Evermaarton
Player Valuation: £225k
Watching the match today made me wonder which way we want to play. With the recent Burnley and Crystal Palace matches in the back of my head I became really worried with our lack of firepower and our poor quality in possession.
Today we played in a 5-3-2 formation (3-5-2 if you are really really really optimistic) with Holgate and Davies as controlling midfielders. That means we had 7(!!!!) defensive players in the starting line-up. The result was a very poor match against a bottom-table club in which we created very little and were basically shockingly poor when we actually were in possession. Of course we have a lot of injuries at the moment and the squad isn't very well balanced but still. Those things started me thinking of the possible directions we can take.
If we want to keep playing a 5-3-2 (or something similar) we will be a counterpunch team. Teams like that usually play a pretty direct style of football, have wingbacks and midfielders with a drive forward and lungs like a horse, very pacey attackers who are good at taking the game to the opponent. We don't have a direct style of play, glass half full we do have the wingbacks (an in-form Digne is at least good enough), Doucoure is the only midfielder who comes close to this and Richarlison is our only attacking player with the right abilities. In my opinion the counterpunch game can be very useful against the top teams but we would keep struggling against the lower teams since we need to bring the game to them in those matches (otherwise you'll get very dull matches like today).
We try to play a possession based game (and to be honest I prefer this kind of football) but with our current squad and formation that is very hard to do. For a possession based game you need a quality ballpaying central defender (Keane our best option now?), a couple of midfielders who are comfortable on the ball especially when under pressure and a striker who is able to hold the ball. 4-3-3 would probably be the preferred formation for a possession style of play. We also lack quite some players for a style like this. DCL is good for this and probably James and Alan but we would need at least 2 more ballplaying midfielders and probably a ballplaying defender.
So this basically means we have to do some serious business the next few transferwindows but we need to do it with a plan. What direction do you guys want us to take?
P.S. just my opinion of course
Today we played in a 5-3-2 formation (3-5-2 if you are really really really optimistic) with Holgate and Davies as controlling midfielders. That means we had 7(!!!!) defensive players in the starting line-up. The result was a very poor match against a bottom-table club in which we created very little and were basically shockingly poor when we actually were in possession. Of course we have a lot of injuries at the moment and the squad isn't very well balanced but still. Those things started me thinking of the possible directions we can take.
If we want to keep playing a 5-3-2 (or something similar) we will be a counterpunch team. Teams like that usually play a pretty direct style of football, have wingbacks and midfielders with a drive forward and lungs like a horse, very pacey attackers who are good at taking the game to the opponent. We don't have a direct style of play, glass half full we do have the wingbacks (an in-form Digne is at least good enough), Doucoure is the only midfielder who comes close to this and Richarlison is our only attacking player with the right abilities. In my opinion the counterpunch game can be very useful against the top teams but we would keep struggling against the lower teams since we need to bring the game to them in those matches (otherwise you'll get very dull matches like today).
We try to play a possession based game (and to be honest I prefer this kind of football) but with our current squad and formation that is very hard to do. For a possession based game you need a quality ballpaying central defender (Keane our best option now?), a couple of midfielders who are comfortable on the ball especially when under pressure and a striker who is able to hold the ball. 4-3-3 would probably be the preferred formation for a possession style of play. We also lack quite some players for a style like this. DCL is good for this and probably James and Alan but we would need at least 2 more ballplaying midfielders and probably a ballplaying defender.
So this basically means we have to do some serious business the next few transferwindows but we need to do it with a plan. What direction do you guys want us to take?
P.S. just my opinion of course
