derry

Now is the time to get it right not Christmas. Adkins won't be given that time anyway so will try and sort it out. It is not a knee jerk reaction as we only brought three new players in this week so there has to be changes in personnel and possibly tactics. The centre backs this week will probably be Fonte and Yoshi as Hooiveld has a calf injury which can take weeks if bad enough. The midfield is work in progress and although it probably won't happen I would like to see Gazzaniga in goal v Villa. If Davis continues his present form I wouldn't want Gazzaniga to have to debut at Everton. I know all about R&S but it needed a defender to close mark Scholes. That means following him everywhere and both of them could have got up Schole's nose by getting at him. Once a player is committed to close mark irrespective of what is happening elsewhere he never leaves his mark, either could have disrupted Scholes by doing that and not damaged the team.

Adkins is going to have to change the system or the midfield if Ramirez is going to play in the middle. We are still trying to find how to play and who to play, that is a problem together with a goalkeeper that is suffering, a left back struggling to adapt, a centre half that is below par giving us a porous defence. Unless we go back to a high tempo pressing game we are going to leak goals.

Like Wigan then. I get it.

Scholes has been around for 20 years, if Utd weren't playing well he was definitely coming on, everybody knows how he plays, We weren't prepared to neutralise him we just let him play. He isn't quick he needed stamping on and Richardson or Seaborne could have tight marked him. MS has never figured in paper speculation.

Or 532, becomes 352, becomes 325, becomes 316 becomes 10 behind the ball. 442 isn't allowed.

Did you miss Scholes pulling us apart. We had no answer. We needed to man to man Scholes but gave him the freedom of SMS to pressurise us. As for MS, if he is so good how come nobody is trying to take him.

It is strengthening the defence, giving more defence in the air and covering the full backs. Anybody would think the defence was ok, Fonte and Fox are the finished article they won't get any better. It isn't strong enough and the flaky goalkeeper makes it worse. The third centre back instead of the non defensive holding midfielder might help. The 433/451 with orthodox players isn't working. 40% possession isn't keeping the ball so trying something else isn't a problem. Hoddle played three at the back maybe we should look at that. What I've suggested is halfway there.

Only if they play like you think. Fonte isn't a CM he is a front sweeper, a proper defender who covers in front of the back four getting to the ball before the back four has to commit. The team doesn't play as three compartments it should be a formation of 10 defending and 6/7 attacking. Playing 3 centre backs and two full backs and playing on the break with pace is grinding out results. Not 5 lightweights losing the midfield as we are at the moment.

Like we got destroyed on Saturday and lost four in a row. How would you know, as this team has never played and probably never will. I'd just like to see whether it would work.

Gazzaniga, Clyne, Yoshida, Hoiveldt, Fox; Fonte; Ramirez + (1 from Lallana, Schneiderlin, Davis, JWP etc); Mayuka, Lambert (Rodriguez), Lee. I would like to see how they would play in a 4123 set up. Like I said above it is difficult to predict how the new players will perform but we have lacked mobility and pace up front and defensive solidity.

Sadly not with 40% possession, But I loved the way Johnny Giles used to sometimes lift the ball and loft it very high coming down almost vertically onto the centre backs. We did one in the first half v MU and Ferdinand and Vidic were all at sea being bullied by Lambert and we nearly created something. Variation is the secret I suppose.

Quite.

It was tongue in cheek but teams are looking beyond the traditional formations and playing how it suits the players. The better teams seem to continually change shape depending on circumstances. I think it was self defeating to pick a new formation/s that we had never played before when joining the 'best' league in the world, furthermore playing the best three teams in the first month and also trying to get some players to fill slots even though it was obviously not natural for them. I think we need to pick the best blend that works and if that means leaving out established starters so be it. I'm not saying I have the answers because I don't, I've seen too little of Ramirez, Mayuka, Yoshida, Rodriguez, Lee, Davis and JWP to be able to pass an opinion. I don't believe that Lallana is at his best unless he occupies the left midfield or that Lambert is mobile enough to play on his own and be a threat up front. It seems to me that we need to be able to accommodate Lee and Mayuka for their pace and movement. If Ramirez is going to be the central playmaker then the midfield is an area that needs sorting. Unless Schneiderlin can break forward like he did against MU on a regular basis I can't see how he can hold his place with Ramirez doing the playmaking. I feel we have to play two mobile strikers up front with Lambert linking plus support from midfield. Just a thought, if Hoiveldt and Yoshida are the centre backs with the full backs not being that secure Fonte could be a front sweeper which then would only leave Ramirez + 1 (Lallana ?) It would give us a strong player in front of the back four and free up the full backs. I'd like to see DeRidder on the bench, after all there are 7 options.

