⚽Match Thread vs. Newport County 13.02.24 [EFL L2]

[the_anticlough]

Didn't we scored a shedload of goals, win more games than we lost, and were in a playoff position when Luke Williams left?
I must have been reading the league table upside down.

Absolutely correct.

I don't know who Durham is arguing against. We'll all have seen the best attacking teams of our lifetimes employ a back 4, internationally, nationally and with Notts. The Liverpool dynasty of the 70s/80s, Man U dynasty of 90s/00s, almost every great World Cup team, including Brazil 82, our highest league position for a century was achieved by the ultra-attacking Wilko team which had a 4. Of course it doesn't have to mean a defensive approach (although some on here were/are wanting that).

It's interesting to me that we started to use a back 3 plus wing-backs system the last time a manager had a real crisis. Ardley in early 2021 switched to it after the 'players' meeting'. And it's been our system for almost 3 years since then (IB occasionally played a 4, like at Halifax!). It's definitely the most successful and longest-lasting iteration of that system we've ever seen at Notts, culminating in LW's version of it. And it was because he played wingers wide, instead of full-backs, that it worked (where IB's didn't) and finally allowed us to dominate NL teams and get back into the EFL.

After Ardley's crisis that forced a change, you could argue that the most pressure a Notts manager has been under after that was SM after his first 3 games, also bringing about a change of system (LW was never going to do it unless he really had too). We could all see it was a tonic

- Players like Baldwin and Cameron probably couldn't believe how much easier it is when you're not exposed
- The players were freed up from static and stale patterns of play that the opposition were ready for
- It totally flummoxed the opposing coach
- We still played 4 very attacking players and Robbo, Macari and Cameron joined in too.

The ideal is being able to move from system to system as required. We'll see if SM can pull that off, or even try. But for now, he'll definitely carry on with the back 4 as the only thing that's worked well for him so far. Especially against Wrexham who were experts at exploiting our spaces down the flanks. Now they'll ahve to game-plan something else.

[Elite_Pie]

Yes we were, but we were very quickly dropping out of the play offs..

But we didn't drop out of the playoffs, and we'll never know whether Luke Williams would have kept us there or not. What I take issue with is that you described the wing back system as one "that clearly does not work for us in this division". I would say that while we conceded too many goals, the system definitely worked because we scored so many. It led to attendances I never thought possible at this level, and unless you expected a continuation of last season, it worked.

I have seen many systems that didn't work over the last 50 years, the standout being McParland's supposed "attractive passing game" before Munto came along. It was beyond tedious to watch, and all but the diehards seemed to agree. It was possibly the only occasions I've been part of a Meadow Lane crowd below 3,000 for a league game.

[the_anticlough]

For us to be a serious contender in L2 using LW's back 3, I always felt that Baldwin and Cameron had to be the worst two of that 4 (back 3 + goalie), but without the recruitment they were the best two (in line-ups with Stone, Slocs, Brinds, Rawlo). And then the main cog in the whole system is needed - Matty Palmer.

If LW had stayed he'd be using Warner, Ashby-Hammond, Robertson in his favoured system. We wouldn't have had the post-LW collapse in morale, and we know that LW would have stuck to his guns. He wasn't quite facing the existential crisis Ardley did, and SM probably thought he did.

[durhampie]

For us to be a serious contender in L2 using LW's back 3, I always felt that Baldwin and Cameron had to be the worst two of that 4 (back 3 + goalie), but without the recruitment they were the best two (in line-ups with Stone, Slocs, Brinds, Rawlo). And then the main cog in the whole system is needed - Matty Palmer.

If LW had stayed he'd be using Warner, Ashby-Hammond, Robertson in his favoured system. We wouldn't have had the post-LW collapse in morale, and we know that LW would have stuck to his guns. He wasn't quite facing the existential crisis Ardley did, and SM probably thought he did.

Thats utter rubbish. he would still have played both Nemane and Jodi as wingbacks, and the goals against would racked up even more. It was pretty clear from the players reactions that their confidence had completely gone. Williams had run out of ideas (well he never had any )
and was clueless on how to sort it. You also argued that we would lose our attacking impetus if we reverted to a back 4, Tuesday night dispelled that ridiculous theory.. Just for your benefit, Williams is now adapting similar tactics at Swansea, and guess what ? they are getting hammered. Does that sound familiar.

[Elite_Pie]

Williams had run out of ideas (well he never had any ).

Read that back to yourself durham.

And then maybe seek therapy.

[BigFatPie]

The other multiverse where Williams hasn’t dicked off would be quite interesting. In his last game at Tranny we defended terribly and were wide open, to a pretty ordinary side. Same at Grimsby, with JOB using presumably using similar strategies. Williams was pretty attached to his wing backs, but conceding 9 to two poor sides would surely have made him change tack.

[matt_magpie]

LW was a fantastic coach with plenty of ideas, you don’t do what we did last season and get in the play offs without them.
Looking back now with the benefit of hindsight I think he was to rigid with the 3 at the back and especially away.
The issue for me was we didn’t have the personnel for it before in tough games, Brindley is never a natural RCB as he’s not physical enough and Rawlinson is a CB, you can’t leave him out there exposed to pace, Camerons steady but overall it's not the best ingredients for a back 3. I think the options still there now if Warner keeps improving though.

[Wollat11]

It's an interesting debate. There's no doubt that the LW system can work BUT only with the right players. There was much talk about SM playing the same system at Wealdstone and that was in part why he was hired. The stats for Wealdstone were impressive given the part time status. 5th best defence, 4th best possession, 3rd best number of shots, playing 3 at back plus wingbacks. But he obviously had the right players to work the system. For us, Jones and Nemane are not wingbacks so there already is an inherent weakness, added to which in central defence we have looked hesitant and vulnerable to crosses, corners and long throws. Newport was a whole different ball game. Sorry for the pun. The changes were designed to make sure we didn't concede soft goals, to make us more solid and to defend from front to back and of course it worked. Will SM stick with this now? It's not his natural style of play but suspect he may have seen enough now to provoke a switch.

[durhampie]

You seem to forget that the opposition were very poor, and he couldnt have failed with the team he was given. But having said that we were poor in both the semi final and Final, and were lucky to get thru..

[matt_magpie]

You seem to forget that the opposition were very poor, and he couldnt have failed with the team he was given. But having said that we were poor in both the semi final and Final, and were lucky to get thru..

We could have easily failed, on paper we had no right to be close to 1st so it was always going to be the lottery of the play offs.
I’ve watched both play offs games back and we weren’t that bad at all, it just felt that way to me personally at the time as we weren’t at our fluid best.