Midfield

i thought broooon and donati saw plenty of the ball yesterday but just did nothing with it. you're right about us struggling against 5 men midfields in general though,rangers completely dominated us at the tampax arena because they didn't give us any time on the ball and were able to double up on our wide players which pretty much stopped us playing because our wingers are our only attacking options. we're too one dimensional, stop naka and aidan and you stop celtic, unfortunately

 

Agreed! Its because of Strachans tactical ineptness and over confidence in our central midfielders abilities that he tries constantly to line up our two central midfielders against three for opposition when we come up against these systems.

 

We've sorely missed having a creative midfielder for the last 3 years now. Until we have someone who can spray telling passes from midfield to the front, we're gonna struggle at times. Pity but it's true.

I'd love to see us in for Fletcher in the summer. We won't as his wages would kill us but from the middle of the park that boy can put the ball on someone's toes 50 yds away. Great passer of the ball, reads the game very well and would canter through SPL games.

 

Oh and another thing....we don't have midfielders who can regularly make those defence spltting runs....Stan was superb at it and scored buckets of goals from it. We badly miss that.

 

i think fletcher's not a bad player and he's a big hoops fan too. we have missed stan badly and a player like him or craig burley is exactly what we need, a midfielder who can get 10-20 goals a season, brown, donati and hartley have scored 6 between them this year

 

Just my take on it..
The problem must be that we sit too deep , or our players simply aren't good enough to control the midfield area.. Im going for the sitting too deep option.
We could trace back our formation against oppositions over the last two or three years in the SPL and sometimes the same pattern would emerge against the same teams , but also there would be contradictions , Plus without Neil Lennon dictating things we definately lack a leader and often have two players (Donati and Brown going back to do the job that one man (Lennon) could do)..

This season I think our problem has been away from home because teams have come to Parkhead and played 5 across the middle and (although they have frustrated us at home) they haven't really troubled us like in away games , and eventually we break them down and get 3 or 4 goals ahead..
I think it's down to the players and formation that we play , and there has to be more emphasis on keeping the ball and playing our own attacking game , rather than worrying about teams like ST Mirren and Falkirk.

My preference is to see Hartley and Brown in the middle with Robson and Mcgeady on the wings , and realistically we should be able to push a defender up to give us a 5 in midfield and gain a stranglehold of games..
Naylor tries to do this occasionally but too often he's slow at getting back which leads to a counter attack down the wing..
Hinkel (or Mark Wilson if selected) pushing up at times would be my ideal choice which means Robson switches to inside or gets further forward.. Haven't seen enough of Hinkel yet to make a good judgement on his positional play but Wilson on his day covers the ground like nobody else in the SPL..

I saw signs of Hinkel attacking yesterday just before Robson went off and it looked promising but it might take another 2 or 3 games before we see the best of that formation.. I think Robson gives us attacking options and verstaility that we don't get from others..

With the games against the huns coming up I'd feel happier with Caldwell covering for an out of position Hinkel (or Wilson) when Mculloch has the ball , than Mcmanus covering for an out of position Naylor while Novo has the ball , so the key to this is down our right side which will be ideal for getting 2 on 1's against Papac.. Mcgeady shouldn't be too troubled with Whittaker down our left side and if they double up on him it frees another area of the pitch for us to exploit , so playing this temporary 5 man midfield is probably the answer to why we're not dominating opposition like we should..
I think the reason we haven't played this way (as well as having injuries to Hinkel , Wilson , and Doumbe) is because it compromises our slow central defence and leaves space for even a one man attack to run into..

Mcmanus and Caldwell can't sit 15 yards between keeper and midfield because , as Inverness showed we're vulnerable to balls played straight down the middle and over the top..

We did play something similar to this 5 man midfield last year with Telfer pushing forward , but we had Lennon to do the covering back then..
We could play Hartley sitting in , but he wouldn't get far enough forward to impose himself..

I just feel that's the way we should be going.. starting position as 4-4-2 and switching to 3-5-2 against these teams , even at their own grounds..

I don't think we'll see Naka starting many games between now and the end of the season..

 

Strachan can take the blame for that..

