Gallowgate Toon

Winning headers and running faster

A manager having faith in his players

Would love to see a box-to-box man come in, not least for a bit of squad variety although I doubt he'd ever be allowed to break too often! If we're going to go 4-4-2 then I think it's Cabaye who should be sacrificed. He's an excellent footballer but just lacks the presence to really be consistently effective there. If it's 4-3-3 then Anita will do fine as a DM and it should be the box-to-box player alongside Cabaye, who should be the playmaking midfielder.

Which is where? He's been CM, RB and LB. He's a defensive midfielder, think Makelele.

We just need to play to our strengths and with the players we've got, it's not like there's a lack of options either. We could stick with this long ball stuff but for it to work we really need to push the midfield, or at least a central midfielder, up. Out strikers are useless at winning headers and aren't the best at linking play either, the ball is always coming straight back at us because we're so deep, particularly in the middle, the opposition almost always pick up the second ball. I think this style and set-up doesn't really play to our strengths but we could make it so much better than it currently is. Our other option, if we're looking to try and mix up our play is to get one of the strikers to drop deeper and become a link man. It doesn't happen enough right now, our front 2 are always massively isolated with an ocean of space between midfield and attack, there's nobody filling that attacking central void so there's no easy outlet. Our middle 2 need help defensively as well, we're often overrun and they're consequently bogged down which particularly affects Cabaye, as he's not the best athlete. The other option is to go 4-3-3, I think this suits us the most. It still allows us to mix it up offensively while retaining defensive solidity (if done right). We don't get overrun in the middle and have enough options and consequently enough of a central presence to keep possession and build varied attacks. At the minute we always go wide, there's no threat from the middle at all and that's hurting us. It's a shape that naturally suits the majority of our squad, it's a continental formation that our mainly continental squad know well, it's the obvious choice. I don't want to see us go completely the other way in terms of how we play btw, we've got the personnel to be able to mix it up but at the minute it's so negatively direct, it's useless, we need to start adding some variety to our game, teams are reading us with ease.

Same style, same formation, same type of result. 2-1 loss.

Watching how he started out the season, in terms of PR and general confidence, it's saddening to see what he's turned into. He looks knackered and some of his recent quotes have been what I'd expect Partridge to come out with. That 4-3-3 guff with Swansea was incredible.

I wonder how much the players believe in his tactics. It must be amazingly disturbing for some of our foreign players, to come from good footballing styles and coaches, to this.

He's an evidently good footballer who's not had a chance here. Not that he'd be effective right now, due to our horrendous style.

But the signs were creeping through that the tactics weren't working last year too, until 'that' run. He was getting criticism around February time for consecutive poor performances and results. I think we got something like 17 points from 17 games?

Find that very far fetched personally. I find the idea that Pardew would specifically instruct the players to always just lump it forward to be significantly less probable. And yet Krul very rarely attempts to play it short, one of our coaches is quoted is saying 'we kicked it longer' after the defeat on the weekend and our own manager describes our style as 'fast, front-foot football', which is just code for get it into a dangerous area as quickly as possible. There are worse footballers and teams that play better than us, so blaming it on one or two individuals is simply unfair. The lack of movement is also to do with coaching and poor tactics. Some of our players (each one of our starting front 6) have previously played for sides with great movement, yet they're suddenly statues here? It doesn't add up.

To be fair to him, he was played as an attacking midfielder and he's simply not ready for that lack of space yet. You can tell he's out of his comfort zone at the minute, I'm very confident that he'll be fine in time but this is an important period for him. He needs to play games in a set position, which I hope will be as a DM.

They'll never learn, not that he was ever the right man for the job but he deserved a little more time at least.

Outside of 6 months of insane form there's nothing to suggest that tbh. He is playing under a team that suits him now as well and he's still struggling. Think what he was going through under Hughton before we sold him was just a purple patch tbh. He'll get some goals but he does bring other valuable assets too, he's decent in my book.

Decent striker, nothing more. Really didn't want him in the summer but with the way we've been playing so far, we'd be doing a bit better if he was here.

I'm pretty sure he'll be here in January or next summer. He'd be a lot more effective in the current set-up than Cabaye, he's not as good a footballer but much more of an athlete, which is really what we need in the middle with the way we play.

I saw the front 6 like this: Tiote Ben Arfa Anita Ferguson Ba Sammy It was akin to a diamond, no chance it was 4-3-3 though. Bottom line was, we still hoofed it and had very little central presence. That first half wasn't bad considering our recent showings but it still wasn't particularly good either.

They are some unbelievable quotes.

Get away man, he's one of our senior players and the vice captain. He'll be straight back in. I know he'll be straight back in but he simply shouldn't be, he's been poor all year.

He should not come back into the side unless it's as part of a midfield 3, he's had a crap season.

Theoretically we could still pull the long ball game off, if we actually moved the midfield up a little bit. No centre forward wins every single header (I know we rarely win any), what's really important is to have people following up to pick up the second balls but our central midfielders are always so deep, we always end up surrendering possession. Ironically, Pards played Anita at the tip of a diamond for much of the first half and a bit in the second on the weekend, that's not his position at all and you could tell he wasn't confident enough to collect the ball in such a congested area. However I think Cabaye (or even HBA or Marveaux) could actually do some damage there but he's always played used as defensive cover and I think there lies the key to our problems, the complete mis-use of our main central midfielder. I'm not at all condoning playing long ball as it really doesn't suit our players but if we're going to do it, we might as well do it properly.

Good result for them. Don't think it'll do much for their season though, they've got glaringly obvious problems.

May force Pards to move towards a 3 man midfield, if true. I don't think he believes the replacements can consistently stand in for him in a 2. I'd fancy Marv or even Amalfitano to do a good job as the furthest forward midfielder but wouldn't be surprised to see Jonas simply take over and we continue with the same shape.

Did he shite not play 4-4-2 in the first half, where the hell does HBA fit into the formation you've just said? Defensive mid? It was an attempt at a diamond but we still had 2 strikers. It was OK but once again glaringly obvious that we really missed a presence in midfield, they were very comfortable.

Amazing to actually see a midfielder breaking forward with that Lallana shot before, I hope we take note.