STFC Transfer Rumours

[leefer]

I love how everyone has taken this seriously despite it coming from tans, who is about as credible as Changy-chops

 

[Dr Pierre Chang]

I love how everyone has taken this seriously despite it coming from tans, who is about as credible as Changy-chops

[dalumpimunki]

The team we had was sitting top of the league in February with a solid defence and potent strike force. Building a team the same way will not always get the same results because it'll be different players. Obviously the loss of Ritchie was a big one but the only players PDC had that KMac didn't were Hollands, Martin and Bostock....no reason for KMac to come in and change system, none at all. We still had the players for 442.

Still, feel free to find me a team that got promoted out of this division with youngsters released from Wimbledon and Mansfield. I expect the Banbury few are just here to make up the numbers at the moment.

As for those experienced players. Ward is as good as gone. Caddis will never play for us again. TAH is injured still as far as I know. Cox is injured. Rooney also looks set to leave and Adam Rooney doesn't play for us...

The less said about how often you think KMac played 451 the better...

As usual you've quoted my post and then had an argument that pretty much ignores what I said. My post says that I expected more of the experienced players to leave, but hoped that MacDonald had a list of experienced replacements. If he doesn't and all we sign are ex prem youngsters then I agree we might struggle. If he does and we build a team of promising developing players with a spine of experience, it might be good. It's the sort of thing that quite of lot of posters on here have proposed we should do for a while.

I'm not too worried about finding a side that's got promoted through recruiting rejects from the likes of Macclesfield and Wimbledon, as we've not actually signed any. Trialling players and signing players are not the same thing. No side has got promoted from this league by signing conference level Italians either, but we trialled one or two of those last summer.

I'm not getting sucked into the "everything was fine under Paolo we were going to win the league under him it's all MacDonalds fault for undoing his good work" argument with you again because we're not going to agree. I think you've either forgotten or are conveniently ignoring the injury list we had towards the end of the season.

Fair enough my point about 451 wasn't well thought through.  The point I was trying to make was that we very rarely started games with only one striker. Clearly KM wasn't trying to play a straight "pack the midfield" 451, because if he was he would have played 5 midfielders. It looked like we were trying to play the kind of flexible 433 in possession (with Luongo and Rooney joining attack), and 451 without possession, that Swansea and others have had success with. But as the point I was replying to was at heart about switching from 442, that was a bit irrelevant anyway.

[RobertT]

I think I made a point a while ago that the possible route to success would be in doing something completely different to the norm.  Ardiles' success while here and early on at Spurs was by using a formation and style that was unique at the time.  Over time people adapt and if your players aren't good enough you go back to being average/shit/whatever you were before.

It's not just in football this works, think Wasps in the 3/4 year period in the Rugby who deployed a blitz defence.  Worked wonders, then everyone found ways of combating it.  Australia started playing test cricket at old fashioned one day rate of scoring and dominated (granted for a lot longer) before other countries managed to get teams able to match that.

PDC's period fits into this a bit, he was different, very different.  With the ability to churn players it worked, it's not sustainable once that backing is removed and he knew it.  You can't piss players off like that and keep them all for several years without it causing some issues.  If Black had the cash and desire to stick around it's possible it would have gone on working for us.

So, going for something different and sticking to it might just work.  Risky, sustainable financially possibly.

[DiV]

I'm not getting sucked into the "everything was fine under Paolo we were going to win the league under him it's all MacDonalds fault for undoing his good work" argument with you again because we're not going to agree. I think you've either forgotten or are conveniently ignoring the injury list we had towards the end of the season.

Of course, Di Canio never had to deal with injuries.

Fair enough my point about 451 wasn't well thought through.  The point I was trying to make was that we very rarely started games with only one striker. Clearly KM wasn't trying to play a straight "pack the midfield" 451, because if he was he would have played 5 midfielders. It looked like we were trying to play the kind of flexible 433 in possession (with Luongo and Rooney joining attack), and 451 without possession, that Swansea and others have had success with. But as the point I was replying to was at heart about switching from 442, that was a bit irrelevant anyway.

