Width killing us

[bonobo]

I wonder how essential having the ' Inverted' wide players is to our system ? I understand this is how many teams set up and I would not want disrupt what is working pretty well for us. But I am not sure I am seeing what we would lose massively if we tried players on their natural side at times, stretched play out more stopper defenders doubling up and encouraged players to deliver the ball more quickly.

 

[Bladezz]

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?

Hamer is the least of our issues. Today he had the ball more than anyone. I like him out wide as he gets the ball a lot more and drifts inside.

It’s for the games we want to mix it up we don’t have the option.

 

[Bladezz]

I wonder how essential having the ' Inverted' wide players is to our system ? I understand this is how many teams set up and I would not want disrupt what is working pretty well for us. But I am not sure I am seeing what we would lose massively if we tried players on their natural side at times, stretched play out more stopper defenders doubling up and encouraged players to deliver the ball more quickly.

Because the full backs now go on the outside. The full backs go in and around as when your out on the touch line you only have a crossing option.

When Hamer / JRS come inside they are their stronger foot looking towards the goal. It’s how modern football has been for a few years now. But we as supporters just haven’t seen a team with wingers for many a year.

 

[Tony_Kaufman]

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

There's also an argument for O'Hare partnering Vini as he will track back and battle more than Hamer, then Gus can play central in a supporting role.

 

[robbiez666]

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

It was noticeable that on a few occasions today he made a run and then turned back, allowing them to get back into position. I can only assume it's confidence or instruction.

In terms of width, I'm genuinely at a loss why Burrows and McCallum don't play together down the left. Both gave pace, width and can cross and come inside.

 

[FTPE]

It was noticeable that on a few occasions today he made a run and then turned back, allowing them to get back into position. I can only assume it's confidence or instruction.

In terms of width, I'm genuinely at a loss why Burrows and McCallum don't play together down the left. Both gave pace, width and can cross and come inside.

So McCallum LB Burrows in front.
Seriki RB and JRS in front?
Still not out and out wingers but that's a hell of a lot more tenacity and attacking wide threat.

 

[Keen Blade]

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

Playing against a useless RB who gives him oceans of space like Alfie did today , like what we had.

 

[sheff_blade90]

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

spot on as usual. but its what i usually say. there is no such thing as overachieving in football anymore. just look at Leicester & Oxford. i dont how or when it changed but realism had all but left the game

the idea even with a fully fit squad every week that we would 5pts clear of leeds at the top on xmas day (excluding deductions) would be overachieving. the fact we've had large spells without arblaster, anel, vini, moore, campbell & bench full of free & academy kids is ludicrous. we currently hugely overachieving. god sake we played ryan one up front & won. how many teams in english football starts their 4th choice striker & wins a league game. very few if any

 

[Keen Blade]

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!

Brooks is better than L1 but we force him onto the R and expect him to play inverted.
Were Burnley's wingers inverted ?
No.
Did they beat us in the outside and put crosses in ?
Yes.
Did they score the crucial goal from one ?
Yes.
Fuck this inverted winger lark , it doesn't work for us.
There was an occasion in the first half where Burrows was fed a cracking pass which put him in oceans of space on the L , all he had to do was hit it first time into Moore or carry it forward unopposed to the byline and cross with his trusty L foot ...
What did he do ?
Turned infield and passed backwards to Hamer who couldn't do anything but try a cross from a much worse position.
This turning infield lark is even infecting our best crosser !!

 

[robbiez666]

So McCallum LB Burrows in front.
Seriki RB and JRS in front?
Still not out and out wingers but that's a hell of a lot more tenacity and attacking wide threat.

Not sure you can play Seriki and JRS because JRS does little defensive work.

 

[Keen Blade]

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.

What gives me a bit of hope for January is that CW has clearly stated he needs quality experienced players , not more development kids on loan or fillers.
I don't know how much football Rosen & Eltoukhy have ever watched but they surely see we never had a proper shot on target today and struggled to get through Burnley's defence in any meaningful way.
CW's statement is not only accurate but warns them that some real money needs spending in January if they don't want to throw away the golden opportunity we have right now.

