Central midfield

Henley/Mellor and TAA, like chalk and cheese.

 

The problem with Henley, is that he thinks he is a wing back. He goes off on Meredith type runs, with little or no outcome. Wood is the only one who looks to get as far down the pitch as he can before crossing it. Doesn’t always come off. As I’ve said before, Mellor often looks lost once he’s in their final third. Definitely we should have signed a RB/WB in the window.

 

Yep, and that's no criticism of the players (which it's fair to do, but they each have their qualities and are League 2 players for a reason) but of tactics that assumed they could be players that they're not.

Absolutely - the beauty of football is having roles and tactics that can be made to work with all types of players. I'm assuming Stuart will play some form of 4-4-2 diamond or 4-3-3 which doesn't ask as much of the full-backs and potentially frees up the central midfielders' to be a bit more creative - issue being that we had Meredith and Cullen last time and no outstanding replacements for their roles at the moment!

Ha, cheers - I think I may have had an account here with a different address before - or I may be getting mixed up with C&B though.

Absolutely. They also have had Fabinho marshalling the back and Wijnaldum and Henderson stepping into that role to cover his absence. They're also playing a bit of an evolved version to the system other top teams are playing where that defensive responsibility is shared between the middle three and the middle striker plays the #10 role. But this isn't the right thread for that... your point stands that we just don't have the players to carry out that type of tactical approach. Hopefully Stuart and Kenny can find one that is.

 

One of the best aspects of Liverpool’s play is what they do when they lose the ball they work so hard to win it back they are probably the best at it of any team I have seen

 

@dodge33cymru we could start with getting men into the box and getting our wide players to get closer to the box

Liverpool switch play from full back to back extremely well and work so hard for the ball. We can play 5-3-2 as we don't have the players too. 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 we need to play.

We just need more of a Swindon approach which is get bodies in the box when attacking and make sure the central forward is in the box in a central area to pass to to so he can shoot.

Our CM sit too deep and forwards came far too deep to collect the ball.

 

Stuart says he's asked all the players 1v1 how to get the best out of them so I'd be surprised if we saw Cooke playing a deep role again. Hopefully he will be allowed now to express himself further forward.

 

Tough.

Reeves can't play in a 2.
Devitt is better at AM.

So unless he wants to play he adapted. He's needed in the side for me but along side Devitt.

 

Play all three of them, none can play in a 2 with each other.