Good old Itchy Cob!! 
 

Itchy.

We'll put that one down as a Freudian slip.

This is what I'd play (assuming no one is back from injury):

                        Burge

         Lintott   Guthrie    Dyche    Koiki

                McWilliams    Fox

                        Leonard


        Hoskins      Hylton/Appere        Pinnock


Round pegs in round holes in the back four. Irchy Cob raises an interesting debate though re: Koiki versus Haynes.

I'd give Koiki and Pinnock one or two more games to raise their standards to the high levels they were showing last season.
If not, then I'd be bringing Haynes in for Koiki and Bowie in for Pinnock. I like Bowie as a game-changing option off the bench, especially in the summer heat against a tiring defence. However, he's definitely pushing for a starting berth.

Can't really decide between Hylton and Appere as the number 9. Appere looked good against Crawley.

It's nice to have a genuine debate about what our best X1 is. Last year, despite our good form it was always pretty obvious who should start - such was the poor quality of our bench and strength in depth. 



 

We appear to be the exact reverse of last season: vulnerable at the back, dangerous going forward. It's certainly entertaining to watch and is much closer to the 'bums-off-seats' football that Brady has talked about.

It was good to see  Brady initially going with the central three in midfield. McWilliams, Fox, Leonard and Sowerby
have the ability to dominate the middle of the park against the vast majority of L2 teams. Hoskins thrives as a wide forward in a 4-3-3 and his pace and directness caused them a lot of problems. Pinnock was our best attacking player last season and I'm sure he'll rediscover his best form soon. However, Bowie might be breathing his neck to start as a wide forward soon.

For me, Brady made a mistake in changing the system when Magloire went off. Playing Lintott and Koiki as emergency centre backs in a back three with Hoskins as a wing-back was very, very risky. Reducing our numbers in midfield simply invited pressure and made us sit deeper. I think we would have been better off doing a straight swap from Magloire to Dyche and then preserving the 4-3-3 system or moving to 4-4-2.  Crawley could easily have scored a winner. However, we got away with it due to a mixture of resilience and individual quality from Hoskins and Bowie. Bowie is starting to feel like a genuine game-changing option off the bench - something we massively lacked last year.

The early signs are promising but the Brady bunch need to find a way to keep this more expansive attacking style whilst also tightening things up at the back. The return of McGowan and Odimayo should help matters considerably but a lot of it will also be about coaching and improving Magloire and Shearing as they have done with the likes of Jones, Horsfall and Guthrie before them. For me, Brady should resist the temptation to go three at the back when everybody's fit because our strength this season lies in our midfield.

I think there is little doubt we will end up playing 3 at the back when players are fit . Neither Guthrie or Magloire are comfortable on the ball but Sherring is . Magowan and Koiki will be wing backs .
We will then play 2 up front in the true sense .

I also felt that summer recruitment pointed to three at the back with three central midfielders in a 5-3-2. Again, the three could be McWilliams, Sowerby and Leonard/Fox. However, the big issue with that is how Brady would accommodate Pinnock and Hoskins in a 5-3-2. Pinnock doesn't really work as a no.10. Hoskins can do a job as a wing-back but it isn't his best position and Magowan is obviously much better defensively.



 

I think Bungle is right a&out 4-3-3 but it all depends on who plays? Appéré, Hoskins, Magloire & Hylton will probably be somewhere in the 11. Am assuming Shelling is injured?

Appere was quite good on Saturday but I’d say he’d be the one to make way for Leonard or Fox initially. I’d then be bringing him off the bench and challenging him to compete with the front three of Hoskins, Hylton and Pinnock for a starting place. What we want is genuine competition for places and some genuine game-changing attacking options off the bench (neither of which we had last year).

I’d keep Magloire at centre back and challenge him to keep Shearing out of the team. Lintott was decent and showed the virtues of playing round pegs in round holes at full back.

What came out of today (other than the very appreciated 3 points) is that if Brady can settle on a more 'one offensive/one defensive' midfield partnership then we will create a lot more chances.

I still think 4-3-3 is the way to go.

