4-4-2

[Agent Balti]

4-1-3-2.

Hahnemann

Rosey Duberry Pearce Armstrong

Bikey

Karacan Matejovsky SHunt/Tabb

N Hunt Doyle.

Sorted.

[Snowball]

Nope, it just counters your unproven opinion. Nah-hah-nah-naaa-nah

Brilliant, the world's first 60+ year old child

Just dropping int HNA-Speak to make a point.

If X says something unfounded, then Y can say the same or oppositie unfounded

It's all bollocks either way

[Snowball]

The point about one or both wingers "tucking in"

Presumably Coppell is telling them NOT to

[Huntley & Palmer]

Nope, it just counters your unproven opinion. Nah-hah-nah-naaa-nah

Brilliant, the world's first 60+ year old child

Just dropping int HNA-Speak to make a point.

If X says something unfounded, then Y can say the same or oppositie unfounded

It's all bollocks either way

Err, that's how it works when football fans talk to each other. It's all uninformed opinion, no-one has an insight into the 'real' problems, attitudes and tactics within the team. All draw their own conclusions and then defend it when someone questions it, rightly or wrongly. You can use stats or whatever you want, they can all be manipulated to represent their side of the story. It's great

[Hugo Boss]

I personally think Matejovsky is superb - We looked MUCH better and far more likely to score when he came on. Agree with Huntlers that we're losing far too much possession though.

It'll never happen in a million years but i'd love to see Bikey alongside Matejovsky in the middle. Leave Bikey to kick the sh*t out of people and rough people up (think Keane, Kavanagh etc.) leaving Matejovsky to spray the ball through to Doyle and Noel Hunt.

Only downside to this of course is Harper / Cisse / Gunnarrsson / Karacan will have to come in every few weeks to cover the suspensions.

[Negative_Jeff]

Not a popular view I accept, but assuming Bikey is fit we have the personnel to play three at the back particularly as Pearce appears capable when being pulled out left. A lot would depend on Rosenoir as an attacking threat though, much like Gilkes in 1995. If we are up against 4-5-1 so often why not play with a back three? The only time I have seen Coppell use this system was at Spurs away in the Cup last season and we very nearly won.
Ollie Kearns makes an interesting point about Harper and Cisse dropping deep when the team is not in possession. Certainly when Sidwell was here we used to press the opposition higher up the pitch and few teams could use a "quarterback" against us with Kitson`s donkeywork. Has this subtle change come about because Coppell tried to play the same way without adequately replacing these two key players?

[CMRoyal]

Not a popular view I accept, but assuming Bikey is fit we have the personnel to play three at the back particularly as Pearce appears capable when being pulled out left. A lot would depend on Rosenoir as an attacking threat though, much like Gilkes in 1995. If we are up against 4-5-1 so often why not play with a back three? The only time I have seen Coppell use this system was at Spurs away in the Cup last season and we very nearly won.
Ollie Kearns makes an interesting point about Harper and Cisse dropping deep when the team is not in possession. Certainly when Sidwell was here we used to press the opposition higher up the pitch and few teams could use a "quarterback" against us with Kitson`s donkeywork. Has this subtle change come about because Coppell tried to play the same way without adequately replacing these two key players?

No, it's in response to facing five-men midfields. Although this team is not as good as the '05/'06 vintage (stating the obvious) I seriously doubt there would have been much of a difference between styles of play - witness Cisse's 5 goals earlier in the season before teams sussed us out; he almost began to look like the new Sid for a while back then.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

The semi-pros on here can put me right but if we are playing
and set up for 4-4-2 and the opposition goes 4-5-1 why can't a CB step up into midfield?

I realise Doobs/Pearce wouldn't be right for that, but what about Bikey?


I ask, because I'd guess Bikey would work well in a 4-4-2 where that happened

Personally I would love to see him in midfield either stepping up or in front of two CBs

If he can avoid a red card he's a ball winner, powerful, can head the ball, can pass a bit, shoot a bit

The problem there Snowball is that you then have a 1 v 1 situation with your other centre back. If the oppostion CF then runs hin into wider areas you leave a gaping hole for midfielders to run into. One good run and one good pass puts them in on goal. Unless the CB can just defend that central area and pass the CF onto one of the full backs of course.
The better option for me is to bring one wide MF player into play narrow (make a 3 v 3 match centrally) and push one of your full backs on. You still run the same risk with the ball in behind but if would be into a wide area as opposed to central. So, the opposition would still have work to do in terms of creating a chance.
Because of that I'd play Kebe narrow and push Rosey in. Reason being that Rosey is very quick and would have the recovery pace to deal with the threat in behind.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

Not a popular view I accept, but assuming Bikey is fit we have the personnel to play three at the back particularly as Pearce appears capable when being pulled out left. A lot would depend on Rosenoir as an attacking threat though, much like Gilkes in 1995. If we are up against 4-5-1 so often why not play with a back three? The only time I have seen Coppell use this system was at Spurs away in the Cup last season and we very nearly won.
Ollie Kearns makes an interesting point about Harper and Cisse dropping deep when the team is not in possession. Certainly when Sidwell was here we used to press the opposition higher up the pitch and few teams could use a "quarterback" against us with Kitson`s donkeywork. Has this subtle change come about because Coppell tried to play the same way without adequately replacing these two key players?

