"He Won't Change, He Is Too Stubborn" - Hughes Ponders Yet Another Change in Formation

This was clear as day after 15 minutes on Saturday yet he chose to wait till about 60 minutes to bring Banks on. He's correct in his analysis but it happened because of the way he set the team up. He picked that midfield, he takes responsibility for 90 minutes of utter dross. I expect to see Banks starting against Doncaster.

 

It’s bang on the money, but concerning it’s taken so long to recognise the problem!

 

Yeah but that's being reactive when in his position shouldn't he be proactive .. ?

 

But probably drop Cook, just you watch ....

 

He's not recognising the problem though in my view. I feel that everyone is forgetting that we changed from 4231 for exactly the same reasons he's now changing back to it.

The system doesn't convince me it will improve the attacking output, if anything it just makes us more solid again.

 

I get totally what you are saying, but it’s horses for courses. The current system WORKS AWAY from VP as predominantly results away from home against the “ better” teams speak volumes for sure.

I have said for weeks that I much prefer to see us away from the boo boys at VP. ( Chicken and egg I realise!)

It works because teams have to come at us as opposed to putting 8-9 men in front of the ball aka, Barrow and Rochdale.

So he changes the system at Donny and we get beat , because we are too open? Then what?

Hence horses for courses….Expansive at VP , much less so away imho.

 

Is it a good sign that Hughes is willing to change his tactic rather than follow the trend of the top managers these days? Or if we just slide back to 4231 and it's the exact same style of play that made him move from that tactic to the diamond, does it raise more questions in his grasp on this squads identity?

Pep, Klopp and Arteta have said before and show it weekly that you don't change Plan A to Plan B anymore, you just try improve Plan A. It floods its way down the leagues, these days you dont see too often even if you watch a championship side on sky, if a team are losing 1-0 with 10 to go they dont drop a midfielder for a striker anymore, it's pretty much like for like positionally but the next player on might have a different dimension to his game. It made its way down to L2 in spells this season with Mansfield and Stockport getting some stick during their bad spells and not changing from a 5 at the back tactic, but they stuck with and now they are both on good runs.

 

We won’t get beat. Either way we have to start believing in ourselves. We have one of the leading goal scorers in the division and we are scared?

What needs to happen is he needs to address that centre or midfield. He brought in Clayton as a DM which is fine but you then can’t move Smallwood to another position or alone Clayton. It doesn’t work in a creative way.

Give East and Banks a run or games now. Let’s go for it.

This league is so poor and we are struggling. Frankly it’s embarrassing!

 

Did we really "outplay" Tranmere though?

If you look back through the game we scored a deflected goal (although it was a good strike) and a header that wouldn't go in if Cook did that another 1000 times. Apart from that we never really looked like scoring again, just loads of possession without intent as we see week to week.

Then you figure in the 3 balls Tranmere smashed right across the 6 yard box and on another day at least one results in a goal and we end up with another turgid 1 1 draw and a very, very different reaction to exactly the same performance.

 

I couldn't disagree more if I'm honest and if that's the level of performance we're after then I'm struggling to see why people were surprised by the Barrow performance as they really weren't the chalk and cheese you're suggesting.

 

We tend to react well away from home as out set up is primarily defensive what with effectively now three sitting midfielders and this gives a similar hard to beat element like Barrow had. But that mind set permeates out style at VP much to the detriment of the fans. And truth be told, for all our supposed investment in the squad and the recruitment of an apparently top level manager, do we actually look any better on a consistent basis than the majority of teams in league 2? I'd argue no to point where we could finish anywhere from 3rd to 15th. I just don't see the consistency in this team to not put in another performance like Saturday.

 

Personally I thought there was very little between the sides last Tuesday which is why Saturdays result didn't surprise me. This team and set up by its nature doesn't have much creativity.

 

That's the point though isn't it, we didn't create many chances against Tranmere so short of the deflected goal and a ridiculously bad goalkeeping error it was a very similar performance to the Barrow game.

Can you remember any real saves the Tranmere keeper made or any glaring opportunities we missed? I can't.

 

Consistency in this league just doesn't exist this season at the top end apart from Orient. Stevenage have 1 win in 6, Northampton have 1 win in 6, Salford and us have 2 wins in 6. It will be like this until the end of the season, with teams having a rough 5 spell then will go unbeaten in 5 and it's going to be the luck of the shuffle and the final few fixtures.

Looking at the table, the one thing I think that will hurt us more than anything is goals. Specifically goals from another source than Cook. Every team above us have scored in the mid 40s range, with Carlisle and Mansfield notching 49 at a joint league highest spot right now where as we have 37 and 16 of those go to Cook. The rest of the squad have found the net 20 times (+1 OG) in 30 games, that needs some serious change in the final third of the season. For anyone bothered about the numbers of who has what in terms of L2 goals -> Wright with 4, Banks with 3, then Oliver, Smallwood, Eisa, Young & Walker have 2, finishing with Chapman, Pereira & Derbyshire having 1 goal each.

The 4231 may work with Walker now able to play 10 rather than thumbing in either Chapman or Angol into that slot as we had to when he was injured. Banks, Costelloe, Nevers, Periera and Eisa are more than enough wide options to cause a threat or be rotated out if not. Clayton, Gilly and Smallwood have a battle for 2 spots in the middle.