McWilliams and Sowerby together form a formidable defensive pivot which was a huge factor in our solidity last season. I'd want to keep both in the team. However, they offer little in terms of decisive through balls/goal threat/arriving late in the box etc and, as I've said before, the lack of chance creation from central areas was the decisive factor in our failure to win promotion last year.

Both Leonard and Fox would work well as a third central midfielder in a 4-3-3: they are hard-working enough to contribute defensively but offer more in terms of
chance creation and forward impetus. Neither are natural no.10 playmaker types, but both would excel as the most advanced midfielder in a three. We therefore have 4 good central midfielders who can compete for three places.

I also think Pinnock played most of his best football last year as a wide forward in a 4-3-3 where he had license to go out to the touchline and ping in crosses or cut inside and get shots off as he pleased without the defensive responsibilities associated with playing in a 4-4-2. If he's played in the middle as a no.10 then his crossing opportunities are curtailed and he looks lost.

Really quite surprised that Brady isn't selecting an extra midfielder in place of Appere. The 4-3-3 formation
posted by James H in the Chron is spot on IMO:

                              Burge

               Lintott.  Magloire. Guthrie. Koiki

                      Sowerby  Fox   McWilliams

                     Hoksins    Hylton   Pinnock


 Playing a midfield three would suit our personnel even more than a 4-2-3-1 because
 it negates the need for a no.10 playmaker type. Fox or Leonard could simply operate
 as the furthest advanced of a hard-working-box-to-box three. Hoskins and Pinnock could operate as wide forwards (very hard
for L2 level centre backs to pick up) and would have a reduced defensive workload due to the presence of another midfield battler.

 We pretty much played like this towards the end of last season when Appere, Eppiah and
 Hoskins were clicking so well.

 On another note, interesting to see Brady respond to Shearing dropping out through injury by moving Magloire into CB
 and bringing in Lintott as a more natural right back. Will be interesting to see if this makes us
 any more solid.

The sooner Brady gets back to 4-2-3-1 the better though.

This.

Our tactics today were quite reminiscent of our early games last season: a rigid and static 4-4-2 with sub 45% possession.

Hylton's arrival has made playing two up front possible again. However, the problem remains that 4-4-2 is simply not a good fit
for our first-choice midfield personnel. Sowerby and McWilliams both like to sit deep and are best deployed as deep-lying midfielders in a pivot.
Neither is particularly comfortable driving forward, arriving late in the box or acting as an advanced playmaker threading in through balls - all important attributes which at least one of the CMs should have in a 4-4-2.

The other issue is that neither Hoskins or Pinnock are the out-and-out wingers which you need to make a 4-4-2 work. Hoskins' strength is cutting inside and running at pace with the ball at his feet. He's had a brilliant start to the season, but crossing is not his strong suit and he's always a lot more effective in 4-2-3-1.
On the other hand, Pinnock has great crossing ability but his defensive-pressing deficiencies are much more exposed in a 4-4-2 and he's also much more effective when he's allowed to drift inside.

The two options really are 3-5-2/3-4-3 and 4-2-3-1. Hoskins' excellent form makes him pretty much undroppable at the moment and the only way he could be reasonably accommodated in a 3-5-2 would be as a wing-back.

This is what I'd play in a 4-2-3-1:

                       Burge

     Lintott/Magloire  Shearing Guthrie Koiki

                    Sowerby  McWilliams

          Hoskins    Fox/Leonard/Appere     Pinnock

                         Hylton (Bowie/Appere)


 I'd give Fox a go as a no.10 but also experiment with Leonard
 in there - with his Brighton pedigree I'd be surprised if he couldn't add
 some creative spark. I'd also give Appere a go as one of the three behind the
 lone striker, because he showed encouraging signs of developing
 into a promising deep-lying creative forward last season and got
 plenty of assists.

 We also desperately need an Eppiah-style forward with pace to add to our options
 in the attacking triumvirate. The demolition of Leyton Orient away should have been
the template for Brady's tactics this season.

Overall it's a solid start but we need to switch things up tactically if we're serious about creating enough chances
to go one better and achieve that elusive promotion.



