New Coach - Michael Collins

As I posted earlier ..............
It's all well and good playing just one up front - Providing the one up front is good and able enough.
So UNTIL City find one, then "Four, four fecking two !!" will have to do, and as soon as MC realises this, the better.

 

Depends what your team strengths are. Neither Wyke last season, Miller last week or Doyle yesterday played the one striker role with any success. I can’t remember it being played at Valley Parade with any success. Last week, until we went two up top, Shrewsbury were the better side. It can work but more often than not its at a far better level than league 1. 4-4-2 is not the only way to play two up front,

 

Yeah we Could go 3-5-2 but 3 at the back doesn't seem to suit us either.

The only successful teams I've ever seen at Valley Parade have played 4-4-2 and I'm certainly not averse to that but then people complain that we are predictable and get out numbered in midfield.

 

Which I stated earlier today, so yes, I fully agree.
In the meantime, our 'pre-season' is continuing into the league program, which as we saw yesterday, puts City on the back foot already. If City eventually 'click' by game 10 - How many points will we have dropped ? On yesterdays showing, I dare not contemplate that, too heavily.

 

3 at the back did not work against Barnsley. They stayed too close together, effectively giving Barnsley and extra man elsewhere on the park and boy did it show. One of the three needs to go wide when defending a flank and act as a full-back to tackle wingers and block crosses while the other two sit in the middle and hope our opposite wing back is tracking runners at the back stick, as he should since he should not have been caught out of position in an attack. If the attack comes through the middle, the middle centre back needs to go to the ball and not have all 3 backing off like they did at times yesterday. If we are to persist with 3 at the back, they must learn that they have a more expansive role than a centre back duo and one of the three push out to meet each attack. Just having three men standing where two were before is not the solution!

 

As they say, football is a simple game made complicated by manager/coaches.

At our level full backs are full backs, wing back are wing backs, wingers are wingers etc etc.

The further you go up to the premiership players may be able to adapt but not at the level we are playing at.

If you wish to play in a certain way ensure you get the players who can play that system. Not square pegs in round holes.

 

I've only seen Doyle for 1 match and I didn't see anything to suggest he was better with a partner or any reason why he couldn't play as a lone striker.

What makes you so certain he can't?

 

Spot on. I hope Collins isn't trying to be too clever, because its a cruel game for managers, and winning is all that matters to most fans and owners

 

I agree with you, and herein lies the problem with this seasons recruitment.

Predictably, with half our signings made before MC was even a candidate for the head coach role, we simply haven't recruited square pegs for square holes, we've just recruited pegs of all shapes and sizes with no real or obvious overarching strategy.

What formation did we recruit for?

None.

We just recruited players to coach.

Sorry, Edin, must plan better. .

 

Doyle's best spell in League One came at Chesterfield when he had Gary Roberts, Jay O'Shea and Sam Clucas behind him in a 4-2-3-1, so he's capable of playing the role. The issue yesterday was that instead of building through midfield, where the lone striker will be well supported, we kept pinging it at his head with the midfield sitting deep and wondering why it he looked both isolated and ineffectual.

 

The problem was we were outpaced, out-muscled and outclassed in midfield yesterday. That wasn't the case last week and hopefully won't be most weeks. Collins is clearly expecting Payne to be our main creator for Doyle but he had two men on him every time he got the ball and was forced down blind alleys. So we got reduced to lumping high balls forward, which was never going to work. We either needed to get the ball wide quickly and whip low balls across the box (which created defensive panic on the two occasions we managed it) or bring on a physical presence like Bruenker to occupy their big CBs and take the weight off Doyle. We did neither and, as a result, created almost nothing.

 

He had a very good 6 months at Oldham with Davies (big man 6'2") playing along side him, and as I have posted before gave our defense plenty of problems with their movement during that night game, after Taylor's wonder strike.

 

Posted in another thread but more relevant here,
There is a reason most of the worlds top teams and top winning coaches play 4 at the back and the also ran and those that end up by the wayside as average or losers play 3.

 

The only player we've had for years who could play as a lone striker was Wells, it needs a player shit hot fast and super switched on for the 90, it's garbage playing Doyle without support.

 

Jon we were informed by Rahic all 3 coaches helped and had input into the recruitment prior to them been confirmed in their current roles - one of the reasons he gave why he appointed them.

 

Only started 7 league games together in 13/14 according to Soccerbase

 

Yes, but his best spell came in 14/15 when Richards had gone - sometimes they played Gnanduillet as a target man but it was mostly Doyle with 3 creators behind him. That said, he can play with a target man as last season showed, and I wouldn't complain if we got one as a plan B.