Quote Originally Posted by jacobncfc View Post
We’re nominally playing a three either way, but with either Roberts or Rodrigues in there it’s essentially a two without the ball.

Our biggest problem last night was that Wealdstone were playing a 3-5-2 with three orthodox central midfielders, so they picked up 75% of the loose balls and every time they got it they just passed around Palmer and Francis and were at our defence. We were constantly outnumbered in the centre, not sure how you can solve that with that personnel.

I saw a Wealdstone fan describe our formation as 4-2-4, which was probably an accurate representation of how it actually turned out.
That will be IB's challenge. I don't think there's any such thing as 'no defensive responsibilities' in modern football..
With 4-3-3, even the Christmas tree can drop into a 4-5-1 without the ball and Wootton certainly puts a defensive shift in hounding the back players. Fans have been commenting that Ruben for one is doing more chasing back and tackling (he certainly looks fitter). If it's a tough game away then O'Brien can take that slot and it's R & R plus Woots across the front line...

And the Palmer, Francis issue doesn't go away in 3-5-2 you just add a dodgy flank to the mix.
Players like DKE and Brinds are used to coming on to the ball from deep with the game ahead of them. Being marked further forward, receiving with back to goal sometimes doesn't come naturally to them, so strangely you might get better attacking play from them as full-backs rather than wing-backs