last nights game

[GUNBOAT]

Agree with most of your summary but i would only give Wullie a 3/10 he had a shocker and i still cannot understand why he was awarded a 2 year contract unless Ray think's we will be in the Championship for the duration of his stay.He may just be good enough to get us up but in his final year he would take us straight back down,last night he was bullied by a bang average striker.

[ianharab]

Darren no way did we play 2 up top at the start McMullen was played behind McDonald , Stanton was right and King left , we were trying to have that 3 interchangeably , to say 4-4-2 leaves us open is utter *******s , it's a solid two banks of four 4-2-3-1 is a nightmare as we have seen for the past couple of seasons , you need to have guys who switched on for that to work as the two wide of the three have to work as hard back the way as going forward .

No disrespect but you either have never played football or don't get formations

[stokearab]

Darren no way did we play 2 up top at the start McMullen was played behind McDonald , Stanton was right and King left , we were trying to have that 3 interchangeably , to say 4-4-2 leaves us open is utter *******s , it's a solid two banks of four 4-2-3-1 is a nightmare as we have seen for the past couple of seasons , you need to have guys who switched on for that to work as the two wide of the three have to work as hard back the way as going forward .

No disrespect but you either have never played football or don't get formations

exactly this

[ianharab]

How the **** can 4 be outnumbered ?? We got and have been getting overrun there because we insist on that crap formation with two holding players

[darrenshedtastic]

when dundee had the ball in the early stages of the game with their CB's, mcmullan and mcdonald tried to drop back and stop the ball into their DM kamara. if they continued to pass it around the back they would then pick and chose who went to close the CB down. it might not have been and out and out 442 but it certainly looked more like mcmullan was up front alongside mcdonald. even if it was a 4231 it shows that mcmullan as a no.10 doesnt work defensively as they were able to pass the ball through us more when he was there than when we changed it too stanton.

at times if dundee moved the ball around well and kamara was given time that then meant he was a spare man in the midfield. causing a 3v2 centrally for dundee. they had 5 midfielders we had 4 when playing the 442. balls were getting penetrated through our midfield more when we were playing the 4midfield than we did after the change. when we were defending in the 4231 stanton cut off the passing lanes into Mcgowan, el bak or allan better than when mcmullan was in there. their movement was decent and meant they could pop it off around any of our players when we pressed in the midfield.

if there was a tactics board on what it looked like if we played 442 up against their 4231. kamara, mcgowan and el bak v briels and fyvie. (3v2) having two banks of 4 doesnt mean we wont get outnumbered in the midfield.

in terms of leaving us open in a 442 to it doesnt if its done correctly and the wingers come in and narrow the space but if they stay out on the wings when were defending it allows more space for them to play through the central areas which they did. when we changed it i meant we were more of a 451 when defending and cut off the passing lanes much better than we were when we started the game.

agree to disagree about the whether we started with 442 or not but whatever we started with didnt work whether it was the formation or the personal in the formation. we looked better when stanton moved centrally.

please dont come away with comments like your last sentence just because my opinion differs from yours

[huntedbyafreak]

Agree with most of your summary but i would only give Wullie a 3/10 he had a shocker and i still cannot understand why he was awarded a 2 year contract unless Ray think's we will be in the Championship for the duration of his stay.He may just be good enough to get us up but in his final year he would take us straight back down,last night he was bullied by a bang average striker.

100% correct

[stokearab]

when dundee had the ball in the early stages of the game with their CB's, mcmullan and mcdonald tried to drop back and stop the ball into their DM kamara. if they continued to pass it around the back they would then pick and chose who went to close the CB down. it might not have been and out and out 442 but it certainly looked more like mcmullan was up front alongside mcdonald. even if it was a 4231 it shows that mcmullan as a no.10 doesnt work defensively as they were able to pass the ball through us more when he was there than when we changed it too stanton.

at times if dundee moved the ball around well and kamara was given time that then meant he was a spare man in the midfield. causing a 3v2 centrally for dundee. they had 5 midfielders we had 4 when playing the 442. balls were getting penetrated through our midfield more when we were playing the 4midfield than we did after the change. when we were defending in the 4231 stanton cut off the passing lanes into Mcgowan, el bak or allan better than when mcmullan was in there. their movement was decent and meant they could pop it off around any of our players when we pressed in the midfield.

if there was a tactics board on what it looked like if we played 442 up against their 4231. kamara, mcgowan and el bak v briels and fyvie. (3v2) having two banks of 4 doesnt mean we wont get outnumbered in the midfield.

in terms of leaving us open in a 442 to it doesnt if its done correctly and the wingers come in and narrow the space but if they stay out on the wings when were defending it allows more space for them to play through the central areas which they did. when we changed it i meant we were more of a 451 when defending and cut off the passing lanes much better than we were when we started the game.

agree to disagree about the whether we started with 442 or not but whatever we started with didnt work whether it was the formation or the personal in the formation. we looked better when stanton moved centrally.

please dont come away with comments like your last sentence just because my opinion differs from yours

This is not about last night because it was hard to tell from TV what we were playing at any given time, so it's more about the general merits of the two formations.

It's fair to say there's too much put on formations because a highly motivated team playing 4231 will often beat a team playing 442 and vice versa. As I think Gunboat mentioned when this came up last year, Leicester won the EPL playing 442.

4231 as others have mentioned, can be a devastating formation, but it's used most effectively when you have 2 top class full backs that don't need added protection in front of them. You see it in the EPL and other top leagues, but the players are better all round athletes, more skilful, quicker, and generally more intelligent footballers. (Than what we have had the last few seasons) At our level, 4231 is much more easily pulled out of shape than a 442, and crucially 4321 is narrow and allows opposition wide payers to easily get at our fullbacks. This has been a weak point for us for a long time. Four players across the middle, working together, with the back four helping, is a very hard midfield to play through if everyone is doing their job properly. The wide men in the middle 4 need to be able to have the discipline and the engine to attack but also to track back as part of that bank of 4, and I think we have the players to do that now.With 4231 it's much harder to convince the 3 that their first task is to defend, they tend to see their first job as supporting the 1 striker.

As Ian says, the premise of 442 is the two banks of four, and the key to success is that these two banks of four move forward together and move back together. The four playing in front of the back four must have it drilled into them that defence is the first priority and when the opposition pick up the ball to retreat together. This formation is very easy for players of all intellects to understand and play successfully. It also gives the fullbacks added cover, which we badly need.

[stokearab]

Not allowed to edit so just to refer back to Darrens post about their 5 v our 4 in midfield. If a midfield 4 in a 442 is retreating behind the ball when the opposition have it, the scenario becomes their 5 v our 8. A well drilled 8 behind the ball is very hard to break down. I think the point that's coming over is that Ray refuses to play 442, can't or won't drill it into the players because he's to stubborn, but doesn't have the players to play 4231 successfully.

[offshore_arab83]

was never ever a 4-4-2, f ucking no chance with that usless chunt in charge!

[SmedDUm]

Darren no way did we play 2 up top at the start McMullen was played behind McDonald , Stanton was right and King left , we were trying to have that 3 interchangeably , to say 4-4-2 leaves us open is utter *******s , it's a solid two banks of four 4-2-3-1 is a nightmare as we have seen for the past couple of seasons , you need to have guys who switched on for that to work as the two wide of the three have to work as hard back the way as going forward .

No disrespect but you either have never played football or don't get formations

No disrespect to you either ianharab but I played over 1,000 games of football* over 25 years and I haven't a clue what you're talking about.

I've done it before on here but I can give you 'formations' in less than 100 words.

* right enough I wasn't very good