Someone mentioned 3-4-1-2.

[Chick A Saw]

I know next to feck all about all this formation pish, but someone mentioned this version of 3-5-2 in another thread and i wonder who would go where?

My stab....

Siegrist
Connolly, Watson, Reynolds.
Smith, Butcher, Powers, Sporle,
Glass,
Shankland, Appere.

Now over to the experts!

[Eamons_lost_wig_04]

Attacking maybe but then thinking crosses aside.Defensively no way with our full backs/centre halves... our centre halves would be getting dragged out wide all the time to cope with any pacey wingers/strikers who can then turn/commit them
or decide to take their time and find a good cross into the box for any midfield runners

nah not for me

[offshore_arab83]

worked at hame v morton, we were superb and scored 6, pretty sure we lines up like this, maybe shedka could confirm, defo 3 at the back wi Smith and Sporle wing backs

Siegrist,
Watson, Brown, Reynolds,
Smith, Harkes, Butcher, Sporle,
McMullan, Pawlett,
Shankland

[GUNBOAT]

I have been a supporter,player,coach and manager of football teams for almost all of my life and i have been involved in loads of formation debates on this board for almost ten years.The simple FACT is regardless of the formation our team plays in this league we should win most of the games we play because we have better players than the opposition.
Now i know this does not always work out because anything can happen in football and if teams sit in but score on the break then we have a massive problem needing to score twice against a team who will refuse to come out and play.When i am reading on other threads that playing this player or that player wide cost us the game is wide of the mark in my opinion.
Any player in our 1st team squad should be capable of matching up against a part time player and crossing a ball into the box,this is a prerequisite of a professional football player.At this level nothing more complicated than 4-4-2 is required .One thing that most posters are spot on with is we should never need two holding midfielders in this league and should never resort to 4-2-3-1.
I can only think Neilson has used this formation because he does not trust his defence,especially in its centre half area.I would think if we went up with Connolly and Reynolds as our 2 in the centre of defence relegation would be inevitable which makes me wonder why lengthy contracts were given out.

[Dreamsof83]

Completely agree that the players we put out should be able to make any formation work. What I do think though, is that choice of formation goes a long way to setting of a game plan and giving the shape to affect that plan. We have the players that can make multiple systems/formations potentially work and I just think we should choose systems wisely depending on the opposition. Flexibility is important. Personally I think a straight up 4-4-2 was the wrong shape to set up with against Alloa, we were crying out for someone in the number 10 role, although we should have still made it work.

[tHeArAb]

Players should be able to make most formations work, the issues that arise are when you ask players to play out of position to make the formation work. Asking Harkes to play as a right midfielder/winger vs Alloa for instance. We had Appere available. We could've put Pawlett on the right and played Sporle on the left. Harkes was never going to work and it showed badly.
4-2-3-1 is fine if you have the players to play it. You need the two sitters in midfield because the four in front are generally all attack minded and further up the park than in a 4-4-2. In a 4-4-2 you simply do not need two sitters. One has to be able to link midfield to attack. Robbie has to decide what formation he wants to play and put the correct players on the park to suit that formation.

[troonarab]

Players should be able to make most formations work, the issues that arise are when you ask players to play out of position to make the formation work. Asking Harkes to play as a right midfielder/winger vs Alloa for instance. We had Appere available. We could've put Pawlett on the right and played Sporle on the left. Harkes was never going to work and it showed badly.
4-2-3-1 is fine if you have the players to play it. You need the two sitters in midfield because the four in front are generally all attack minded and further up the park than in a 4-4-2. In a 4-4-2 you simply do not need two sitters. One has to be able to link midfield to attack. Robbie has to decide what formation he wants to play and put the correct players on the park to suit that formation.

Ye the 442 we played with 3 center mids 2 of which are defensive and the other has to play through the middle and playing pawlett on the wrong side made that particular central 4 gave us no real chance to get in behind cove rangers never mind a well drilled part time team 😞,I’m no having a go at Robbie but he always says he’s learned from mistakes but compounds them by continually making the same ones repeatedly that’s no learning to me but I’m no manager 😂