Originally Posted by
jackal2
In my humble opinion, these truths about our squad and tactics are self-evident from events tonight and results/performances so far this season:-
• Without a beast like Ryan Yates, the midfield players in the squad are not robust enough to play a two-man central midfield so we'll have to bin the 4-4-2 and go to three players in the centre of the park, two of whom must primarily 'sit' and protect the back four
• Leading on from the point above, the back four of last season were made to look much stronger than they actually are when they had Yates and Hewitt protecting them in the first half of 2017/18
• Playing with a third centre-half doesn't make us defensively stronger, because the biggest problems of all are coming from weakness in the full back and midfield positions - we need the two defensive midfielders (one left and one right) as described above to provide double cover for our full-backs, who are okay going forward but absolutely shocking at getting tight and defending crosses
• Elliott Hewitt should never play full-back again (in his career!) and whoever originally told him he could play that position wants shooting - the lad was a revelation as a central or defensive midfielder last season and he needs to get back to that role pronto, before his confidence goes west
• Ross Fitzsimons is the least of our problems defensively, if indeed he's even a problem at all. Tonight the goals were not his fault and he made several good saves to stop the score going to six, seven or eight-nil
• It's not quite as bad as it seems right now, because there are players in this side who genuinely can play good, sharp one touch passing football and have the flair and skill to individually create and finish chances, but the team can only accommodate a maximum of four of them at any one time. We arguably tried to play with six tonight (two strikers, two wingers and two 'nice' central midfielders) and out of possession we got torn to shreds
• Leading on from the above point, for the first time in years we actually do have strikers and wingers with enough creativity and goal scoring potency to play a 4-3-3 (e.g. Boldewijn - Dennis - Thomas) or a 4-2-3-1 (e.g. Boldewijn - Alessandra - Thomas; and Dennis or Hemmings up top)
• Kevin Nolan still retains the support of plenty of the fan base at the ground (which is very different to NCM and Twitter) at present, and rightly so after the improvements of his first 18 months, but obviously many more results like tonight and the situation will change rapidly
I'm interested to hear what others think...