Michael Murphy...

[Guest]

I did wonder why Michael Murphy was playing for the ressies, but of course he is suspended Saturday cos of the sending-off against Hendon. Now I guess ideally Eddie would have liked to have just slotted Nick Gyoury in there, but now he has left for Cheshunt do you think he will drop Haddow back to Sweeper and bring in Steer, or do you think Lovegrove will get a full-debut.

 

Should be interesting...

[Barry Scott]

4-4-2 with Steer at left back. simple as

[Martin]

Yep. Same team as Saturday with the one change being Steer for Smurf 1. Definately keep Haddow as the winger - it worked a treat.

[Don Juan DeMarcus]

Always does, no idea why anyone would ever have Steer in front of Haddow, pure madness

[Paul Stephens]

Funny isn't it I thought we had reverted to a 5 - 3 - 2 formation, but with Haddow being given the freedom of the park because Eastleighs midfield was inept, and right back slow. With no attacking threat from Eastleigh Haddow was able to push up more and play the wing role of wingback, and depend on the central defenders to cover. You get a different view for the 18 yard line!

 

As far as Steer in front of Haddow goes I think it gives Haddow much more attacking freedom. Danny is the only midfield player who runs away from the touchline with the ball heading for the centre of the field. This pulls the midfield cover away from Alex, and leaves him at worst one on one with the full back. Danny then has the option of a 20 yard pass to Alex in space, or switching play to centre field or the right. All our other midfield players have a tendency to run wide with the ball thus narrowing the field of play and pulling the defensive midfield cover to where Alex is. They end up playing a 4 yard pass to Alex who is then double teamed.

[A Rebel and a Saint]

i think Haddow is more suited to the attcking wing position, but is also a hell of a defender when he is needed, but he works well attacking and defending high up the pitch. but whether that would work against a higher skilled team is another matter

[Ian]

I think Alex is a better defender than danny and more of an attacking threat going forward too! If I had to choose however I'd push him forward on the basis that most of our threat comes from the flanks and if we don't have that we don't have much at all.

 

Mind you, Alex and Josias do a bloody good job of covering both at the moment. Their workrate is fantastic.

[Martin]

Quote:

Funny isn't it I thought we had reverted to a 5 - 3 - 2
formation

It might have been on reflection. I thought it was 4-4-2 purely because Josias was playing much more like a right back than a winger and that Haddow was so far advanced a lot of the time it looked as if Smurf 1 was covering at left full back.

I suppose at the end of the day though we were just playing total football. We controlled the game and steamrollered Eastleigh so we did not really have to worry about formation too much.

[Paul Stephens]

Your right, when a wing back pushes up, either the centre backs spread to cover the hole, or a midfielder drops back to cover. (notably what veli did not do against hendon leading to one of their goals). Since walsall Josias has tended to stay back more than he did in the past. At the moment his passing, which was his strength is slightly off, and he tends to wander around the field more than he used to. His one recent attacking run of note was that superb cross to Hodges against Hendon. Mind you you can't have both wingbacks attacking ALL the time.

 

We can't expect all our player to be on top form at the same time, and Josias is still very young, he will bounce back to top form.

 

As far as eastleigh goes I dont care if it was 4-4-2 5-3-2. It was simply a sublime exhibition of how we can play , and sustained for the whole 90 minutes.