3 - 5 - 2

[equinox]

A welcome victory today but does it need to be so arduous?

We have the players but not the the system, defence is our obvious strength so use it and maximise it.

We have a left sided centre half (rare), we have a ball playing centre half (CJ) to play in the middle of the three, we have several right sided centre halves coming back from injury.

You won't find a better right sided wing back in the division than Roberts and Pires on the other side gets better every week.

Hanibal has to play, you can't leave your captain and top scorer out so Brownhill starts but he's on borrowed time.

Something like this for me:

..................................Trafford...............................

...........Don't know.... ....CJ.........Esteve.................

Roberts....Hanibal.....Cullen...Brownhill.........Pires....

.............................Sarmiento......................................

....................................Flemming....................................

You can't keep playing Koleosho and Antony, they just don't work, the theory does but practically it doesn't.

[fidelcastro]

Is this Don't know any good?

[helmclaret]

You can play whatever formation you want. We have absolutely nothing up front.

[KlyBfc]

Looks even more defensive with 5 defenders and still no striker.

[equinox]

Is this Don't know any good?

Well we don't know yet.

[taio]

Parker should stick to his plan for now, at least. We are well placed in the league and should trust we'll become ruthless with a bit more time. The last thing we need to do is unsettle our back four and keeper with a change of defensive formation when we look so solid and have conceded just six goals.

[equinox]

Looks even more defensive with 5 defenders and still no striker.

Egan Riley is the key, clever footballer this lad he makes the system work.

[Vintage Claret]

Know it won't happen but with our lack of goals I'd like us to try 4-4-2 especially at home.

We have a solid defence and from what I've seen so far this season I can't see us being over-run in midfield so why not start another attacking player along with Flemming whether that be Jay or Houdini?
.

[Newcastleclaret93]

That formation is shite and doesn’t compliment barely any of the players you have suggested

[Vintage Claret]

That formation is shite and doesn’t compliment barely any of the players you have suggested

How do you know if we haven't tried it?

[watsonsclarets]

we do not have the Legs in Roberts or Pires for me to play them as lone wide players.

[Newcastleclaret93]

How do you know if we haven't tried it?

Because it doesn’t suit the individual skills of players highlighted.

For one you need incredibly tricky and athletic wing backs (IE Maatsenesque). We don’t have that.

You then need midfielders that break the lines with passes. We don’t have a single midfielder that can do that.

Then you need rapid strikers that can stretch the back line. We have one in Foster but he looks to be out for the foreseeable.

[Billyblah]

We don't have the players, and the system doesn't work. 3-5-2 , 4-4-2, 4-5-1, ....or currently 4-6-0 ....
Swansea will be aggrieved that they didn't come away with a point today. It was a toothless display which would have gone horribly wrong if Esteve hadn't pulled off a goal line clearance.
The occasional goal will be conceded but when you have no-one to put the ball in the net, it isn't possible to rescue situations.
Unless we can quickly resurrect injured strikers or send out a search party and locate Mike Tresor, our season will fizzle into mid table obscurity.

[Newcastleclaret93]

We don't have the players, and the system doesn't work. 3-5-2 , 4-4-2, 4-5-1, ....or currently 4-6-0 ....
Swansea will be aggrieved that they didn't come away with a point today. It was a toothless display which would have gone horribly wrong if Esteve hadn't pulled off a goal line clearance.
The occasional goal will be conceded but when you have no-one to put the ball in the net, it isn't possible to rescue situations.
Unless we can quickly resurrect injured strikers or send out a search party and locate Mike Tresor, our season will fizzle into mid table obscurity.

The striker position is literally the least of our issues. We have considerably bigger issues that which striker will not recieve the ball in the final third.

[alboclaret]

A welcome victory today but does it need to be so arduous?

We have the players but not the the system, defence is our obvious strength so use it and maximise it.

We have a left sided centre half (rare), we have a ball playing centre half (CJ) to play in the middle of the three, we have several right sided centre halves coming back from injury.

You won't find a better right sided wing back in the division than Roberts and Pires on the other side gets better every week.

