Watching most of our games this season the first thing you notice is that we use zonal marking and it doesn't work. The second thing is that we play a back 3 and wingbacks but don't have the players to suit the system. The third is if the opposition manager tells his midfielders to get the ball and run forward, we are in trouble. The forth is that KC substitutions rarely improve us as a team. The MOST disappointing thing is that everyone can see this, opposition managers have said this, but Curle doesn't do anything about these glairing problems.
There will never be a more obvious example of zonal not working than the free header just before half time. The only players we have that are anything resembling wing backs are Harriman and Mills. Adams doesn't have the legs to get up and back all the time, if we played a back 4 we could have Harriman and Sheehan as full backs and then we only have to pick 2 of the "Centre Half's" and can then play another midfielder to try and get some possession. Today, when he bought Ricky on, he obviously wanted him to play in the position Hoskins was playing, but rather than doing a straight swap he take off Harriman and moves Hoskins to wing back
?
I see people are saying we can't afford to pay him off, so put him in charge of the Youth team and put Jon Brady in charge of the first team doesn't cost any money and it cant be any worse
Good post.
As I've said many times, Curle is a competent League Two manager. He knows how to organise a team to grind out results at that level and that puts him ahead of quite a few of his predecessors. I had my doubts regarding his ability to achieve a career-first promotion, but to be fair to him he proved a lot of us wrong on that.
I think what we need to see now is nothing short of an urgent tactical re-think. We can't do much about personnel now until January, and realistically we'll always be out-gunned by the bigger clubs at this level when it comes to ability.
What is achievable, however, is build a simple and coherent tactical set-up which makes us hard to beat and generates some chances.
I agree with you that 4 at the back is the way forward. You simply can't win games at this level playing with only two midfielders (or 1 as was the case against Oxford City!!!) It can work in L2 because the opposition aren't generally good enough to achieve midfield dominance.
