The 352 ?

[Holmowl]

I liked it. Thought it had lots of plusses.

 

We are blessed with high-octane wide players. They have their faults but in Harris, Murphy, Reach, Moses and Fox we have five players who are fit and willing and can run and run and run.

 

The back three looked solid. Very little got through. Significantly their goal was a fast breakaway from our attacking dead-ball.

 

In the midfield, not one of Lee, Bannan or Luongo were at their best, but as a combined trio they did enable us to dominate a strong fully-fit promotion-chasing Forest.

 

Up top, unless Fletcher plays, we are hopeless with a lone-striker. Rhodes-Wickham looked decent. Each got good first-half chances. Two strikers are a handful for a defence and give Bannan, Lee and Luongo options and runners. 
 

We got the ball to our wing-backs time after time. That was great. Often they had time and space and really worried the full-backs. 
 

The negative - our final decision and delivery was poor. That needs work. Our best crosser by light years is Reach. For me he has to play. 
 

All in all I thought it excellent. Full of promise. Hope he sticks to it but experiments with different personnel.

[Dunkstar]

Agreed. I'm slightly confused by all the posts I read saying we didn't look like we had a game plan. To me we looked more coherent than we have for some time. 

 

The three in midfield dominated allowing us to get the ball wide early and high up the pitch on a regular basis. We were just let down by the delivery once in those positions. That's down to the individuals in those positions on the day not the tactics.

 

The three at the back looked generally solid as did Wildsmith with the little he had to do.

 

Was also impressed with Rhodes. He always looks more comfortable alongside a stronger target man type. That coupled with decent crosses and Bannans ability to pick a pass should give him a few opportunities to get a few goals in the run in.

 

All in all I was pretty happy with that for a start. 

[Guest wilyfox]

I don't like it. May get away with it against rusty opposition. Forest didn't play well. Once teams sharpen up again, I think we'd be ripped to shreds. Börner definitely does not have the legs to play on the left of a 3. Diagonal balls behind the wing-backs...we'd be f*cked. 

[Guest domSWFC]

I liked it, on another day we'd have got 4 again. We got into dangerous positions to cross time and time again. Some of the crosses were poor, but many were just a yard or two too far, or not gambled on. 

 

Bannan sat deep, but for once it seemed to good effect. Luongo and Lee making the runs from midfield, and Bannan sitting back ready to switch play if the winger couldn't forge a cross. 

 

I also think this is the sort of system Reach can fit into seamlessly. He could slot in on either wing or the centre. It's an easy formation for us to make changes to, without a system overhaul. Go defensive and we can put Palmer and Fox wide. Go attacking we've got Reach, Forestieri, Odubajo and Cruz who can all slot in. 

 

We were far from great yesterday, but Forest are a really strong side and we reduced them barely a sniff, unfortunately they caught us against the run of play. 

[OwlBiSeeinThi]

10 minutes ago, Dunkstar said:

Agreed. I'm slightly confused by all the posts I read saying we didn't look like we had a game plan. To me we looked more coherent than we have for some time. 

 

The three in midfield dominated allowing us to get the ball wide early and high up the pitch on a regular basis. We were just let down by the delivery once in those positions. That's down to the individuals in those positions on the day not the tactics.

 

The three at the back looked generally solid as did Wildsmith with the little he had to do.

 

Was also impressed with Rhodes. He always looks more comfortable alongside a stronger target man type. That coupled with decent crosses and Bannans ability to pick a pass should give him a few opportunities to get a few goals in the run in.

 

All in all I was pretty happy with that for a start. 

I agree. That looked the most balanced eleven I've seen in 2020.

[Holmowl]

11 minutes ago, wilyfox said:

I don't like it. May get away with it against rusty opposition. Forest didn't play well. Once teams sharpen up again, I think we'd be ripped to shreds. Börner definitely does not have the legs to play on the left of a 3. Diagonal balls behind the wing-backs...we'd be f*cked. 

We were rusty too.