  
 



 




 

Be surprised if we don’t line up like this in a 3-4-1-2/5-3-2:


                        Burge

          Shearing Guthrie Magloire

Odomiyah/Hoskins McW   Sowerby  Koiki

                   Pinnock

              Hylton        Appere

The signing of Magloire all but confirms we’re going 3 at the back IMO
and the Cheltenham friendly strongly hinted that this Brady’s thinking. I think he sees Pinnock as the ‘10’. Will it work? I think it’s a formation with potential but ultimately it will depend on work on the training ground (particularly surrounding the coaching of the crucial wing-backs) and we’ll need to be patient.

I have a few concerns, despite the recruitment looking excellent on paper. On one hand, I completely understand why Brady is drawn to a switch to 3-5-2/3-4-1-2. Both these formations would allow us to play two strikers in Hylton and Appere together up front which would appear to be a sensible move for a team whose main weakness was scoring goals from open play in one-striker systems last year. However, these are my questions:

1. Our back four had one of the best defensive records in the country last season. A big part of me thinks ‘if it ain’t broke why fix it’. You need a lot of squad depth at centre back to play 3 at the back - will we have enough? Will we will we be as solid as last year or will teams exploit the space behind the wing backs?

2. Can Koiki be converted into a wing back or is he best as an attacking full back? On paper he has all the attributes (pace, control, strength) to be a superb wing back but I’d say his best performances came at full back. Also, for all his excellent forward rampages he didn’t get that many assists it goals last year. Will the wing-backs match Hoskins’ impressive total of assists and goals from last year (assuming he is the one to make way for this new formation? He divides the fan base but the fact is that Sammy had a very productive season last year.

3. Can Pinnock thrive as a number 10 or us he more effective out wide? Pinnock was by far and away our best attacking player last year. However, most of his best performances came as an inverted winged in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 where he could get out wide and put crosses in.

4. No idea if the rumours are true, but we simply must keep Guthrie. His value to us transcends a crude measure of his raw ability as a centre back because he gives us a crucial sense of continuity with the successful back line of last season. The understanding he has with Koiki, McWilliams, Sowerby and Macgowan and Pinnock (at set pieces) would take ages for a replacement to replicate.

5. I am very wary of the implication that Brady wants to ‘play out from the back’. I’m very sceptical about the capacity of l2 teams to do this on a consistent basis due to the technical limitations if the defenders and have seen it undone very quickly by opposition who press high up the pitch. I’d like to see us play a bit more football through the thirds but also think we should mix it up a bit and avoid sacrificing pragmatism for idealism.

The big questions for me boil down to this: can we create more chances this season whilst preserving our defensive solidity? The answer I think is ‘yes but it will take a lot of coaching and we will probably need to be patient in the first 10 games while the teething problems are ironed out’. In the long run, if sustainable L1 football is the aim then a switch to a more progressive possession based style is probably the correct strategy.

We still need a pacy forward as an option off the bench along with at least one other centre back.

The signing of Magloire pretty much confirms that we’ll be playing 3 at the back and also goes a long way to answering the strength in depth question. Magloire has a lot of pace and should compliment Guthrie’s strength. I think Shearing will be the one to bring the ball out into midfield.

Time will tell whether we get the game-changing bench options we need and whether the wing back system delivers in terms of increased chance creation and goals.

I have a few concerns, despite the recruitment looking excellent on paper. On one hand, I completely understand why Brady is drawn to a switch to 3-5-2/3-4-1-2. Both these formations would allow us to play two strikers in Hylton and Appere together up front which would appear to be a sensible move for a team whose main weakness was scoring goals from open play in one-striker systems last year. However, these are my questions:

1. Our back four had one of the best defensive records in the country last season. A big part of me thinks ‘if it ain’t broke why fix it’. You need a lot of squad depth at centre back to play 3 at the back - will we have enough? Will we will we be as solid as last year or will teams exploit the space behind the wing backs?

