John N wrote:
Our players aren't BAD. They just aren't exceptionally good. There's a difference.
Our promotion to the Championship was largely based on exceptional players for League One level. Ali, Grigg, Afobe and Baker together with an in form Potter. When these lost their sparkle (Baker) or moved on, we plummeted. Playing the Robbo way didn't work, because the players weren't as good. Neilson was brought in to avoid a second relegation and did that but in my opinion didn't get to the root of the problem.
We have had a succession of strikers who have not come off even though they enjoyed previous success. The reason is that they weren't in the Grigg, Afobe or Bamford class. They didn't suddenly become BAD players. This lack of success has been too consistent. I put it down to formation, NOT style. When was the last time we started a match with two central strikers? I mean two strikers playing centrally, not one striker and one playing in the hole or two playing wide right and left and cutting in. I cant remember it under Robinson, or Neilson or now DM. But strikers with relatively limited ability need to hunt in pairs. If they don't, they simply get snuffed out by the opposition defence.
In exactly the same way, we expect our width to be provided by marauding full backs/wingbacks. This has applied to Robinson, Neilson and DM teams.If players had the pace, stamina, dribbling and crossing ability to do this, fine. But you aren't going to find many in League One who have all these abilities or they wouldn't be playing at that level. The result, a shortage of decent crosses (compounded by a lot of 'wrong footed' playing up front where wide men cut inside and the whole middle becomes congested) Again, we are asking players of average ability to play beyond their capacity.
I think that an experienced manager would have recognised that our problems aren't really stylistic. We have a group of players who are average. So we should play accordingly. Does it really make sense to start a match (like at Oldham) with two very decent young wingers on the bench because they don't fit in with your wingback plan? Does it make sense to have a squad stuffed with forwards and only play one central striker? Does it make sense to be suffering a goal drought and not even TRY playing a second centre forward? I don't think it does. An experienced manager would have recognised this and at least TRIED a simple 4-4-2 which is within the capacity of the squad which we have. DM has been concentrating on style. Now is not the time for this. It isn't working. It doesn't matter whether we build from the back slowly or play more direct. That's aesthetics. Its time for going back to basics and playing a system which is within our players' capabilities. Then we might have a chance of survival. Unfortunately, PW did NOT appoint an experienced manager and this is liable to take us down.
Playing 4-4-2 and fairly direct won Leicester the Premiership title. We would do well to remember that.
Absolutely this.
Although this is a far too reasoned and sensible post for this forum
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