No midfield control again…

[S8TY]

20 minutes ago, Jourdan said:

n our current state, we are not likely to attract many players who we can say we are confident about their ability to transition to Championship football.

Sorry I keep disagreeing with you but this is not correct in my opinion 

When we had to reset as a club I thought we'd build something and find gems from lower leagues and use the youngsters with our financial restraints I would've been defending us if I saw progress because that takes time maybe a couple of seasons  any club is well capable of moulding a young ish side with a few older heads in key positions to be able to hit the ground running if they reach the  championship , a lot of clubs in fact go straight from L1 and through championship in 1 or 2 seasons  into the prem such is there momentum and fact they've built something sustainable , in our current situation or the situation we were in a young forward thinking coach/manager may have seen DCFC as an opportunity to create something I don't think L1 is particularly strong and the fact we do have good players I'd had liked to see us go a different route i guess...just my opinion ...its not a dig just don't like how we don't really seem to be building anything 

[YorkshireRam]

34 minutes ago, ramsbottom said:

 What you're suggesting could work but Warne seems reluctant to play an actual midfielder in the No 10 bar Bird earlier in the season, he's much preferred NML or John-Jules (!!??!?!) in behind Collins.  Personally I'd like to see us with a proper 3 in the middle, Bird holding then Hourihane with Thompson/Fornah pushing on but I think that in turn will isolate Collins even more.  We've looked at our best when he has someone in behind him.  Whatever the formation I just want the midfielders to be in midfield, so many times we build up play and both of them are tucked in between the full back & winger and yards from each other, which doesn't help with picking up 2nd balls cause they're nowhere near their positions when the ball breaks into that area.  Cheltenham were picking up our clearances from their long balls so easily and if they had more creative players, they'd have done some real damage...

In fairness, #10s are literally referred to as 'second strikers', and are often dedicated forwards. Our best #10 in recent years was Vydra (who was a textbook trequartista). Firmino played this role in Klopp's gegenpress, and Rooney in later years played this role for Utd as well.

In your system, 'pushing' a midfielder in a 3 would make them more of an #8? So Warne playing a striker as a #10 in his 4231 does make sense, you just seem to prefer a traditional 433. 

[duncanjwitham]

46 minutes ago, YorkshireRam said:

In fairness, #10s are literally referred to as 'second strikers', and are often dedicated forwards. Our best #10 in recent years was Vydra (who was a textbook trequartista). Firmino played this role in Klopp's gegenpress, and Rooney in later years played this role for Utd as well.

In your system, 'pushing' a midfielder in a 3 would make them more of an #8? So Warne playing a striker as a #10 in his 4231 does make sense, you just seem to prefer a traditional 433. 

The thing is, genuine #10s/second strikers/whatever basically don't exist in modern football, unless you're doing something very, very specific (Leicester's title winning team is an example, where they almost gave up on possessing the ball and just sat deep and counterattacked).  There are very few small, pacy strikers any more (Owen, Defoe types) and where they do exist, they get stuck out wide (like Rashford).  And there are very few dribbly attacking midfielders any more (Kinkladze, Kaka types) and again where they do exist, they get stuck out wide (like Grealish).

If you have any desire to have meaningful possession, you have to have 3 central midfielders in some form or other.  That can be a straight 3, some kind of 4231 with the centre of the 3 dropping in, 442 with a wide midfielder tucking in (like Paul Coutts for us) or whatever, but you need bodies in there.  And that mostly means you have to play 1 central striker, and that needs to be someone that can play up front on their own, that you can play off (whether that being a Chris Martin dropping off and linking up, or an Ivan Toney/Callum Wilson style mobile, physical presence you can be more direct to).  You can't play a small/pacy/dribbly guy there on his own, and if you play 2 strikers together, you get overrun in midfield and your #10 doesn't get the ball anyway.

Teams that are playing 4231 mostly play with a creative passer in the middle of the 3 (De Bruyne, Bruno Fernandes etc), not a dribbler.  Teams are using false 9 type things to have strikers dropping into what used to be the number 10 role (Messi has done this, Firmino sort of, Martin for us).  When we used Vydra as a 10, we were basically doing what Leicester did - almost a back 6 sitting very deep, and a front 4 just trying to win us the game on their own.  And we had the textbook counterexample in the previous season, when Vydra really struggled to make an impact in a possession-heavy McClaren team.  We're seeing it happen this season when we play what's basically a 424 (with Barkhuizen, Sibley, TJJ as a 10), where we get overrun and they never get the ball.

[YorkshireRam]

6 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

The thing is, genuine #10s/second strikers/whatever basically don't exist in modern football, unless you're doing something very, very specific (Leicester's title winning team is an example, where they almost gave up on possessing the ball and just sat deep and counterattacked).  There are very few small, pacy strikers any more (Owen, Defoe types) and where they do exist, they get stuck out wide (like Rashford).  And there are very few dribbly attacking midfielders any more (Kinkladze, Kaka types) and again where they do exist, they get stuck out wide (like Grealish).