 

[Keen Blade]

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?

I can't understand why CW can't see our lack of effective wide play ...
After all , his entire success 2018-20 was built on overlapping CBs creating overloads out wide.

You are never going to get through a defence as good as Burnley's by trying to go through the middle , as proved by the crappy through balls trying to reach Moore today or Tom Davies busting his lungs trying to carry the ball through 4 defenders coz none of his teammates has any idea of how to use width.

 

[Keen Blade]

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

Alfie cross for the opening goal by Moore at Cardiff.
Hamer cross for the Brewster winner at Millwall.
But you're right , we don't do it anywhere near often enough.

 

[Keen Blade]

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.

I have been saying all season that , despite results , our "attacking 4" is just not set up correctly, but and v the better teams , its deficiency is exposed.
From the point of transition , it is obvious we have "no plan" of how to get forward.
JRS never going on outside to put in a cross coz he's inverted Moore isolated. O'Hare doing a wonderful tireless pressing job , but not really a 10. Hamer a R footed MF stuck on LW.
It's a dog's breakfast.
We don't play the type of passes to the flanks which favour the "winger" to beat his marker.
We've been top of the league through moments of class against poorer teams , rather than a system which puts opposition under pressure creating loads of chances.
It needs a proper rethink before CW goes and recruits expensive players for a non-existent system.
The number of times Hamer puts in a weak shot from outside the box drives me nuts , but he's doing it coz there's no alternative and there's no alternative coz there's no intuition between our attackers - we attack in a ragbag mess.

 

[Keen Blade]

The more he touches it the more he gives it away

He's looking quite disaffected recently , I think he's an emotional guy and if things aren't suiting him (either his position or the system) he's getting close to throwing his toys out - some of his play today was really useless for the supposed "best midfielder in the league".
Pathetic shots and crosses to the goalie's hands.

 

[Keen Blade]

It was noticeable that on a few occasions today he made a run and then turned back, allowing them to get back into position. I can only assume it's confidence or instruction.

In terms of width, I'm genuinely at a loss why Burrows and McCallum don't play together down the left. Both gave pace, width and can cross and come inside.

Because who are you dropping ?
Hamer or O'Hare ?

 

[Keen Blade]

Because the full backs now go on the outside. The full backs go in and around as when your out on the touch line you only have a crossing option.

When Hamer / JRS come inside they are their stronger foot looking towards the goal. It’s how modern football has been for a few years now. But we as supporters just haven’t seen a team with wingers for many a year.

I saw Burnley's LW today and he delivered some nice crosses from one of which they scored
Souttar & Robbo were marking no fucker , leaving poor Burrows with 2 attackers to mark and 2 other Burnley coming in for the rebound.
Utter shitshow of defending from Alfie leaving their LW in yards of space to our CBs switched completely off

 

[JayGreen17]

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?

You’re spot on… and many have said this, I’m not sure how the management aren’t seeing this to, or is it we just don’t have the quality and numbers?

 

[SUFCinks]

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

I think its a bit of both, he tries things which is good. He is also wasteful as sometimes those passes just aren’t on, execution is bad, or too ambitious. He sometimes acts in a bit of a hurried frenzy as opposed to being a little more considered at times. Both sides of the game are needed. He turns over possession a lot at times when we could do with holding it but he also helps us create a lot. He has both good qualities and also very frustrating ones.

 

[robbiez666]

Because who are you dropping ?
Hamer or O'Hare ?

I think it's horses for courses. It would have been simple to play McCallum instead of Brewster today and put O'Hare or Hamer on the right. Although, a 4:3:3 may have been better today anyway. Not sure the benefit of playing 4:4:2 with no eide players!

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

It was noticeable that on a few occasions today he made a run and then turned back, allowing them to get back into position. I can only assume it's confidence or instruction.

In terms of width, I'm genuinely at a loss why Burrows and McCallum don't play together down the left. Both gave pace, width and can cross and come inside.

Was saying this from about minute 5 yesterday. McCallum has shown more out wide than Hamer, O'Hare, Brewster combined. Plus it means we hold some sort of shape. I appreciate those names are 'bigger' Hamer on the left smacks of when Ericsson used to play Paul Scholes at LHR just to get him in the team.

