Westfield Owl

Good bit of business to get Joao sold for a fair price. A bit of a shame that the seven-figure payment that the club received from Reading hasn’t yet been reinvested into the squad. Fingers crossed that we’ll use that transfer fee to bring in some new faces in January though.

Most clubs would have fans leaving at 4-0 down, us included. Fans not to blame here.

Just enjoy the win FFS. Why try and score points on an internet when your team isn’t 4-0 up away from home. Baffling.

Probably not for much longer.

Forest have won 1 game in the last 5. We’re hardly playing Real Madrid at the Bernabeu...

As a club, I think we’re just starting to recover from the damage his spell here did. If we are punished by the EFL with a substantial points deduction this season, which results in relegation, you could argue that we’re still yet to recover from the gambles taken and opportunities missed between 2015-2017.

Tbf, they actually lost 2-1 away to Frank Lampard’s Derby County in October 2018. Sorry to be pedantic.

It has all gone rather stale hasn’t it. And despite us being close to the playoffs, I’ve certainly been paying a lot more attention to what’s happening to the clubs around the relegation zone in the past few weeks since the EFL charge was announced. I don’t think you can blame that general feeling of apathy just on FFP though. Many factors play a part; The obscene POTD prices. The lack of stability with multiple manager changes in the last couple of years. Lack of direction from the top of the club. Not releasing accounts until they’re months overdue, created quite a lot of uncertainty and resulted in an embargo. Bizarre stories coming out of the club about player’s wages been paid incorrectly. £90 for fans to buy a club membership card debacle. Club rejecting BBC Radio Sheffield commentary deal fiasco. Supporters not given a voice as fans forums have been done away with. Etc etc... If we were putting together a convincing run of wins in the league and were well ran off the pitch, the atmosphere would be unreal on a matchday and the ground would be fuller. FFP has been a real thorn in our side but we’ve become experts in shooting ourselves in the foot.

I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all to suggest that 3-5-2 would probably get the best out of most of our better players. I think one of the main reasons that Odubajo has had such an indifferent time here so far is that he is much better suited as a WB. Yet Monk has persisted with trying to shoehorn him into a back 4. I agree that Reach and Odubajo aren’t particularly great at defending, which is why I’d prefer to see them both as WBs - which obviously isn’t the last line of defence. If the system works as it should, your WBs will not regularly be near our own penalty box. This reduces the amount of actual defending they will be required to do (we would have 3 CBs on the pitch for that remember). This should encourage both Reach and Odubajo to play to their strengths - getting forward, supporting the attack and crossing in towards the strikers. And yeah, Fox, Penney, Lee and Iorfa aren’t WBs by trade. The point is that they all have the qualities to do a job should we need to rotate Reach and Odubajo out for a match or two. With regards to Harris, this formation would probably see his game involvements decrease. But I feel that would be a risk worth taking. Sometimes you need to decide what is more important - the success of your best attacking player or the success of the team as a whole. A 3-5-2 formation would probably see Harris getting most of his time on the pitch playing off Fletcher, or as a number 10 behind two strikers or as a super-sub to come on from the bench. You obviously strongly disagree though. What formation do you favour?

Disagree. We’ve got Reach, Fox, Penney, Odubajo, Iorfa and even Lee could be capable of filling in as a WB.

Would have to be one of the 4 other forwards we have, or we could play a Harris/Murphy off Fletcher; use their pace to stretch defences. Yes none of those potential partners for Fletcher are perfect, but there’s 6 different viable options there.

Derby are 9th from bottom. Let’s not delude ourselves that playing well tonight indicates a sign of success. If anything that just makes it more galling that we’ve chucked 2 points away to mediocre opponents.

That mentality towards tactics will get you enough points to avoid relegation. But very few teams get promoted playing that style anymore. It’s incredibly frustrating as I believe our squad is good enough to challenge this season. If only Monk would release the shackles a bit, stop going ultra-negative whenever we’ve got a lead to hold onto, I think we’d have a better chance of success.

As I’ve been saying for weeks, the formation that would probably get the most out of our best players is 3-5-2. Absolutely ridiculous situation that we’re resorting to leaving the likes of Borner and Luongo on the bench. These two need to both be in the starting XI. Sadly Monk has kept us playing a back 4 at all times (even though we haven’t got one good full-back in the squad).

Where has this little outburst come from? Surely it’s not over today’s team selection?