The dilemma with Roberts

[the_anticlough]

I agree.

I must confess I haven't liked the 4-2-3-1 formation ever since the days of Keith Curle, but it does seem to me to be the one best suited to the personnel we currently have. In fact I thought it was the plan when I saw our signings last summer. The key to its success is that the three attacking midfielders have to be genuine goal threats, which they were not under Curle, but I'd say we've got that goal-scoring ability in the likes of Roberts, Sam, Rodrigues and maybe Nemane and Brunt too if they were deployed in that formation.

IB certainly needs to try something different, because trying to shoehorn certain players into a 3-5-2/3-4-3 formation isn't working consistently. One way or another we always seem to have at least one of our best players looking out of sorts.

Regarding 3-5-2....even with the right wide CBs, proper wing-backs and a good holding midfielder...it's still bloody hard to perm 4 of our creative/attacking players to complete the team. That shows you just how tough it is to pull off a good 3-5-2.
I've been wanting 4-2-3-1 from the start...
I still think you'd get good attacking contributions from Richardson/Taylor/Chicksen/DKE etc as full backs because they'd be coming on to the ball from deep with space ahead rather than receiving it tightly marked further up the pitch.

But the players have had drills and patterns based on 3-5-2 for ages now. Are we desperate enough to throw that away for something new? Maybe not (yet)

[jackal2]

But the players have had drills and patterns based on 3-5-2 for ages now. Are we desperate enough to throw that away for something new? Maybe not (yet)

But if not now, when? We're getting into 'crunch' time.

Earlier in the season I was willing to tolerate us dropping some silly points, mostly to lesser opposition, on the grounds that the players were still learning to adapt to IB's system, but if the last three games have proved anything it's that the players either aren't learning from those earlier lessons, or more fundamentally that the formation just isn't betting the best out of them consistently enough.