Back 5 will be the undoing of us

[DanH90]

Parker has to change this and fast. Any attacking threat wee may have shown previously is not there in this system, and it isn’t exactly shoring us up at the back. Villas goal was due to a lack of bodies in the middle and a pass straight through the lines. Midfield is where games are won and lost, and a 3 of Big Les, Florentino and Cullen gives us a better chance.

[JimmyRobbo]

No it won't.

Not being good enough without spending 400m will be our undoing.

[Cooclaret]

Really seeing why no decent side came in for Esteve in the summer.

Young
Poor
Weak

[Spijed]

No it won't.

Not being good enough without spending 400m will be our undoing.

Sunderland drew with Villa despite being down to ten men.

[Herts Clarets]

Screenshot_20251005_173409_X.jpg (1.05 MiB) Viewed 1604 times

When you defend like this there is no hope

[DanH90]

Amazing how we’ve bucked up since Les came on isn’t it. And we are packing the midfield a bit more.

[JimmyRobbo]

Sunderland drew with Villa despite being down to ten men.

So?

We beat them. They must be rubbish, eh? And we must be world beaters.

The season is a lon one. If we give each game a go then I'll be happy.

For us to win, all our players have to be maxing their game and so has our manager. We can't do that every game but at least we can give it a go.

[DanH90]

Les gives us someone in the middle willing to drive with the ball. With Laurent at the back, and Cullen and Florentino both sitting, the gap with the forward line is too big.

[RVclaret]

Sunderland fans were annoyed they went to United in a back 4 yesterday in the first half. Defence all over the place. Switched to a 5 at half time and looked miles better. I don’t think the system is major problem, but it needs to get Ugochukwu into the starting 11.

[DanH90]

Nothing wrong with a 5 against city/Liverpool, but surely a 4 against a Villa side still improving gives you more of a chance.

[ElectroClaret]

Need a lot more firepower up front.

[CoolClaret]

Sunderland fans were annoyed they went to United in a back 4 yesterday in the first half. Defence all over the place. Switched to a 5 at half time and looked miles better. I don’t think the system is major problem, but it needs to get Ugochukwu into the starting 11.

Think that works against United when they're also playing 3 at the back, have the wide centre backs to combat their two attacking mids/inside forwards, but against most teams we absolutely do need three in there.

[Goliath]

Amazing how we’ve bucked up since Les came on isn’t it. And we are packing the midfield a bit more.

Quite obvious what the system should be.
Shoehorning Josh Laurent in to a PL side out of position is absolutely bizarre.

The absolute refusal to use the creativity of Edwards or Tresor when losing is also very odd. Tresor not being on the bench is a joke.

[ClaretAL]

5 at the back is right when the correct players play as the 3 CB. Today we didn’t and that was our downfall Laurent should not be anywhere near that back 3 and big Les needs to be in the starting 11.

[brexit]

ange will be available on monday

[dougcollins]

Need a lot more firepower up front.

We ended up with JBL up front today, I mean wtf.

[ksrclaret]

I fully expected us to shift to a back 5 this season given Parker’s use of the system previously, but I expected us to recruit the players to do it rather than putting Laurent at RCB.

We’ve actually recruited the players to play 3 in midfield (Luis and Ugochukwu coming in) so any manager worth his salt would play the system to suit his best team. Lets see if lessons have been learned for the Leeds game.

[jlup1980]

Back 5, 4, 3, whatever... something has to change for the Leeds game. We're at a critical point of the season now. Lose our next three and we might as well start planning for the Championship. We need to find a way of carrying a genuine threat. Foster and Broja both fluffed big chances today, but got lucky as they were offside. It highlights our problem though. We simply don't have a goalscorer.

[Hedontplayforyou]

Need to see Luis, Les and Cullen together in the next game.

[blatherwickstattoos]

No attacking midfielder in a central role. We look lost at times in the final third. Way way way off it. It’s going to be a long hard season.

[Hedontplayforyou]

We were much better when Big Les came on, albeit still toothless up top.

JBLs touch was shocking and always looked to be stretching for the ball.