I think we need to be much more sophisticated in the way we play. Put Lambert, Rodriguez, Mayuka and Lee up front and go for the up and under option. Then we don't need a midfield, play six at the back.

Give him a go, Davis is a known quantity and isn't performing well.

The house I lived in as a child is shown in Calmoor. The roadsign at the end of Water Lane showed the Calmoor spelling but the HCC vandals replaced it.

Irrespective of the hypothetical number crunching a team playing as a team, confident and comfortable in the way they play will always be better than our mismatched 433/451 with players not in their natural positions. Also there appears to be a compromise that some players despite performances are undroppable even though they don't fit the adopted system. Plus a goalkeeper that unsettles the team with his nervousness. Thinking that possession in front of the opposition especially giving it away in our half is the answer is laughable. We have to kill the game at the back and stop giving goals away, high tempo pressing from the whole team and take what chances we can make, but first and foremost we have to hunt down the opposition in packs not comfort zone go nowhere passing for the sake of it. We have to be able to pass accurately but football is about winning not possession. We are loose and undisciplined in defence, unambitious in midfield and outnumbered up front in a system that isn't working.

Not in a million years.

Surprise, surprise, now everybody can see. Some of his biggest fans onto the bandwagon, only Old Nick, fair play Nick, still thinks the world of him. I never rated him and he is no worse than he ever was, just out of his depth now.

So where was our defensive passing genius, bloody missing as always. As far as I'm concerned, apart from a more dynamic display against MU he is luxury we can't afford. The defensive midfielder has to be the first to get across and buy time, not the centre backs.

What worries me is the attempt to pick a system and then put players into positions they don't relate to. In my opinion we need to sort out a system that gets the best out of our players. Unsophisticated as it is 4-4-2 wouldn't be any worse than what we have at the moment. We give the ball away too often, don't close down ruthlessly, hunt in packs and give the opposition far too much room to play.

Cliff Huxford, not the best player but really gritty, awsome presence, picked up the team by the scruff of the neck, what we need now. We haven't had a decent captain for years.

He bloody well wasn't wrong. KD got away with being a shotstopper without the other attributes. He is not up to it, he made the same sort of mistakes in the lower divisions but often got away with it, He doesn't command his area, is like a rabbit in the headlights, Through his legs for Hoiveldt's og, bad positioning for free kick only halfway between post and centre of goal, bad positioning, left a large gap for near post goal, batted ball out to centre of goal for Walcott's goal. Very shortly we are going to have to bring in a free agent (not the answer) or give Gazzaniga a chance.

The Wigan game was pretty even until we were chasing our tails towards the end. The first goal was Hoiveldt in possession deciding to lob a clearance into midfield giving the ball to Wigan broke quickly and broke through on our left. The second was a Fonte error being caught in possession as the last man. If Hoiveldt had put his boot through it and hit it long there would have been no first goal at that time. MC, MU and Arsenal were nightmare games but they are out of the way by tomorrow. Nobody in their right mind would have expected much in the first month. We still need a goalkeeper more than a new manager. As for the substitutions v MU, I did think at the time we we should have used Richardson to stamp on Paul Scholes and man mark him which might have stymied SAF plan. He really raised their general tempo which put us under pressure.

FFS, He has won two promotions, is two years ahead of the plan and deserves the chance to take us forward. Relegation if it happens isn't the end of the world, provided he wins subsequent promotion he shouldn't be sacked.