 

Unless you are Liverpool or Barca you never achieve perfection. It’s about being slightly stronger than most opponents over the season and it gets you promotion.

 

Our wing-backs were far more troublesome to Forest than vice-versa.

 

Borner worries me. Haven’t seen many slower players and his game-reading and positional play aren’t good enough to make up for it in the same way as Terry, Mertesacker or even Lyons.

[York_Owl]

14 minutes ago, wilyfox said:

I don't like it. May get away with it against rusty opposition. Forest didn't play well. Once teams sharpen up again, I think we'd be ripped to shreds. Börner definitely does not have the legs to play on the left of a 3. Diagonal balls behind the wing-backs...we'd be f*cked. 

Personally I’d play fox and Iorfa in the wider centre back positions for that very reason and to give them license to get forward when appropriate.

[HarryPlopper]

Just now, York_Owl said:

Personally I’d play fox and Iorfa in the wider centre back positions for that very reason and to give them license to get forward when appropriate.

 

Fox may have burnt bridges by not agreeing to re-sign.

 

Urhoghide though may be an option on the left, i'm sure he prefers the left side too.     Ultimately Penney also.

[Guest wilyfox]

1 minute ago, Holmowl said:

We were rusty too.

 

Unless you are Liverpool or Barca you never achieve perfection. It’s about being slightly stronger than most opponents over the season and it gets you promotion.

 

Our wing-backs were far more troublesome to Forest than vice-versa.

 

Borner worries me. Haven’t seen many slower players and his game-reading and positional play aren’t good enough to make up for it in the same way as Terry, Mertesacker or even Lyons.

 

The man can't run. If we continue with Börner on the left of a 3, we'll have problems. Palmer isn't a natural fit t'other side either. 

[Guest wilyfox]

2 minutes ago, York_Owl said:

Personally I’d play fox and Iorfa in the wider centre back positions for that very reason and to give them license to get forward when appropriate.

 

Fox would be a better fit, yes - if he stays.

[marshy]

8 minutes ago, wilyfox said:

 

The man can't run. If we continue with Börner on the left of a 3, we'll have problems. Palmer isn't a natural fit t'other side either. 

Agreed. Too cumbersome on the left of the three. I was happy with Harris, although he did this at the star of the season. He set off like a house on fire then after 10 games or so was blowing big style. System needs working on if we are going to play it. 

[Holmowl]

1 minute ago, marshy said:

Agreed. Too cumbersome on the left of the three. I was happy with Harris, although he did this at the star of the season. He set off like a house on fire then after 10 games or so was blowing big style. System needs working on if we are going to play it. 

The systems we played since Christmas needs LOTS of work too.

[Steve Down South]

I thought formation worked quite well but, like others have said, need to look at different combinations at the back.  I wasn’t convinced by either Borner or Palmer.

[Rev Owl]

I thought it worked well. We made Forest look mediocre for most of the match. In the end we were architects of our own downfall with poor substitutions and a lack of clinical finishing.

[striker]

I don't like 352, for a couple of reasons, often become 532 and also leaves too much space behind the wing back (where the forest goal came from).

 

Borner struggled at times to cover space and think Lees would have a similar problem. Thought Palmer did well and think a 3 of Palmer, Iorfa and Fox would have the mobility to cover gaps. The natural wing backs then being Odubajo and Penney, but how do we then fit in Murphy and Harris?

 

That said, it was the first time I've seen us play with the wing backs not playing deep in a defensive 5. Definitely better going forward.

 

I'm still not sold on it, but if its working, see this season out. Monk needs to stick with a system where the players know what they are doing, rather than keep changing.