I checked through and in his first few games KMac started a combination of Williams and Collins/Rooney.

Still, i'd say its debatable whether a striker playing on the wing is still a striker.

[Riddick]

The 451 thing amuses me. Most top teams play with 1 forward these days and none of them are considered defensive. Its all down to the make up of the midfield behind that.

A lot of the fans at our place seem to have the mentality of 442 and get the ball forward, the groaning when we keep possession and pass along the back for awhile, its sad really but hopefully they will change.

The link to Eustace is encouraging, lets hope something comes off there as well. Not sure how easy it will be to sell the club to someone though at the moment when they look from the outside and see everyone leaving.

[Ardiles]

The 451 thing amuses me. Most top teams play with 1 forward these days and none of them are considered defensive. Its all down to the make up of the midfield behind that.

A lot of the fans at our place seem to have the mentality of 442 and get the ball forward, the groaning when we keep possession and pass along the back for awhile, its sad really but hopefully they will change.

The link to Eustace is encouraging, lets hope something comes off there as well. Not sure how easy it will be to sell the club to someone though at the moment when they look from the outside and see everyone leaving.

They must have hated those 2½ season under Hoddle.

[Abrahammer]

It looked like we were trying to play the kind of flexible 433 in possession (with Luongo and Rooney joining attack), and 451 without possession, that Swansea and others have had success with.

Absolutely we were doing this, a point which a lot of people totally ignored when they were banging on about 4-5-1 last season.

[Trashbat?]

4-5-1 can work but I don’t think we had the right players to make it work last year. We didn’t have the wide midfielders who could make it go from 4-5-1 when defending quickly into a 4-3-3 when attacking. we often tried to use Ferry, A Rooney, Roberts or Williams as the wide players and none of them worked.

[Batch]

Absolutely we were doing this, a point which a lot of people totally ignored when they were banging on about 4-5-1 last season.

Bot really, a fair few pointed out it wasn't a Heart 4-5-1/4-3-3. It just didn't seem to work* with the players we had the ones that had been playing 4-4-2 for 18 months.

* in my opinion

[blinkpip]

We already got Miller/Nav in the Center Mid, not sure about having another Nallis in the team. 

[Riddick]

Miller has left though!

[ronnie21]

Bot really, a fair few pointed out it wasn't a Heart 4-5-1/4-3-3. It just didn't seem to work* with the players we had the ones that had been playing 4-4-2 for 18 months.

* in my opinion

I believe one of the reasons this didn't work was because of the dominance of the two central defenders, but they struggled to pass the ball out at times and just hoofed it forward aimlessly, only for it to return because the one striker could not be all over the opponents third and he had no idea where the ball was coming from!!

[Riddick]

I believe one of the reasons this didn't work was because of the dominance of the two central defenders, but they struggled to pass the ball out at times and just hoofed it forward aimlessly, only for it to return because the one striker could not be all over the opponents third and he had no idea where the ball was coming from!!

I agree and also the reluctance of the midfield to drop and pick the ball off the defenders. Holland was very good at doing it when we had him.

Also why assuming we will try and play a bit more football, the loss of Devera/Flint may mean we have CB's who play the ball better. Hope they can still defend well!!

[thepeoplesgame]

They must have hated those 2½ season under Hoddle.

But there's a difference between keeping possession amongst an entirely two-footed midfield while waiting for one of two prolific strikers, or one of two of the divisions best overlapping fullbacks, to make the move into space knowing that whoever has the ball at that moment will be able to deliver the killer pass that opens the opposition up, and just stroking the ball aimlessly from side to side because you have neither the wit nor the ambition to do anything else, and no one ahead of you has made themselves available anyway.

On the subject of last season's team, I am genuinely surprised that people hold the view that switching from 442 was not a mistake. I don't think anyone is arguing against 433/451 as a system in and of itself (to haul out the old Jonathan Wilson line, "systems are neutral") – it may very well work for us this season with a new squad – but its introduction last season to a squad of Third Division (and so by nature less adaptable) players assembled to play 442, drilled in it for 18 months and succeeding with it more often than not throughout that time was the wrong move. In my opinion.