For me the biggest elephant in the room is that Hamer and O'Hare essentially want to play in the same position so when they play we end up disjointed and with no structure. Fine against bog standard Championship sides as our man for man quality will win the day. Against good sides it hurts us badly....

 

[Bladezz]

I think it's horses for courses. It would have been simple to play McCallum instead of Brewster today and put O'Hare or Hamer on the right. Although, a 4:3:3 may have been better today anyway. Not sure the benefit of playing 4:4:2 with no eide players!

Think these are the issues. We are discussing whether to play a left back at left wing whilst we are top of the championship.

It’s ludicrous.

 

[Frank the tank]

Brooks is better than L1 but we force him onto the R and expect him to play inverted.
Were Burnley's wingers inverted ?
No.
Did they beat us in the outside and put crosses in ?
Yes.
Did they score the crucial goal from one ?
Yes.
Fuck this inverted winger lark , it doesn't work for us.
There was an occasion in the first half where Burrows was fed a cracking pass which put him in oceans of space on the L , all he had to do was hit it first time into Moore or carry it forward unopposed to the byline and cross with his trusty L foot ...
What did he do ?
Turned infield and passed backwards to Hamer who couldn't do anything but try a cross from a much worse position.
This turning infield lark is even infecting our best crosser !!

Yes it's our downfall
It must be Instructed, it happens far too often for it not to be

 

[finlaytheblade]

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.

Spot on Roy! Wilder will be aware of all this! That's why it is an important window of oportunity building on this half season where no doubt we are punching above our Weight. Most of these posts clearly see our short comings ! As I said an important window.

 

[brownblade]

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.

100%

Results have been tremendous, but we're cobbling them together, not exactly romping the league.

Manager has done a great job to turn things from awful last season to very solid this season.

But we need January additions and need time to improve.

 

[FleaPitBlade]

It's about options, isn't it? Or the lack thereof.

Playing the inverted winger thing is all well and good, and a shape that has took us far - but it wasn't working yesterday and we had no way of meaningfully changing the way it was going either by like for like personnel or shape.

It was the lack of depth, compounded by injuries, that forces us to keep playing in one way only.

I expect we'll be working to fix that through January.

 

[robbiez666]

Was saying this from about minute 5 yesterday. McCallum has shown more out wide than Hamer, O'Hare, Brewster combined. Plus it means we hold some sort of shape. I appreciate those names are 'bigger' Hamer on the left smacks of when Ericsson used to play Paul Scholes at LHR just to get him in the team.

For me the biggest elephant in the room is that Hamer and O'Hare essentially want to play in the same position so when they play we end up disjointed and with no structure. Fine against bog standard Championship sides as our man for man quality will win the day. Against good sides it hurts us badly....

I think it's self-defeating playing both all the time. They both look tired, neither look sharp and Hamer's discipline just goes. We're going to lose him for two games very soon anyway, so at least he'll get a rest. Wilder really needs to address his disciplinary record. Almost every card is him having a paddy. Shouldn't be losing out star player for 3 games a season because he gets mardy!

 

[FTPE]

Who's available in Jan then? Can we still afford to use the two loans on Morton and BBD?

 

[robbiez666]

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.

And the manager, staff and players have done so well so far that many fans are now starting to expect automatic promotion. So, a dip is going to lead touch more criticism than it merits.

We're very effective against teams we're better than but not against the better teams. This consistency might be enough but we've been more and more reliant on winning big moments. And the luck seems to be starting to wane.

 

[ekke287]

When we do play through the middle I don’t have faith Moore can catch it anyway. A couple of times RB tried it, and granted overhit, but you can see Moore doesn’t have the lace to latch on to such attempts.

Campbell is better at doing this and getting onto box crosses imo, but obviously not an option atm, so we need a plan to play to our available players strengths.

We experimented with RB, COH and GH yesterday so effectively lost their strengths. Injuries dictate the need to do this BUT it’s unfortunate it happens in bigger games.