Sorry, but Doyle is one player who constantly looks for the early ball forward, the reason he ends up playing sideways or taking a safer option is because there is a lack of movement or options available from the front line so better to retain possession, recycle and try again than just lump an aimless ball forward.

He played the perfect captains role against Stockport and I'm convinced it was his barracking of the linesman that got us the offside decision for their goal, he covered every blade of grass in horrible game in horrible conditions and I'm sure he even did his bit to put Reid off when he had the late one on one with Pilling.

Even at nearly forty years old he is amongst the fittest players in this league with a great pedigree and this was confirmed by the Stockport commentator who suggest he would fade as the game went on due to his age, and then at the end of the game admitted he was wrong and commended Doyle on his level of fitness.

Also, regarding the Dagenham game, we didn't play better after he went in goal but that was collectively because of him and not despite of him.

Tsanho, great thread and sorry for the tirade regarding Doyle.

FWIW I think the return of Roberts will go a long way towards getting some of the creative threat back, it's no surprise that has decline a little since he got injured. it will also provide a boost to the other creative players like Enzio and Ruben, imagine those two with Roberts in a 3 behind Wootton.

The high press as others have said is easy to beat if you fight fire with fire. It ends up being a battle to see who has the most energetic press. If I was to be critical of anything this season it would be that when we face a high pressing team we sit back and invite them onto us even more making it much easier for them. We have the players to play these teams at their own game and win.

The whole point of the system we are trying to play is that while ever you are in possession of the ball the opposition cannot be a threat, it is then a case of working the angles and through the phases in order to create chances that are of a higher value than just lumping the ball down the channels. This has been proven with some of the team goals we have scored where there were lots of passes before the final decisive movements created the goal. It's not just passing around for passing's sake and when a decisive brave looking pass is made it isn't because that player decided to take a risk its because the opportunity had been created for that pass to be made. If players tried this every time fans would be going nuts about how often we give the ball away in midfield.

We have the players in this squad to adapt to a few decent formations and systems, the pressing 4-2-3-1 can change when necessary to a 4-3-3 and if we want to be more solid we can easily go to a flat 4-4-2 if necessary.

We are half way through the season, within spitting distance of top spot and we are yet to see the best of this squad, will be very interesting to see where we are in another 10 games.