2. Can Koiki be converted into a wing back or is he best as an attacking full back? On paper he has all the attributes (pace, control, strength) to be a superb wing back but I’d say his best performances came at full back. Also, for all his excellent forward rampages he didn’t get that many assists it goals last year. Will the wing-backs match Hoskins’ impressive total of assists and goals from last year (assuming he is the one to make way for this new formation? He divides the fan base but the fact is that Sammy had a very productive season last year.

3. Can Pinnock thrive as a number 10 or us he more effective out wide? Pinnock was by far and away our best attacking player last year. However, most of his best performances came as an inverted winged in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 where he could get out wide and put crosses in.

4. No idea if the rumours are true, but we simply must keep Guthrie. His value to us transcends a crude measure of his raw ability as a centre back because he gives us a crucial sense of continuity with the successful back line of last season. The understanding he has with Koiki, McWilliams, Sowerby and Macgowan and Pinnock (at set pieces) would take ages for a replacement to replicate.

5. I am very wary of the implication that Brady wants to ‘play out from the back’. I’m very sceptical about the capacity of l2 teams to do this on a consistent basis due to the technical limitations if the defenders and have seen it undone very quickly by opposition who press high up the pitch. I’d like to see us play a bit more football through the thirds but also think we should mix it up a bit and avoid sacrificing pragmatism for idealism.

The big questions for me boil down to this: can we create more chances this season whilst preserving our defensive solidity? The answer I think is ‘yes but it will take a lot of coaching and we will probably need to be patient in the first 10 games while the teething problems are ironed out’. In the long run, if sustainable L1 football is the aim then a switch to a more progressive possession based style is probably the correct strategy.

We still need a pacy forward as an option off the bench along with at least one other centre back.

'Akin is a player who can play anywhere across the back," said manager Jon Brady.

"He has a good pedigree and he is a player who is a good age with the potential to develop and improve even further.

"He is comfortable playing in a back four or a five and that is important.'

Interesting. I also think he might deputise for Macgowan to begin with. However, it also seems like Brady might be considering playing a wing-back system at times next season. 3-5-2 would enable us to play Appere and Hylton up front together.

Odimayo from Swindon is a rumour on twitter..

https://twitter.com/sportspeteo/status/1543251814174412803?s=21&t=0DrVCCH_DBCrzunWqqh-SA

Confirmed. Swinedon fans seem to rate him. Seems he didn't play as many games as he would have liked last season due to not quite fitting in with Ben Garner's ultra-pass-it-out-from-the-back style. Looks like we paid compensation for him due to him being under 24.

Calderwood and Brady have a good track record of developing young defenders so it all looks positive to me.

The recruitment has been very promising so far. Given the pivotal arrival of Hylton, I think Brady
might be tempted more of a 4-3-3 than the 4-2-3-1 we played for the majority of the first half of last season. I can see it looking a bit like this: 

                                             Burge

            New RB (Macgowan when fit) Guthrie   New CB   Koiki

                           McWilliams     Fox       Sowerby

                             Hoskins/Appere   Hylton      Pinnock


 The big remaining questions for me are:

1. What does the arrival of Hylton mean for Appere? Will he play alongside him in a two, will he compete with him for the no.9 role or will he battle Hoskins and Pinnock for a role as a wide forward?
Appere was starting to look like a very creative and dangerous L2 centre forward at the end-of-last season and I definitely think he should continue to play a major role in our attack. We were very static and predictable when we played 4-4-2 last season and I can't see any of McWilliams, Sowerby or Fox being here to sit on the bench so I think 4-3-3 is more likely. (Hoskins and Pinnock aren't really orthodox wingers anyway.)

2. Will Fox provide the creativity from central areas which was lacking last season (and arguably proved our biggest weakness)? Will he better Lewis' tally of two assists? Or, will Brady sign another creative midfielder who will finally give us that elusive 'playmaker' no.10 option (even if just off the bench)?

3. Will Brady sign another wide forward with pace (Eppiah or similar) to provide competition for Hoskins and Pinnock and to give us some crucial pace as a game-changing bench option? Our bench last season was extremely weak (Rose, Seal etc) and was arguably another major factor in our lack of goals.

4. The most pressing priority is obviously to replace Horsfall and Macgowan (temporarily) and to also sign some decent centre back cover (possibly on loan).




