I do think Gus, Davies, O'Hare, Vinnie and now Peck can all unlock a defence through the middle. The problem is, it's overcrowded and easy to defend when that's our plan A, B and C.
Now I'm not saying Wilder only has one style/plan, he's actually playing to our strengths, but looking at the squad we lack a Paul Devlin, Peter Ndlovu or more recently a Michael Tongue. Today (and this is not disrespect to the players) he only had our second choice left back, a low confidence Brooks, a centre half and a teenage striker to come on and change things.

It's not all doom, not only will Wilder see this but he'll also despair at the service Moore is currently getting, its also a week before the window opens.
My actual concern is the targets we'll go after. The only winger I've seen mentioned is BBD. He's big, strong, direct and a fan favourite, but isn't that just another inverted winger/striker like Campbell and the midfield 3?

I've had this locked and loaded since 60min into the game, but now our spine seems to be depleted too we need reinforcements everywhere. I just hope one of them is a chalk on his boots, fast, tricky, game changing winger.

Agree? Or is that just an off day?

Unfortunately that performance was always coming in the post. Although we’ve been winning our games, many of those performances have been less than impressive. On the other hand we were playing very decent opposition, and to confirm this Burnley were still coming forward late in the game, even at 2 nil up.

 

[John Street West Terrace]

There's quite a lot of bite, class, legs and creativity in a midfield of Souza/Gus/Davies I suppose. That would mean Campbell staying fit to partner Moore though.
Would Femi and Burrows be your wingbacks? Or would you still go more out and out widemen?

Play that midfield 3 .. with Moore & Campbell as a front 2 & Seriki at right back

 

[FTPE]

We are in the middle of a huge rebuild and we're playing players in roles that they aren't suited to. The fact we are so high is a testament to the manager and the players. Today showcased that you can't get away with it against the better sides. It's no real fault of anyone, it's just where we are.

Wilders done well to build 1 good side. Suppose it was impossible to build two, or at least have game changing subs and a full plan B formation

 

[Roygbiv]

Wilders done well to build 1 good side. Suppose it was impossible to build two, or at least have game changing subs and a full plan B formation

It's insane that we are top 2. The bench today was L1 standard. Nothing against those players but when you compare it to others in the top 6 it's ridiculous how well we are doing. Even on the pitch, imagine if at the start of the season we said we'd Peck and Davies were in midfield. They're both doing fantastically well but it's a kid who's never played league football before and one who hasn't played 90 minutes for 2 years! We are hugely over achieving for me