If you have any desire to have meaningful possession, you have to have 3 central midfielders in some form or other.  That can be a straight 3, some kind of 4231 with the centre of the 3 dropping in, 442 with a wide midfielder tucking in (like Paul Coutts for us) or whatever, but you need bodies in there.  And that mostly means you have to play 1 central striker, and that needs to be someone that can play up front on their own, that you can play off (whether that being a Chris Martin dropping off and linking up, or an Ivan Toney/Callum Wilson style mobile, physical presence you can be more direct to).  You can't play a small/pacy/dribbly guy there on his own, and if you play 2 strikers together, you get overrun in midfield and your #10 doesn't get the ball anyway.

Teams that are playing 4231 mostly play with a creative passer in the middle of the 3 (De Bruyne, Bruno Fernandes etc), not a dribbler.  Teams are using false 9 type things to have strikers dropping into what used to be the number 10 role (Messi has done this, Firmino sort of, Martin for us).  When we used Vydra as a 10, we were basically doing what Leicester did - almost a back 6 sitting very deep, and a front 4 just trying to win us the game on their own.  And we had the textbook counterexample in the previous season, when Vydra really struggled to make an impact in a possession-heavy McClaren team.  We're seeing it happen this season when we play what's basically a 424 (with Barkhuizen, Sibley, TJJ as a 10), where we get overrun and they never get the ball.

I spent the whole of the time writing my comment trying to remember the term 'false 9' so cheers for jogging the memory on that one 😂

7 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

Teams that are playing 4231 mostly play with a creative passer in the middle of the 3 (De Bruyne, Bruno Fernandes etc), not a dribbler.

Good thing Bird can do both then 👀

[Chris_Martin]

13 hours ago, DCFC Kicks said:

Well he's not that good at that either judging by his 1 assist all season. He's a wing-back.

Blackett-Taylor will be the other winger with NML now anyway

wilson has 3 assists this season

[Chris_Martin]

6 hours ago, Jourdan said:

He was in League 1 the year before he arrived at Derby. Wednesday obviously couldn’t get the best out of him where Rosenior and Warne across two seasons have.

You keep going with that ‘best squad of players in the league’ narrative…hopefully in 17 games’ time it will be true. However we look to be safely in the chasing pack at the moment.

but he only played 18 games for them that whole season, mainly as a wing back. You think warne has got the best out of him? so you don't think he could ever be better than he is right now?

name a club in league one that has a better squad than ours then...

The reason we are in the chasing pack is not completely relevant to how good the squad is. Did Leicester have the best squad the year they won the premier league? Did Chelsea have a bad squad because they spent over 1 billion and finished about 14th last season?

[duncanjwitham]

40 minutes ago, YorkshireRam said:

Good thing Bird can do both then 👀

I genuinely think if we stuck Bird further forward, put someone more mobile next to Hourihane and just told them their main job was to get the ball into Max Bird's feet as much as possible, we'd look miles better.  If we still want to get it wide and cross it, then we can do that, Bird is more than capable of feeding wide players from there.  We'd be much less susceptible to getting overrun in midfield.  We'd keep the ball better, so less aimless chasing around.  It might take a few extra passes to get the ball into the final third, but the quality will be so much better when we do.

[Foreveram]

4 hours ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

See above post ☝️
 

I’m not one for making sweeping generalisations about our fan base, the team, the manager or much for that matter. I share my opinions and will engage in debate with people who share opposing views to my own either in an attempt to understand their stance or in a bid to encourage more balance in the hope they can see and respect my view. 

The gif was just meant to show how I feel @Srg accurately captured the state of league one and that I share in their assessment. 
I didn’t say people couldn’t or shouldn’t want more so please don’t put words into my mouth. It was just meant lightheartedly to highlight what I felt was a good post. 
I don’t know that I can be arsed with this place any more 😞 

If you give up there’s no hope for any of us 😂

[YorkshireRam]

2 hours ago, duncanjwitham said:

I genuinely think if we stuck Bird further forward, put someone more mobile next to Hourihane and just told them their main job was to get the ball into Max Bird's feet as much as possible, we'd look miles better.  If we still want to get it wide and cross it, then we can do that, Bird is more than capable of feeding wide players from there.  We'd be much less susceptible to getting overrun in midfield.  We'd keep the ball better, so less aimless chasing around.  It might take a few extra passes to get the ball into the final third, but the quality will be so much better when we do.

Me manifesting that player being Ebou Adams and us signing him tomorrow:

[Caerphilly Ram]

1 hour ago, Foreveram said:

If you give up there’s no hope for any of us 😂

I’m not giving up, I was tired and hangry this morning.
It is hard work coming on here at the moment however, feels very divided once more when not that long ago the team was on a good run and most were either happy or content enough due to results. 
Sorry for my mini tantrum @S8TY 🤝