                   
                                             

I actually hadn't thought about this at the time. Why when you need to score a goal put a forward in goal?! I know given his record with us it was unlikely but it's still a very odd decision

Danny Rose is the only 'striker' I've ever known as have who was universally perceived as a defensive substitution when he came on.

Even if you took off say Guthrie for Rose that would be a defensive substitution because your
chances of scoring a goal would be dramatically reduced. It was always a case of 'oh Rose is coming on, we must be shutting up shop now'.  I'm sure he'll score a hatful under Evans at Stevenage mind.

Robert told me himself he wouldn't have signed had it been anything else but a 1 year deal as that's all he wanted

Really don't get this at all. He had just been released on a free by another L2 club whose fans nicknamed him 'popadom hands'. What on earth gave him the confidence and the foresight to see that he would have a worldie of a season and that a 2 year contract would feel like a ball and chain rather than a comforting security blanket?

when sam hoskins is your top scoring forward then the others must be really poor

ps we are weak in attack - you may have noticed that the reason we didn't get promotion was because we didn't score enough goals

Ok, but Hoskins doesn't play as a striker and shouldn't be judged as such- he played the majority of a season as an inside forward in a 4-2-3-1 and then the rest of the season as a wide forward in a 4-3-3/4-5-1.

13 goals, 9 assists (22 direct goal involvements) and probably the best pressing capacity of any forward player in the league is an excellent output for a inside forward/inverted winger. Don't judge him as a striker because that's not his role in team.

From a League Two perspective, Hoskins is as good as it gets and I find the criticism he gets baffling - we are lucky to have him. There is a different debate to be had when it comes to the proposition of Hoskins as a starter in League One, but we ain't there yet so it's a moot point. In any case, he's just had his best season for us and I'd say he's very much on an upward curve in terms of improvement and end product.

We didn't score enough goals because we didn't create enough chances - it wasn't a case of poor finishing; the chances simply weren't there to be finished in the first place. That's not Hoskins' fault and it's certainly not the fault of his fellow wideman Pinnock who finished top of the league for assists. As I've said before, the lack of chance creation from central areas was the problem which Brady needs to address - replacing Lewis with a decent playmaker and continuing to develop Appere as a Harry-Kane-style withdrawn playmaker targetman should go some way to improving things.

I think we are seeing the difference between fans who only follow the ball...and those that do more.

Lewis has decent work rate and could also do a decent job further back in a midfield two. We've had far worse and given the choice I would have kept him. However, my personal preference would have been to keep him as a valued squad player but to sign a genuine playmaker no.10 with the capacity to contribute more than two assists a season.

Sowerby already offers us workrate and calmness in possession, so we need something a bit more from the no.10.

If you really think that people are too blaze about losing him then answer these questions:

1. Is two assists an acceptable return from a no.10 playing for a side with aspirations for promotion? That's not 'following the ball', that's paying attention to basic stats for a team that had chance creation as their Achilles' heel.

2. Is it not slightly more than coincidence that our best goalscoring run of the season coincided with Lewis' absence  (Oldham, Harrogate, Leyton Orient, Exeter, Barrow)?

Lewis chipped in with a few but was far behind his fellow midfielders Hoskins and Pinnock in terms of both goals and assists.

Two assists over the course of a season for a no.10 attacking midfielder is a poor return, and I would have expected/hoped that Brady would have earmarked it as a position in need of a refresh, even before Lewis' 'family reasons' came to the fore. Essentially we narrowly missed promotion due to our struggle to create chances in crucial games. We need a proper playmaker who can create chances from the middle of the pitch so that we are less reliant on the supply line from wide areas/set pieces. 

If we were signing a player this summer with 13 goals and 9  assists in the previous League 2 season this think most of us would be happy. 

This. Add in his work-rate and defensive pressing capacity and it's hard to not see him as one of the most effective attacking midfielders in the division.

If our no.10 Paul Lewis (6 goals and 1 assist) had anything like Hoskins' output then we would have been promoted comfortably. That's the position which we really need to prioritise in our recruitment for next season.