A couple of things we should try to improve

[Bergen Blade]

You can add to that schoolboy errors against Charlton, Wycombe and Huddersfield. All those cost us potential points. We got away with it it against Preston and Walsall, but onoly because the strike force bailed us out. In the month of October we've made a lot of silly mistakes that have cost us goals. On some occassions they've cost us points, but it is testament to the side that we've picked up points (and a big thanks to Philips and Clarke).

jj - I can only presume that you have not watched any matches in the last month/5 weeks, of you think we are not making crucial mistakes. Try mistakes against Wycombe, Charlton, Wednesday, Preston, Orient and Exeter. All bar Preston we dropped points.

Many managers blame dropped points on individual mistakes. I think it may be fair point if everything is rosy, the team and squad is well balanced and playing good football, consistently creating more than the oppostion while being well organised defensively. But I don't think we're quite there yet and for example mentioning the wendy match as one where we somehow really deserved to win is just not a neutral assessment. They created more than us.

---------- Post added at 08:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:00 PM ----------

I have considered before that Lowton could be a central midfield player but at the moment I am not too sure. He gets in the box well and scores his fair share of goals but his passing this season has been terrible, something Monty gets deservedly criticised for sometimes but when other players are just as bad it seems to go unnoticed.

We need the midfield to chip in with more goals, what would you do tactically to improve that?

 

[Ollessendro]

Many managers blame dropped points on individual mistakes. I think it may be fair point if everything is rosy, the team and squad is well balanced and playing good football, consistently creating more than the oppostion while being well organised defensively. But I don't think we're quite there yet and for example mentioning the wendy match as one where we somehow really deserved to win is just not a neutral assessment. They created more than us.

Back to basics Bergs. That is where we need to go. Two things: 1) if you do not concede you will not lose and 2) if you have the ball then the opposition cannot score. It might sound like I am stating the obvious, but this is where we should start. Earlier in the season we kept possession well and defended resolutely. We were top of the league. Of late we've been making a lot of mistakes and defending badly. Also, our passing game seems to have gone to pot. We've been playing good counter attacking football, but rarely controlled possession and the passing we saw earlier in the season has all but disappeared. Don't get me wrong, I love having attacking options. It is wonderful to see Philips attacking his man and the oppistion fans no doubt shit themselves when he gets the ball. I like having attacking option and would like to see us continue to create chances and score at will. But getting back to basics is key for me. I'd take a 2-0 a clean sheet and a solid defensove performance over a 5-3 at the moment. This is not a get out of hjail card for Wilson. Not at all. He has to take a share of the blame for current form. What I am saying is that we will pick up more points by defending better and cutting out the silly mistakes, than by carrying on to create a lot of chances. That said, I don;t see any reason why we can't control possession, defend well AND create chances!

 

[blade too long]

Lets not forget to change ethos takes time
Weve gone from a rag bag set of hoofers who most thought would do well to stay up never mind challenge, to a team of entertainers scoring at the end of passing moves
Theres things to sort out , but so far the improvement surely is far in excess of what was expected, had we not let in 3 late late goals wed have 6 more points and be 2nd so we arent that far off
Lets not let some fine tuning spread panic, we are better than the majority in this division , if we keep our heads

 

[Sothall_Blade]

We need the midfield to chip in with more goals, what would you do tactically to improve that?

Do you mean central midfield? So far this season, Strikers have scored 16 goals, Midfielders have scored 16 goals and Defenders have scored 4 goals.
44% of goals is a very good return from midfield but only 2 of those were from central midfielders.
I'm not so sure that's a major problem in a team where you have two defensive midfielders to provide a solid base (e.g. Monty/Jags when we went up).
Our current situation is that neither McDonald or Monty look like scoring and McDonald isn't great defensively either.
I think there's a case for playing Monty and Doyle away from home, like we did at the start of the season when we were sound defensively.
Maybe Monty/Doyle and Williamson at home with a pacy/goalscoring winger (who?) on the right and Quinn on the left.

 

[Bergen Blade]

Do you mean central midfield? So far this season, Strikers have scored 16 goals, Midfielders have scored 16 goals and Defenders have scored 4 goals.
44% of goals is a very good return from midfield but only 2 of those were from central midfielders.
I'm not so sure that's a major problem in a team where you have two defensive midfielders to provide a solid base (e.g. Monty/Jags when we went up).
Our current situation is that neither McDonald or Monty look like scoring and McDonald isn't great defensively either.
I think there's a case for playing Monty and Doyle away from home, like we did at the start of the season when we were sound defensively.
Maybe Monty/Doyle and Williamson at home with a pacy/goalscoring winger (who?) on the right and Quinn on the left.

If Phillips goes back and we reckon Flynn is the closest thing to a winger we have, making this our prefered midfield:

Flynn Monty McDonald Quinn

their respective goal tally this season is
0 1 0 2

With more than a third of the season played it's not looking like a great selection to me, so I want to know what people think we should do about it.

Agree with you that we should definitely look to previous successful combinations when we're building our side. You mentioned Jags as being one of two defensive midfielders, but don't forget that he was good at getting into the box that promotion season, chipping in with 8 goals. The other good central pairing was the McCall-Brown combination of 02-03, when Brown also got into the box regularly and scored loads. Both these sides also had wide players who scored quite a few. We should learn from the balance those midfields had, including goal scoring ability.

 

[Patrick Suffaux]

I personally like Williamson Montgomery McDonald Quinn as our midfield.

The only problem with it is the lack of width and penetration.

That could be remedied with good movement up front but we sadly lack that.

I think we keep the ball slightly better with those four though.

 

[blade too long]

analyse our results
at home weve only dropped points to one team below us , last weekend
and away weve only lost once

depends how you look at stuff, you can look for positives or dwell on the negative

 

[Bergen Blade]

analyse our results
at home weve only dropped points to one team below us , last weekend
and away weve only lost once

depends how you look at stuff, you can look for positives or dwell on the negative

Blade too long, I'm just trying to analyse how we're doing and trying to come up with some constructive suggestions on how we could improve. Don't worry about me, I'm not panicking and I'm not letting the issue take up my entire life. Unlike this guy:

[video=youtube;klJhWr_FTaE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klJhWr_FTaE[/video]

 

[blade too long]

simple answer , was a pre iron age shopping precinct, the remaining stones are the food hall , the one cross slab on the floor they think has a W on it was actually Macdonalds and the M was yellow when it was built

When they do get permission time team will soon find Tie Rack

 

[Sothall_Blade]

Do you mean central midfield? So far this season, Strikers have scored 16 goals, Midfielders have scored 16 goals and Defenders have scored 4 goals.
44% of goals is a very good return from midfield but only 2 of those were from central midfielders.
I'm not so sure that's a major problem in a team where you have two defensive midfielders to provide a solid base (e.g. Monty/Jags when we went up).
Our current situation is that neither McDonald or Monty look like scoring and McDonald isn't great defensively either.
I think there's a case for playing Monty and Doyle away from home, like we did at the start of the season when we were sound defensively.
Maybe Monty/Doyle and Williamson at home with a pacy/goalscoring winger (who?) on the right and Quinn on the left.

Say what you like about playing both Monty and Doyle but our record seems to indicate they're our best central midfield pairing.
In the matches they've started together, our results are as follows:- P7 W4 D2 L1 F10 A4 Pts 14 PPG 2
We've had 5 clean sheets this season and 4 of those were in games where Monty and Doyle both started.
That can't just be coincidence. It looks like the Monty/Doyle combo is here to stay with McDonald available on the bench if we need to push for a goal.