BOROCHAT

Re: Next Season - Goals from other areas

By borostag (Todge)8/4 14:28Mon Apr 8 14:28:53 2024In response to Re: Next Season - Goals from other areas

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I've been thinking about this imbalance in the team for a while now and I genuinely don't see a solution within the current setup.

Pre-February, we were mostly setting up with a back 4, a midfield 3 of Freeman, a CDM (TVC, N Thompson or Burns), and JFC, Roberts, then a front 2. Freeman was able to cover Luther quite well, the CDM slotted in at the back when we didn't have the ball (because Evans quite rightly does not trust the pace of Pidge and Sweeney as a back 2), and JFC was there as a creative outlet.

The issue with this was always that Butler was often exposed defensively. This is why, although excellent in defence, he was seemingly reluctant to bomb forwards, often stopping at the halfway line and cutting the ball back to a midfielder. With JFC getting injured in February, it allowed/forced Evans to try and experiment with how we fix that left side. He had planned for this, as seen through the Guinness-Walker loan: it was an attempt to have a more attacking version of Nick Freeman down the left, while providing cover for Butler.

This is a great idea in theory, but the core issue here is that by losing JFC after the Lincoln game, we lost a huge creative presence in our midfield, and heaped pressure onto Jordan Roberts as our sole creative outlet. When Roberts had a subsequent downturn in form, our chance creation stalled out. Add to that we started to be wasteful of the chances we did create, and the goals completely dried up.

All this to say, I am still absolutely mystified why we never just continued the obvious straight swap of JFC to Harvey White, which was tried immediately but only once (in the Fleetwood game in JFC's first absence). Every subsequent game it's been a fiddling around of formation & system trying to get it working. This obviously doesn't fix the "Butler being exposed" issue, but at least would've given us continuity with the first half of the season and eased the pressure on Roberts.

For next year, I think the main issue that we have to fix is twofold: getting an attacking midfielder as cover/competition for Roberts and getting a quick centre back so it doesn't chain us to the use of a CDM to cover the centre backs, freeing up a midfield spot for a more creative/progressive ball carrier (think the JFC/Gilbey/Reeves trio from last season).

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