Lord Duckhunter

I’m still a big believer in senior pros setting an example and he has the attributes & attitude missing from our bunch of fairies. Lawrie could point at Bally when it’s pissing down or snowing at training and say “he’s won the World Cup & he’s putting it in”. This bloke went to Barca when seemingly on his way down, that has to resonate with the squad. I know it didn’t seem to work with Lallana & Walcott, but they appear to be different characters and we were in a higher league. Had he signed for Sheffield Utd or Coventry I’m sure the people moaning about him, would be slagging the club off for not bringing him back.

You’ve more faith in Manning & Wellington stopping crosses than I have. I’d want to double up and somebody sat in front of them to stop that. 4-5-1, or 4-4-2. In manning’s case probably 4-6-0. I actually think this is one of the reasons we play 3, we’re so shite at stopping crosses, that we’ve got an extra body to deal with the ones that come in. The problem is, we’re equally shite at dealing with them as stoping them, and if we were really serious about dealing with crosses, would have binned Baz for AM. It’s a mess defensively which ever formation we play. Poor centre halves and piss poor full backs.

People’s concerns were the lack of numbers in the central midfield, if one of the players is helping out a full back, what’s that doing for numbers centrally? Every system is fluid on paper, including 3 centre halves. If THB has to shift over to give Fellowes support, then the other 2 centre halves move over and Manning drops into a left full back position. The problem Tonda has created for himself which is driving the calls for a back 4, is he insists on keeping 3 centre halves on the pitch no matter what the game situation is. Plenty of times he should have removed one, but hasn’t. So we’ve ended up with 3 centre halves against 10 men, and 3 when we’re chasing the game and sides are defending deep. I’ve no problem with a back 4, but in my opinion the players we have available at the moment are suited to setting up as a 3. Our best performances have been in a 3, and personally I think it’s gets the best out of Leo, AA & Azaz. It takes slightly away from Fellowes game, but not as much as Azaz or Leo’s game if they had to fill in defensively a bit more.

We haven’t got 2 competent ones. The suggestion of 4-3-3 doesn’t address this either.

What you on about man. It’s called an opinion. When people are suggesting a centre half pairing of THB & Stephens, should I just say “ah ok, good idea”. When we’ve had pages of people suggesting we need 3 central midfielders, pointing out that some suggestions have exactly the same numbers in there isn’t playing devils advocate, it’s having a discussion. I’ve seen nothing suggested which will have us playing as well as we did last month, nothing. But if you want me to pretend I have, what sort of debate is that. The reason we’re mid table is because we’ve got a ghost in nets, poor defenders and a weak mentality, that’s not going away regardless of which formation we play. 3 at the back is a red herring imo.

It’s clearly not infallible

This side is ok, better than other suggestions. But, some people wrote they didn’t like 3 at the back because it left us light in midfield, so I presume they won’t like just having 2 in there centrally (or maybe that’s not the reason). That pic perfectly illustrates my concerns. Azaz is woeful defensively, so won’t be able to drop into the central midfield. It’s inevitable that Fellowes & Leo will get pushed back and end up helping out the full backs when we’re under pressure. Whereas in a 3, the wider centre halves can help out and the other 2 shuffle over.

There’s no way on earth that side plays as well as we did at Charlton, Birmingham home, WBA or Leicester, no chance. Jelert seems to be the latest member of “the less you play, the better you become” club. Nobody knows how he’ll pan out, he maybe the answer. But if he’s not Fellowes will need to cover him, and nothing I’ve seen suggests Wellington won’t need Leo’s help defensively. If we play that side, I’ll be putting my hands over my eyes when every corner, free kick or cross goes into the box, and with that lack of any pace centrally will kill us unless McCarthy’s starting position is incredibly high. Stephens & THB, I don’t know why you’re pretending that’s the answer…

I’m not winding anyone up. I don’t think it will make a blind bit of difference whether we play 2 centre halves or 3, we’ll still conceded, but I don’t think we’ll be as progressive as we can be. To play 4-3-3 as you’re suggesting, with our full backs would be suicidal. They’ll get isolated over and over again and nothing I’ve seen from Wellington or Manning suggests they’ll be able to cope. I don’t know about Jelert, as he’s hardly played. But if you’re playing Leo wide left, without the left sided centre back there to shuffle over, will have to defend more than he does now. As the left backs can’t defend properly. While it’s not an exact science we seem to want to play a 3-4-2-1 sort of formation. I don’t see how putting Azaz into a central 3 will make us anymore difficult to beat.

Dear god, you’re playing Azaz in central midfield?

Who plays in front of the full backs, and who are the full backs?

Well it’s confused you, seeing as Charles isn’t fit…

That’s the spirit, Southampton till I die….

So you think we’re playing 3 at the back and 2 in midfield?

So you want 3 in central midfield, who are those 3?

How many players do you want in midfield?

That’s a completely different argument, which re enforces the point as to why we’re playing 3 centre halves.

Why is there less attacking threat? How many players do you want in midfield? Do you think we should be creating more chances than we did against Charlton, Leicester, WBA, first Birmingham game or even Swansea at home. Why would replacing a centre half with Jelert result in being able to defend crosses better. Surely it would make our “inability to win a header” even worse.

It was 3, not 5

The problem is what happens if the FB’ s keep being isolated one on one. You can’t pull one of the CDM over to cover, or a centre half. What will happen is one of the attacking 3 behind AA will have to fill in. When playing poorly & being pressed back, 3 at the back ends up with wing backs becoming full backs. With this formation pressure means it becomes 4-5-1 instead of 4231. There’s no silver bullet. Shite keepers, full backs & centre halves are shite in any formation…

What do you want 4-5-1? You yourself have said we play 3 at the back, therefore you’re confirming we already play with 4 across the midfield (2 CM and 2 wing backs) . If you want 4 at the back, and “one more” in midfield, it will mean 4-5-1.

Our squad is only better than anyone else’s further up the pitch, our centre halves, full backs and keeper is the same level as everyone else’s (if not worse). Our formation has to be built around getting the best out of our best players and giving them less defending to do.

We can’t play 4-3-3 with our full backs, it would be suicidal. The problem isn’t the 3 centre halves, it’s 3 shit centre halves. I know jack Stephens is the forum scapegoat but THB is just as bad and played worse yesterday, and wood has an appalling sense of danger. None of them pass the ball with the speed or urgency needed to break the press and when they do Downes bounces it back to them 90% of the time. The young lad isn’t any better, just a quicker version of the same old shit. Add to that the ghost like command of the area Baz has, I don’t see how is 2 centre halves going to be any better than 3. Who are the full backs going to be in a 4. I’m sure people will go on about the subs performance yesterday, but that was as a wing back, and his best moments we going forward, what’s he like defensively in a 4, we just don’t know, and the other side Manning clearly isn’t a full back that can defend in a 4. A combination of shit centre halves and no real decent full backs has left us where we are, and unless we get different personal in I don’t see much change whatever formation we play. We’d may let in different types of goals, but we’ll still let a bucket full in.

Now I’ve calmed down and rewatched it, it’s still a shit “effort”. Why did he even dive for it, surely he moves his feet quickly backwards first and then tips it over. I seem to recall a similar one last year. Whatever metric you use, trendy hipster stats or my own bins, he’s shite. Whoever made him player of the match on the basis of one save needs fucking sacking from punditry. Their keeper made just as good a save and unlike ours had no chance with the goal. Player of the match, my arse, he wasn’t even keeper of the match.

McCarthy tips that over the bar, no bother