As I saw the line up last night I was encouraged, thinking we'd line up like this:
Long
Brayford Edgar Collins McEveley
Coutts
Basham - - - Cuvelier
Done - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Adams
Sharp
This is Clough's favoured formation with one holding player in midfield and two box to box players. Experience at the back, pace and movement in the forward three. With that set up I was hopeful we'd match them man for man and maybe our players' pedigree and being at home would edge it in our favour.
However our starting line up was:
Long
Basham Collins McEveley
Brayford - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Done
Coutts Edgar Cuvelier
Sharp Adams
I was surprised to learn that Edgar was in midfield, a bit deeper than Coutts and Cuvelier. I don't think Coutts should be considered for such a demanding role as the right sided one in a midfield three. With Edgar not the most mobile either, our main weakness this season, covering ground in midfield, looked to still be in place.
What happened was that our wing backs were being occupied by two busy opposition wingers, meaning they effectively played as full backs. This meant we became back-heavy with a deep back five and a struggling trio in midfield, where two of them weren't great at covering ground, closing down, etc. When Cuvelier tried he had a long distance to run before he came close to an opponent, and was easily bypassed.
I think Adkins referred to Coutts in his post match interview. I think Adkins, for some reason, still expects Coutts to run up and down and play as a creative, all-action box to box midfielder, making runs beyond the strikers. He's clearly not able to do it. Instead he came short, as is his natural game, get on the ball and play neat passes.
The result of this was that we had a deep back five, a centre half playing as a protecting anchor, and Coutts also coming deep to distribute.
This is 7 defensive or holding players! Burton had few problems sussing out our remaining three, Sharp, Adams and Cuvelier when we attacked.
A couple of still photos (I wish there was less zoom) of Coutts coming deep, rather than trying to find an attacking position. With Burton getting ten players behind the ball, we have two or three in front of it. This happened too often.
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After 26 minutes Adkins changed it to a 4-2-3-1:
Long
Brayford Edgar Collins McEveley
Coutts Basham
Cuvelier
Done - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Adams
Sharp
This is
pretty close to what I wanted. But not quite. I think the tweak in midfield, the inversion of the triangle, was unfortunate. Again we became too weak in midfield.
With Done and Adams inside forwards, encouraged to push forward and support Sharp, and Cuvelier also defending
in front of the two other midfielders, we are effectively left with a two man midfield, with one of them unable/unwilling to run and chase. Basham in that position usually ends up doing very little, being two deep to chase and harry (his strength). Instead he just tries to prevent the opposition running straight through us.
So although we had some talent going forward we were unable to get the ball to them in good positions.
Credit to Burton they are very good at what we are poor at. They sprint to cover ground defensively, they gegenpress and generally work so hard for each other.
Here's a situation that looked promising for a second after we strung a couple of passes together:
View attachment 16323
* Cuvelier finally in some space, but a split second later they are all over him like hyenas. He ended up giving them a throw in.
In the second half we conceded the goal and then tried 4-2-4. This gave us more players in advanced positions, but again we had little idea of how to get the ball to them and we just couldn't find any space.
I understand that people are getting fed up with the players, but we haven't established what our playing style is, what this team is going to be good at. We are still asking players to do roles that don't suit them and we struggle to get the balance right and this leads to poor performances.