Broja still looks unfit and shot of confidence

[CrosspoolClarets]

We haven’t got good enough players to play in a five.

A five requires wingbacks to provide the attacking threat, which means centre backs are always getting pulled left and right, and without the three in midfield means players like Tuanzebe are having to step up to tackle or press - which cost us, as in the above photo. The centre backs being shifted around is what is leaving that space due to inexperience in those formations.

My concern is that Hartman said last week we have spent the entire preseason training for a five.

[CoolClaret]

No attacking midfielder in a central role. We look lost at times in the final third. Way way way off it. It’s going to be a long hard season.

Liverpool got away with that for years with three water carriers in the middle (Hendo, Wijnaldum, Keita/Milner/whoever), we can do similar with our lads, albeit not to that level.

[what_no_pies]

Need to build the match day team around our best players in their best positions.

Our current setup compromises us in almost every part of the pitch.

[DanH90]

We haven’t got good enough players to play in a five.

A five requires wingbacks to provide the attacking threat, which means centre backs are always getting pulled left and right, and without the three in midfield means players like Tuanzebe are having to step up to tackle or press - which cost us, as in the above photo. The centre backs being shifted around is what is leaving that space due to inexperience in those formations.

My concern is that Hartman said last week we have spent the entire preseason training for a five.

But we played a 4 against Sunderland, were fine and got the win? Surely we can adapt?

[boatshed bill]

How about giving Humphreys a shot at LCB , Steve central and Tuanzebe RCB?

[AlargeClaret]

The back 5 is simply an “away from home “ tactic against far better sides surely ? By its nature it does nullify out rather flaccid goal scoring threat though . However much as I like Laurent , he really isn’t a prem player .

[Bow]

Our undoing will be our lack of striking options.

Foster isn't good enough for the Championship, and I'm not entirely sure Broja is actually a professional footballer. He was crap at Southampton last season before anyone suggests he needs time.

I would be starting Barnes every game.

[DCWat]

As always seems to be the case, I don’t think that we are actually that far away from a team that could hold its own, amongst those outside the top eight or ten.

Genuine pace and quality out wide, a striker and a centre half. Trouble is, that’s probably another 60 plus million - although could we not have utilised the loan market more than we have?

If we can’t or won’t utilise Edwards and Tresor, to solve one of our issues, some wheeling and dealing needs to be done in January.

Whether we can get to January, with enough points to make any wheeling and dealing worth bothering with, remains to be seen.

[Big Vinny K]

Sunderland got Villa at the perfect time - they hadn’t even scored a goal before that game.
We caught them at a time where their form has picked up. They have a World Cup winner in the goals, 3 of the current England team and they bring on a £50m midfielder in injury time.
We got beat 2-1 by a team who are top 6 in the last couple of years.

The surprise was the Sunderland result not ours.

Long long season - SP has shown last year that he will learn and adapt. We are competing far better in games than we were under Kompany. Doesn’t mean we will stay up but personally I think we have a much better chance.

[dermotdermot]

Our undoing will be our lack of striking options.

Foster isn't good enough for the Championship, and I'm not entirely sure Broja is actually a professional footballer. He was crap at Southampton last season before anyone suggests he needs time.

I would be starting Barnes every game.

I don’t think that he was at Southampton last year. I think that he was on loan at Everton where he failed miserably. Who in earth made the decision to actually fork out millions for him?

[boyyanno]

If we change formation people will still say we need a centre half and the team has deficiencies- that's the reality of who and where we are.

I think we've been competitive this season so far, results haven't been great but I didn't expect them to be.

Can those who are blaming the formation for our position let me know how many points they predicted out of Spurs, City, United, Liverpool and Villa away?

[KRBFC]

If we change formation people will still say we need a centre half and the team has deficiencies- that's the reality of who and where we are.

I think we've been competitive this season so far, results haven't been great but I didn't expect them to be.

Can those who are blaming the formation for our position let me know how many points they predicted out of Spurs, City, United, Liverpool and Villa away?

