Wing-back woes

A

Adams Kebab

Well-known member
The system we’ve chosen this season has a massive reliance on wing-backs.

The 3-5-2 has evolved to a 3-4-3 to get Dembele in the side and rightly so because he’s our most creative player by a Golden mile (even though our manager was reluctant to play him and got bullied by the fans at Cods away to get him on at half-time and break the after 65 mins subs rule).

With the 3-4-3 now locked in and the two wide players of the front 3 inverted, all the attacking wide threat and width needs to come from the wing-backs. This needs to be a massive source of creativity and the out ball for the midfield to start our attacks.

What we’ve got now is, arguably the best right back in the league playing wing-back. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think he’s got zero assists. He’s scored a couple, but he looks awkward when being asked to create offensively. He can do it overlapping and supporting a winger, but when it’s all on him, it’s not great. He is however, brilliant at getting stuck in and a great right back at this level.

On the other side, we’ve got a left wing back who was brought in for balance and width yet doesn’t want to use the width by getting wide and going round the back of his man and wants to skip along tapping the ball inside or like yesterday getting brushed off it with ease. We had a decent little spell yesterday in the game when he was played in after a Carey run and put in a good cross that was headed out for a corner. (Don’t think we took that corner short for a change).

The above also applies to when we’ve had Thompson, Lyons and Dale there. They all look lost. Which makes me think this is tactical 😴

The plot thickens to us having wing-backs that don’t get beyond their opposition full backs by signing a pure penalty box striker in Jordan Rhodes who relies on crosses and the ball in the box and you’ll work out why he hasn’t scored this year.

When Dembele gets the ball we need players advanced of him. We’ve usually got just one striker who can’t run.

I’m going to go back for a lie down but I’m going to have to say it. This system works better when CJ Hamilton is a wing back as he will get beyond his man to the byline and cross the ball. Granted it usually ends up in the stand or 1st man but he gives us an out ball and gets us up the pitch. It’s why Rhodes did so well 1st half of the season.

This is a long winded way of saying the system our manager is entrenched in doesn’t suit the players we’ve got & stifles our attacking threats completely.

The fact he’s not sorted this out is a major 🚩
 
Yet we have known this from very start so why we are we still having the same conversations now. It's that bad, you don't know where to start saying how shit it is. You end up just saying shit to cover it all.
 
I agree with you. I’m not sure at all where the desire to go 3-4-3 (3-5-2, 3-4-2-1) comes from and what evidence it’s success is based on?

I guess we do retain the ball well and do have a lot of possession but it also leads to the chant “we pass the ball and do fuck all”. Can’t help thinking that yesterday and Wigan and in so many other games we have created chances in the game and not scored.

Without an early goal we get suckered at some stage and then just huff and puff without success.
 
We’re not shit at home though as only 4 teams have more home points ,it’s not adapting to a different way of playing away from home where we might create more chances ,far too negative in this division of poor teams
 
Chunkylad said:
I agree with you. I’m not sure at all where the desire to go 3-4-3 (3-5-2, 3-4-2-1) comes from and what evidence it’s success is based on?

I guess we do retain the ball well and do have a lot of possession but it also leads to the chant “we pass the ball and do fuck all”. Can’t help thinking that yesterday and Wigan and in so many other games we have created chances in the game and not scored.

Without an early goal we get suckered at some stage and then just huff and puff without success.
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I think he’s based it on Ipswich and Plymouth playing it & it becoming popular with football hipsters.

He’s spoken at length about us becoming possession based but we pass it around nicely at the back to then launch it hopefully forwards to a centre forward who doesn’t win many headers and if he does there’s nobody around him. We might be trying to be possession based but our middle defender of the 3 worst attribute is being in possession 🤯

You watch how Peterborough passed it against us and it was quick and incisive but always forward thinking. Ours is the complete opposite.

If ever something summed it up was the short corner yesterday. 1st corner for us, Dembele goes short, Norburn has a couple of touches and by the time he’s passed it him back he’s offside. Opportunity to get the ball in their box early on wasted.
 
Adams Kebab said:
The system we’ve chosen this season has a massive reliance on wing-backs.

The 3-5-2 has evolved to a 3-4-3 to get Dembele in the side and rightly so because he’s our most creative player by a Golden mile (even though our manager was reluctant to play him and got bullied by the fans at Cods away to get him on at half-time and break the after 65 mins subs rule).

With the 3-4-3 now locked in and the two wide players of the front 3 inverted, all the attacking wide threat and width needs to come from the wing-backs. This needs to be a massive source of creativity and the out ball for the midfield to start our attacks.

What we’ve got now is, arguably the best right back in the league playing wing-back. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think he’s got zero assists. He’s scored a couple, but he looks awkward when being asked to create offensively. He can do it overlapping and supporting a winger, but when it’s all on him, it’s not great. He is however, brilliant at getting stuck in and a great right back at this level.

On the other side, we’ve got a left wing back who was brought in for balance and width yet doesn’t want to use the width by getting wide and going round the back of his man and wants to skip along tapping the ball inside or like yesterday getting brushed off it with ease. We had a decent little spell yesterday in the game when he was played in after a Carey run and put in a good cross that was headed out for a corner. (Don’t think we took that corner short for a change).