Agree NJ. 3 at the back would allow us to match up 5 v 5 and play much higher up the pitch. It would also allow us to play Marek at the front of the 5 i.e defending against the quarterback.
In the Sidwell / Harper years most sides still played 4 v 4. Those two were great at playing high up the pitch and nicking the ball of the opposition which allowed us to break quickly on sides. There's no reason why we couldn't do that again now so long as we match the 5 v 5. Imagine Marek in posession with two forwards ahead of him and two other midfielders breaking at pace as there midfield scrambled to get back into position.

A different subject re other posts but players not being able to read Marek's passes is nonsense. Marek always looks to play forward as opposed to backwards / sideways which makes for a far more difficult pass in terms of execution. Because of this some passes are certain to other go astray or be cut out. That's not players not reading passes it's simple statistics.
The passing option Marek brings to the team means we give options to every other player at the same time. For example, SHunt looked like a completely different player in the last 20 minutes on Saturday because he knew that making a run in behind had every chance of being picked out by Marek. Prior to that there was no point even making the run.
One other point of interest is that we averaged 1.3 points per game in the Prem with Marek in the side. A league in which we also had far more defending to do. In defence of SC Marek hasn't really grasped his opportunities this year (Saints A was especially poor) buy the time has now come to put him in and give him a run.
If he playes the remaining games and we play higher up the pitch I really believe that we'll win the league. Worst case scenario is that we'll at least see some interesting games as opposed to the dross that we've been watching for the past two months

[Magicman]

A lot of interesting points have been made and that makes a change.

We need to do something along the 4-5-1 just to give teams something else to think about as they what our line up will be every week.

Bring back Bikey even if its only to score from a corner and can Noel please play to link the midfield to the strikers.

I expect to see 4-4-2 again next week anyway

[rg6royal]

I want to see Bikey come back into the team as we were winning games when he was playing. Don't like the fact that people are suggesting we play someone just infront of the defense as we are a very attack minded team.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

I want to see Bikey come back into the team as we were winning games when he was playing. Don't like the fact that people are suggesting we play someone just infront of the defense as we are a very attack minded team.

We're currently playing TWO men just in front of the defence. Playing only one would at least be moving in the right direction

[Wizard]

-------------Federici-------------
----Duberry--Bikey--Pearce----
Rosenior-------------Armstrong
---II----Cisse---Harper----II---
---\/-----Matejovsky------\/---
------Doyle--------N. Hunt------

Subs: S. Hunt, Lita, Tabb, USA, Ingimarsson (when fit/Gunnarson when not)

Admittedly, not the best arrows you'll ever see, but you get the drift.

[traff]

Looking from a different angle, maybe it has nothing to do with formations but the personnel in goal.

Seems to me our dip in form and failure to get goals has coincided with the arrival of Fedders and his early long kicks.
His distribution whilst accurate, is not being held up by our fairly diminutive front two. We rarely mix it up recently and of course no longer have a Kitson figure for Doyle/Lita to run off.
During the last season in the championship I vividly remember Marcus rolling the ball out to our full backs with a large proportion of our goals being created down the flanks.

Maybe we need the big Yank back! Could it be that simple...I doubt it but food for thought.

[Woodcote Royal]

Steve Coppell's fan club needs to realise that he's been exposed as a tactical muppet of the modern game since the new year and this has been compounded by his mental block regarding certain favourites, not to mention his failure to appreciate others who should have been regulars in the side for the last year.

Of course his 4-4-2 is too rigid and, yes, we have the squad to produce many other permutations but anyone that thinks we are going get anything more than slight tinkering at the margins from this man is living in cloud cuckoo land.

As others have said, Saturday's defeat had been coming for a very long time but it really does beggar belief that our managers recent changes have only served to exacerbate the shortcomings of his team.

Our out-numbered central midfield has been retreating ever since Coppell removed the only pace he has at his disposal in central defence..........Bikey.

So, yes, that tends to isolate our attack and the service it receives resorts to mostly hoof ball. So, what does our manager do? He drops our most effective striker in the air thus breaking up our most effective strike force in the process. Add the loss of form of both Hunt and Kebe into the equation and Steve Coppell must be one of the few people in this town who still expects his team to score a goal in the foreseeable.

Poor service to our forwards has been a factor in many games but Doyle and Hunt regularly created something out of nothing whilst amassing over 25 goals between them but, hey! Let's give Leroy a go instead

Not only does Bikey possess the pace that would allow the whole team to push a little further forward, he would have been marking Adebola on Saturday and we would not have conceded that first goal........................but he doesn't get in the team, apparently, because he uses 19 seconds if 20 are available to him (this must be one of the most pathetic criticisms of a player I've ever heard )

Like many others, I'd love to see Tabb get on the pitch because I think he might be part of the solution but, guess what? I fully expect Marek to be given a go in the centre and him to collect at least one red card as he struggles in his under manned environment before Coppell aborts the idea of playing him in a 4-4-2 whilst refusing to go 4-5-1 to accommodate him.

Given that Coppell will only reluctantly divert from his treasured 4-4-2 and that Noel Hunt has been a great success who didn't deserve to lose his place, I would like to see N Hunt, Bikey and Tabb replacing Lita, Pearce and Kebe with the two footed Tabb playing as a wide midfielder rather than a winger and making the extra man in the centre as and when required. I also rather fancy the idea of having Hunt on the right and Tabb on the left.

Having said all that, I'm guessing it won't happen and I won't be there to see it against Forest anyway but.......................go on, Steve, pretend you're Houdini and break out of that tactical straight jacket!!!!