It’s not the points picked up it’s the manor of which we’re conceding goals. All over the place, like nobody knows wtf they’re supposed to be doing back there, zero structure just wide open.

[Barlickclaret]

Wow, some top premier league managers on this forum today, Sunderland 3pts forest 1pt they are the games we need points, leeds is another, but parker hasn't overnight become a bad manager, we need to realise we havnt got the quality of these teams, but goals win games and it's at that end where our problem is.

[boyyanno]

It’s not the points picked up it’s the manor of which we’re conceding goals. All over the place, like nobody knows wtf they’re supposed to be doing back there, zero structure just wide open.

Really?

Between Liverpool, Man U, Spurs and Man City we conceded 12.

We've conceded 3 goals against Sunderland, Forest and Villa.

That doesn't look like being all over the place having 0 structure and no one knowing what to do- it looks like some of the best sides in the division have pasted us.

What did you expect this season KRBFC? We've had 5 knocked past us by City most times under a multitude of managers and a multitude of different formations haven't we?

[alwaysaclaret]

Sunderland got Villa at the perfect time - they hadn’t even scored a goal before that game.
We caught them at a time where their form has picked up. They have a World Cup winner in the goals, 3 of the current England team and they bring on a £50m midfielder in injury time.
We got beat 2-1 by a team who are top 6 in the last couple of years.

The surprise was the Sunderland result not ours.

Long long season - SP has shown last year that he will learn and adapt. We are competing far better in games than we were under Kompany. Doesn’t mean we will stay up but personally I think we have a much better chance.

Absolutely agree with all your points here, apart from 1, we didn't really compete till we were 2 down yesterday, at which time villa were seemingly happy to sit back and see the game out and let us have the ball.
We were toothless all over the pitch, first time I've really felt like that this season, but worrying 7 games in. We'll need to do much better v Leeds, fingers crossed. One last point though, I've been a big advocate of foster, and persevered, but I'm fast running out of patience, no desire yesterday, but not the only one that didn't look interested.

[KRBFC]

Really?

Between Liverpool, Man U, Spurs and Man City we conceded 12.

We've conceded 3 goals against Sunderland, Forest and Villa.

That doesn't look like being all over the place having 0 structure and no one knowing what to do- it looks like some of the best sides in the division have pasted us.

What did you expect this season KRBFC? We've had 5 knocked past us by City most times under a multitude of managers and a multitude of different formations haven't we?

If we get carved open by the likes of City and concede 5 then fair enough but some of the goals we’ve leaked have been atrociously bad.

Spurs away we’ve got 3 centre halves on the pitch and a cross comes in twice, their lone striker Richarlison is stood twice with nobody within 5 yards. 1 striker vs 3 CBs and non of them mark him? Not 1 of them learnt from the first goal?

Man United away again we’ve got 3 centre halves on the pitch and the first goal Casemiro has a free header from 5 yards out. 2nd goal is from kick off, keeper launches it, Ekdal and Walker don’t know what they’re doing, allow the ball to bounce, 10 seconds later Ekdal gets outran by Dalot and it’s in our net. Not even going to bother mentioning the 3 goals they should’ve had before half time.

Man City away summed up perfectly by the final goal, 2 of our centre halves just run into each other for Haaland to run through on goal.

Yesterday that first goal is so poor, look at the image of the defensive line. 1 centre half in the middle, one long pass and he’s through on goal. So so easy. The second is just as bad, from a supposed solid compact side you could drive a ship through the gap down the middle of us.

Then you have the stupid penalties conceded.

[KRBFC]

As for what I expected, I expected a solid defensive hard working side. Where everybody knew their job. Quite the opposite to the frail wide open stuff we’re watching.

People can pretend “we’ve been competitive in every game” but it’s ******** frankly, I watched Wolves almost beat Spurs away from home last week yet everyone’s doing the conga because we only lost 3-0.

[IanMcL]

The undoing of us is not, when we break fast, having anyone in the box to be on the end of a potential cross. The wingers or fullback always cuts back and the whole defence the sits waiting for us. Until we put the ball in, first time, we may as well not bother to break.