The above also applies to when we’ve had Thompson, Lyons and Dale there. They all look lost. Which makes me think this is tactical 😴

The plot thickens to us having wing-backs that don’t get beyond their opposition full backs by signing a pure penalty box striker in Jordan Rhodes who relies on crosses and the ball in the box and you’ll work out why he hasn’t scored this year.

When Dembele gets the ball we need players advanced of him. We’ve usually got just one striker who can’t run.

I’m going to go back for a lie down but I’m going to have to say it. This system works better when CJ Hamilton is a wing back as he will get beyond his man to the byline and cross the ball. Granted it usually ends up in the stand or 1st man but he gives us an out ball and gets us up the pitch. It’s why Rhodes did so well 1st half of the season.

This is a long winded way of saying the system our manager is entrenched in doesn’t suit the players we’ve got & stifles our attacking threats completely.

The fact he’s not sorted this out is a major 🚩
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That's a well thought out post and I agree with a lot of it.
I've always believed the very best teams are built on the quality of their "full backs".
I'm not sure there's a world of difference between a full back and a wing back. Good ones, however you label them, both need all the same attributes to be successful and that covers virtually the whole range of footballing skills.
They need to be able to tackle, be strong, dribble, be fast, good crossers of the ball and the very best are dead ball specialists as well.
Thats a lot to ask and I'm not sure ours are quite at that level.
I do think Coulson plays more as a left sided mid-fielder which drags Casey across to be more of a left back and then we get the imbalance of him being a rightie.
We are more comfortable down the right with Gabriel who is more of a traditional over-lapping FB.
On the CJ point I did actually think that he worked quite well with Dembele. (sometimes)
I still cant fathom though why our tactics/formation works at home but not away.
 
Adams Kebab said:
If ever something summed it up was the short corner yesterday. 1st corner for us, Dembele goes short, Norburn has a couple of touches and by the time he’s passed it him back he’s offside. Opportunity to get the ball in their box early on wasted.
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Same thing happened before that, Dembele brought down mid way inside the Derby half, perfect chance to get the ball in early, where does it go, back to Ekpiteta?! Even the comms team couldn't believe it.
 
Agree with the OP, though another factor in our underperformance is that we only have two players who can beat a man and one of those is Coulson. Forwards hate it when they make a run and the person supposed to be crossing checks back. We do this all the time and it is no surprise that most chances created usually fizzle out due to the defence having time to reset.

The prospect of Critchley being given the summer to replace the loans we have, whilst tinkering with his useless and ponderous system is dispiriting in the extreme.
 
Seasideforever said:
We’re not shit at home though as only 4 teams have more home points ,it’s not adapting to a different way of playing away from home where we might create more chances ,far too negative in this division of poor teams
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The simple fact is that the away team can plan months ahead to play us at their place because we have someone with their head in the sand with the rigid system he won't vary.
 
Adams Kebab said:
The system we’ve chosen this season has a massive reliance on wing-backs.

The 3-5-2 has evolved to a 3-4-3 to get Dembele in the side and rightly so because he’s our most creative player by a Golden mile (even though our manager was reluctant to play him and got bullied by the fans at Cods away to get him on at half-time and break the after 65 mins subs rule).

With the 3-4-3 now locked in and the two wide players of the front 3 inverted, all the attacking wide threat and width needs to come from the wing-backs. This needs to be a massive source of creativity and the out ball for the midfield to start our attacks.

What we’ve got now is, arguably the best right back in the league playing wing-back. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think he’s got zero assists. He’s scored a couple, but he looks awkward when being asked to create offensively. He can do it overlapping and supporting a winger, but when it’s all on him, it’s not great. He is however, brilliant at getting stuck in and a great right back at this level.

On the other side, we’ve got a left wing back who was brought in for balance and width yet doesn’t want to use the width by getting wide and going round the back of his man and wants to skip along tapping the ball inside or like yesterday getting brushed off it with ease. We had a decent little spell yesterday in the game when he was played in after a Carey run and put in a good cross that was headed out for a corner. (Don’t think we took that corner short for a change).

The above also applies to when we’ve had Thompson, Lyons and Dale there. They all look lost. Which makes me think this is tactical 😴

The plot thickens to us having wing-backs that don’t get beyond their opposition full backs by signing a pure penalty box striker in Jordan Rhodes who relies on crosses and the ball in the box and you’ll work out why he hasn’t scored this year.

When Dembele gets the ball we need players advanced of him. We’ve usually got just one striker who can’t run.

I’m going to go back for a lie down but I’m going to have to say it. This system works better when CJ Hamilton is a wing back as he will get beyond his man to the byline and cross the ball. Granted it usually ends up in the stand or 1st man but he gives us an out ball and gets us up the pitch. It’s why Rhodes did so well 1st half of the season.

This is a long winded way of saying the system our manager is entrenched in doesn’t suit the players we’ve got & stifles our attacking threats completely.

The fact he’s not sorted this out is a major 🚩
Click to expand...
Agree with what you say about Jordan Gabriel. He is a very good right back at this level but has not produced much as a wing-back. NC should have taken one of the CHs off and gone four at the back with CJ on the right wing. Critchley's refusal to switch to 4 at the back is mind-boggling, 1-0 down with 5 mins to go he could have brought Kouassi on gone direct but no he has to have 3 CHs on!

Having said all that I thought we played ok yesterday we just are not clinical enough in our finishing. Dembele, Joseph and Beasley had good opportunities to score but couldn't take them. Dembele has been disappointing in the last few games, he is playing like someone who knows he won't be here next season.
 
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