 

 

[Judas Atkinson]

I actually think 3-5-2 suits Palmer very well. He is a good defensive full back, the problem is that he isn’t suited to how a modern full back has to contribute going forward. His crossing is a weakness and he gets few assists, and in feeling forced forward from full back he also causes problems behind him. Ironically he often does better at left back because he doesn’t feel the need to attack in the same way. He also isn’t able to play centre half in a defensive four. Despite these limitations I like him, and feel he is well suited to a back 3. I feel similarly about Fox on the other side. I agree with holmowl that we have a plethora of wide players who can play wing back, although Reach to my mind would be the pick of the bunch with crossing ability and a great engine, also again not good enough defensively in a back four, and lacking a trick, but a good player, too good to be out of our side. This system also allows a necessary 3 in midfield and two up front, so what not to like. Now we need to stick to it until the end of the season, we will have to rotate some players with so many games, but we have been changing the system too much. We played pretty well yesterday and wouldn’t have been fortunate to have got all 3 points.

[oldishowl]

I think it worked and helped solve the conundrum of how to get 3 in midfield and have 2 up front.

 

All the back 3 have got a mistake in them and we played with Palmer and Borner quite wide with quite a lot of space between them so mistakes and bad touches are magnified.

 

Lees couldn’t play in a back 3, so have limited options.

 

Our wing backs really worked hard   and with a bit more quality could have supplied a lot of chances.

However we need to try and also create chances by playing through the middle. We have 3 midfielders and 2 strikers there so are not short of numbers.
 

I have been against playing 442 with a second striker like FF or Windass because we get outnumbered in midfield and they don’t get in the game but with 3 in midfield plus a number 10 I think we might have done well .

Especially with the crosses being so poor that we didn’t create that many chances for Rhodes and Wickham in the air.

Edited June 21, 2020 by oldishowl

[Bluesteel]

I think it’s a formation that is either very effective or completely bombs. Didn’t we try it at Luton?

 

If we get on the front foot with it you can see our ability to overload a team but conversely Harris and Murphy will not protect a back 3 consistently and Luongo is the only midfielder able to defend. Sometimes you need that organisation and solid base provided by a back 4 in my view and that is what got us 3rd in the league.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Bluesteel

[cowl]

I like 352 a lot, but as others have said, I'm not convinced with the 3 centre backs playing yesterday.

 

Iorfa, I'll put mostly down to match sharpness, but I just don't think it's suited to Börner at all; no pace for one thing, but his positional sense seems to go somewhat awry playing in a back three too.

 

Palmer, to be fair to him, did alright with the ball at his feet and his basic tackling and challenging for the ball was fine, but he continues to let his man drift away from him all too often. Still, in some ways he looked the most assured of the back line yesterday.

 

It's usually the wing backs, or lack of them, that has been the main reason this formation doesn't work so well for us, but I felt that Murphy and Harris showed a decent amount of promise yesterday. From an attacking perspective, both got into very good positions, and I'll be charitable about their deliveries and suggest (hope) it was rustiness. Defensively, it was passable - certainly not a disaster - but we did seem to be exposed a lot down the channels.

 

I'm not sure this is a formation for all games, but I hope Monk continues to work on this as I think there's something to it. I think Fox would be a better fit than Börner, for one thing, but it's possible he's being ‘punished’ for not signing a contract yet.

[Holmowl]

4 minutes ago, oldishowl said:

I think it worked and helped solve the conundrum of how to get 3 in midfield and have 2 up front.

 

All the back 3 have got a mistake in them and we played with Palmer and Borner quite wide with quite a lot of space between them so mistakes and bad touches are magnified.

 

Lees couldn’t play in a back 3, so have limited options.

 

Our wing backs really worked hard   and with a bit more quality could have supplied a lot of chances.

However we need to try and also create chances by playing through the middle. We have 3 midfielders and 2 strikers there so are not short of numbers.
 

I have been against playing 442 with a second striker like FF or Windass because we get outnumbered in midfield and they don’t get in the game but with 3 in midfield plus a number 10 I think we might have done well .

Especially with the crosses being so poor that we didn’t create that many chances for Rhodes and Wickham in the air.

Why do you think that?

 

I think Lees is a better, faster (though not quick), wins more headers and has more positional nous than Borner. Where he is much weaker is his distribution, but that’s ok in a 352 as he has two wing-backs and three CMs each showing for the ball.