A midfeild 4 of Sno,Jarosik,Naka and Donati , with Brown playing as a second striker , while Mcgeady sat on the bench is the reason they dominated us... It's laughable to think that's how we played them..

 

WGS playing walter at his own game i suppose and it didn't work. the team he put out at castle greyskull was poor, no width and as you said brooon as a second striker, we were never in that game, rangers dominated from start to finish

 

I noticed during pre season that we did not have a midfield player capable of stoping the play.I also said this on this forum at the time but I got hammerd for it.

I was hoping the players just needed to settle and get to know each other however it has been very evident to me that at no matter what level we play at be it an Inverness or a Barca the oposition find it far to easy to bypass our midfield.This was and is alarming for me as we all know how fragile our defenders are.

Hartley is the only one who has emerged as capable of providing natural protection to the back four.However he was not brought to do this role in fact it is more luck than judgement on WGS´s part that Hartley has emerged as this sort of player.As if it was not for his performance for Scotland V France we may never have seen him play this role for us.

The fact most teams play with three central midfielders should have told WGS long ago that his 2 would find it hard to compete unless they are capable to play with a man short.IMO they are not good enough to do this and for me this has been obvious since the start of the season.

 

i think it was the 2-1 win at rugby park that i first noticed how well hartley was playing the defensive midfield role, he's really impressed me this season but i thought he was rubbish against barca, he was too defensive and sat 5 yards in front of the CB's which meant we rarely got out of our half. as much as i like brooon and hartley if the midfield still isn't performing by the end of the season we'll have to make changes, i'd like to see sno sold and maybe donati if we can find decent replacements. brooons playing well but needs to add some end product to his game, fancy turns and flicks are good for the camera but he needs to start scoring

 

We have spent almost 12 million on the midfield.You would think we would have a functioning unit after all this time and money spent.

In all honesty m8 I wouldnt be disapointed if we allowed all our current midfield players to leave at the end of the season as I think it would be easy to find better replacements.

Against a Barca for instance as you mentioned Hartley´s poor perforemance.IMO if we struggle to play against an extra midfielder against the likes of Inverness or St Mirren then how can we excpect to dominate a Barca.Surely we had to go with 3 in their to add a bit of protection.

 

thats true mate but then we dont have as much of a goal threat. who do you drop? skippy?

 

any manager worth his salt should be able to get a team together to beat st mirrin especially as we drew against them at home in the first clash of the season,


did we draw 1-1 or am i hallucinating

 

Pre game yes I think I would have droped Skippy I know a bit sore but we had to sacarafice somewhere.However hindsight is a wonderful thing and I now think we should have played with three at the back.With our wing backs of Naylor and Caddis pushing their wingers back. Obviously we would have been put under presure in the wide areas however with Barca only playing Henry upfront then each of our outside CB´s would have been able to double up at FB. Also with Hartley sitting he would have made three as he obviously would have been the protecter.Just to map it out as I would have played and think we should line up in the Nou Camp.

CP game with the available players.

.............................Boruc

.............Caldwell......Mick........Odae

Caddis....................Hartley..............Naylor

..............Naka/Donati.........Mcgeady

.............................Skippy

...............................Jvoh

Diferent players for the nou camp.

P.S. Tim Park your not hallucinating m8 it realy did happen.Perhaps you could tell me was that the game when Hartley moved to left back during the second half and thats were we lost the goal from.?

 

wouldn't disagree too much with your formation but i'd leave skippy out of the starting line up and play brooon, if he's not still banned? otherwise naka,aidan and hartley in midfield would leave us too light and let deco and xavi run the game, aidan and naka's tackling isn't very good either so i'd start with brooon. its a big ask to win by two at barca but its not impossible so i reckon we try and keep it tight first half then bring on skippy in the second half

 

id love to go 3 5 2

-------------------------------boruc

-----------------caldwell----- bobo -------mick

robson----------------------- hartley--------------- mcgeady

--------------------------=naka --------broony

---------------------------------jvoh skippy

 

Game in the Nou Camp absoloutly would play Broon for the reasons you state.
Also if Bobo is fit then fo me he has to replace caldwell.