Hanibal has to play, you can't leave your captain and top scorer out so Brownhill starts but he's on borrowed time.

Something like this for me:

..................................Trafford...............................

...........Don't know.... ....CJ.........Esteve.................

Roberts....Hanibal.....Cullen...Brownhill.........Pires....

.............................Sarmiento......................................

....................................Flemming....................................

You can't keep playing Koleosho and Antony, they just don't work, the theory does but practically it doesn't.

That's really a 5311. That's as defensive as you get.
A 352 really has wingers asked to defend when necessary not full backs to be wingers.

[ClaretPete001]

Nice to see an OP discussing tactics but the solution to not scoring goals and not conceding them either doesn't seem to me to be solved by going more defensive.

We haven't go the players and we can't really say how we would perform if we did have strikers who are good enough available.

[Indecisive]

I’m not an expert but our real issue seems pretty clear to me.

We are short of a goalscoring striker.

Actually for what we do have we are in a pretty healthy position, and actually being objective, Parker has done a decent job.

I think with our current available forward options we are probably a team that would finish somewhere between 4th-10th.

I think right now if we can be comfortably in the play off mix and then manage to bring in a decent (at this level) centre forward in January we’d have a good chance of playoffs and an outside chance of automatics.

Limiting the use of this board at the minute as I just think a lot of posters expectations have got too high for our current situation.

[Newcastleclaret93]

I’m not an expert but our real issue seems pretty clear to me.

We are short of a goalscoring striker.

Actually for what we do have we are in a pretty healthy position, and actually being objective, Parker has done a decent job.

I think with our current available forward options we are probably a team that would finish somewhere between 4th-10th.

I think right now if we can be comfortably in the play off mix and then manage to bring in a decent (at this level) centre forward in January we’d have a good chance of playoffs and an outside chance of automatics.

Limiting the use of this board at the minute as I just think a lot of posters expectations have got too high for our current situation.

How can anyone watch us play and think a striker is our issue.

Haaland could be up front and we still wouldn’t score more

[BigJay]

Agree mosty with the OP, except I don't think we actually do have the right players fit/available. Also, too many being played out of position, tactics too cautious and more like 4:6:0 than a 4:4:2 or 3:5:2. Humphreys is a centre half playing at left back. Pires, our only left back lacks consistency & can't be trusted week in week out. Flemming looks more of an attacking midfielder, not a no9. Sarmiento seems to me to be more of a wide player and prefers coming in from the left. I think we've been more like a 4:6:0 than a 3:5:2, with 2 centre backs, a left/right back, 3 centre midfielders and we're deploying 2 wide players on their least preferred sides. And we're playing without a 9 or 10 most recently, hence 4:6:0. We're solid enough at the back, but it's overly cautious and dull to watch, yet we're still in the top 4 in spite of all that. I take the point about Humphreys being a left sided CB, but I wouldn't drop CJER or Esteve at the moment either.

[Newcastleclaret93]

I think if we were playing best players in there preferred position it would look something like:

Trafford
Roberts, Egan Riley, Esteve, Pires
Cullen, Hannibal
Anthony, Flemming, Sarmiento
Foster

[123EasyasBFC]

Seems a great idea for a team who struggle to score to add another defender into the side

[Colburn_Claret]

I've thought for a while it could be worthwhile trying 3 5 2, or even 3 4 3.

CJER, Steve and Humphries as the back 3.

Roberts and Pires are capable of playing higher up the pitch, Roberts already does for Wales, and both are more creative than Anthony and Koleosho.

I'd play Laurent and Cullen in the CM roles.


Up top Fleming and Brownhill playing behind a CF. Foster or Houtonji, whoever is fit.



I'm not saying it's the solution to our problems, but the biggest failing at the moment is we don't appear to be trying anything different. The style and formation is fixed, so is the scarcity of chances. SP, so far, hasn't shown any sort of a Plan B. We can't just carry on repeating the same boring set up, and expect our fortunes to change. I think most of us would prefer something different and failure, than the same week after week, and failure.