Team Setup

[cockhat]

This board has always been full of non qualified people banging on about how their tactics/team selections would be better. That's football. It would make no difference who was DOF or Head Coach.

Right or wrong we’re all entitled to our opinions!

Don't take this personally as I'm just making a general observation, but personally, I'm sick and tired of people using the 'I'm entitled to my opinion'' argument to spout a load of offensive, ill informed or plain bad mannered garbage. The world would be a more tranquil place if more people kept their idiotic opinions to themselves. And that is my considered opinion.

As I stated, everyone is entitled to an opinion, right or wrong!

[moonwalk19]

Their Left wing back today had the freedom to cause us loads of problems today
As did the Plymouth wing back a few weeks ago
If RE is gonna persist with this formation then we will carry on conceding goals .
I agree we should try 4-4-2 and put Widdowson back at LB, push Brophy forward.
Turley or Thomas at RB as Ling was poor today.

Totally agree with all your comments. The trouble is other teams know exactly how we play . We have got to have a plan B because plan A is not working.

[gshaw]

I tend to agree with Millennial on this.
You can't read too much into yesterday's game because of the lack of preparation & the fact that RE probably had to put out an xl least affected by illness.
I seem to remember at a similar point last season the same posters berating Boss for playing 3-5-2. Now others are playing it, it's ok & effective. I still think it could work. Turley on, Happe on left, probably Coulson or new signing in the middle with Thomas & Brophy as wing-backs.
That said 4-3-3 stabilised us last season & we have proved we can score with Johnson, Wilkinson & Sotiriou all chipping in.
This season will be like no other because the programme is relentless, players will be rested & it will be rare that RE will be able to out out his strongest xl.
Keep the Faith chaps

We didn't play 3-5-2 though, it was 5-3-2 with the players timidly hiding behind the halfway line waiting for the opposition to score (Swindon the best example). Cheltenham came at us full pelt from KO and it worked perfectly. We used the formation in a negative, defensive way and Cheltenham used it in a confident attacking style taking the game to us.

Would love to see us have that same type of confidence and go after teams rather than trying to play this conservative, "don't lose" style that leads to us having to chase the game second half. Got away with it for a couple of games but came up against opposition smart enough to see it through yesterday. There's goals in this team but they need to be given the freedom to attack sides from the start, as Peter Kitchen writes in his column.

As for the other comment on "if you're not a manager you can't have an opinion" just go back to the Davis times and youth goalkeepers to prove that the amateurs on a message board can be right over the professional manager. Whatever career you're in its possible to overthink things or be blind to a problem others can see, football is no different.

We played 4-3-3 (or 4-5-1).

Yesterday yes, was referring to the comment about other sides playing 3-5-2 and it being seen as effective whereas when we played something vaguely resembling it the team struggled to get out past the halfway line.

[EH16]

Right or wrong we’re all entitled to our opinions!

Don't take this personally as I'm just making a general observation, but personally, I'm sick and tired of people using the 'I'm entitled to my opinion'' argument to spout a load of offensive, ill informed or plain bad mannered garbage. The world would be a more tranquil place if more people kept their idiotic opinions to themselves. And that is my considered opinion.

As I stated, everyone is entitled to an opinion, right or wrong!

Why is everyone entitled to an opinion? It seems to me it's a self assumed right. Now, I would accept that in our nominally free society the vast majority of people would agree with your contention that everyone's entitled to an opinion (though there's a debate to be had around shutting down opinions you don't like) but my main problem is that the vast majority of people are too dull to understand what should be the second part of that statement. Namely that rights are not a stand alone entitlement, they come with responsibilities attached. In this case the responsibility to not express your opinion in an offensive, ill informed manner. To be able to back up your opinion with a reasoned argument. And not to use these opinions to spread lies and to scare the populace. Further thoughts?