Roberts nowhere near good enough. Sooner play Devine than Roberts.But you could argue that playing the same knackered players could be a big mistake with the same outcome.
I ‘d give Issaka and Roberts a chance off the bench.
Roberts nowhere near good enough. Sooner play Devine than Roberts.But you could argue that playing the same knackered players could be a big mistake with the same outcome.
I ‘d give Issaka and Roberts a chance off the bench.
Devine definitely needs to start SaturdayRoberts nowhere near good enough. Sooner play Devine than Roberts.
Lighten up .It was a tongue in cheek comment.🙄Indeed. Lets just put someone up front that is tall, but is potentially one of the worst at our club in terms of actually footballing skill with their feet. This is professional football.
Roberts would freshen things up and at least give us a bit of pace.Note I said off the bench not start.Roberts nowhere near good enough. Sooner play Devine than Roberts.
Top half of League 1? MaybeThen I’d be happy.
Bring in 3/4 quality additions in the summer and we could stake a claim for challenging in the top half of the table.
Teams know we have no one capable of holding the ball up when a long ball is played. Or putting in any meaningful challenge. So they just have to press us deep and we are stumped. That's where a targetman comes in which I have long advocated but certain posters can't see it.That’s exactly the point though, trying to play football with our feet isn’t working, so let’s try with a target man up front who is good with his head, at least for part of any game that we may need to.
Centre backs often make decent centre forwards, because they know the runs that are needed to make spaces, through having to mark them up the whole time.
Another option is for the keeper to punt the ball into touch as far forward as we can then try winning it back from a throw in. Certainly be more productive than watching Hardie failing to compete for a header..... again.Teams know we have no one capable of holding the ball up when a long ball is played. Or putting in any meaningful challenge. So they just have to press us deep and we are stumped. That's where a targetman comes in which I have long advocated but certain posters can't see it.
So what you seem to be suggesting is that Hardie runs around for 90 minutes. Then just keeps running the rest of the week! There were 8 days between Leicester and Stoke! Have more sympathy for Coventry strikers. 120 mins on Sunday, play again tomorrow then again on Saturday. Unfortunately for us they play Blackburn on Saturday.Hardie is shattered. He covers so much ground, we just need an alternative to give him a rest. I'd play Bundu up top with Mumba playing off him. Jordan, Randell and Devine in midfield and our usual back 5. Give it 60 minutes then unleash Whittaker and Hardie.
Hardie is shattered. He covers so much ground, we just need an alternative to give him a rest. I'd play Bundu up top with Mumba playing off him. Jordan, Randell and Devine in midfield and our usual back 5. Give it 60 minutes then unleash Whittaker and Hardie.
Exactly right. For them to be that wide in a 4-3-3 worked brilliantly because we had 3 in central midfield - 2 holders and a creator (Azaz or Cundle). We then moved to 3-4-3, and not only lost our 2 creators, but lost them as an extra man in central midfield. At that point we should have moved to 3-4-2-1, but we didn't, and our attacking play and our already suspect ability to not be outnumbered and hurt in transition has suffered drastically.As BG said, we need to change things.
Playing with 2 very wide forwards in Whittaker and Bundu and just having Randell and Forshaw/Houghton in central midfield exposes us badly and makes us vulnerable to the quick attack, a notable feature of most teams at this level.
The 2 in CM have to shield the back 3 but are also expected to be creative for our lone forward. With respect, you would have to be a lot better than Randell and Houghton to be able to do that at this level.
Why do we play with such widely-positioned forwards when we have the 2 Wing Backs to provide the width?
Whittaker constantly receives the ball on the touchline and has to come inside to get the ball on his left foot; it's all so predictable and easy to defend.
Our 2 wide forwards should be a lot narrower to better support Hardie and to make it harder for teams to break. Dare I say it, a bit more like Carey and Lameiras playing behind Taylor.