Tyrone Shoelaces

Last time we played 4-2-4 was in the mid 1960's , we were awesome, a team chock full of goals. Ask anybody who saw that team.

There in lies the problem. The dreaded 3-5-2 looms again. If that's not the case I don't see how we're going to get the best out of Armstrong.

He's not a winger Jim, right or left. He's better running after the ball than with it. Normally his first natural movement is away from the ball not towards it. He's a striker pure and simple.

Well it's our 1-4-2-3-1system on display.

Yeah but we'd have still been hanging on at 3-1.

Well it shows the manager is being backed, that's good. Potentially a very good signing. What concerns me is how we fit him into the team. If he's just going to replace Samuel out on the right I don't really see the point, he's not a winger. If we plan to play him up front along side Graham , that's very brave on our part. No many teams play that way today. You wouldn't expect him to play up front on his own, Craig Bellamy he isn't.

We find ourselves hanging on too often in my book.

You still need to be able to take advantage of the added time. Lots of times they did.

I think at this level you need a bit more creativity if you're hoping to do well. I don't think you can afford two water carriers when we still consistently concede goals. If we were keeping clean sheets regularly I could see the rationale of two defensive midfield players, but we aren't.

If you keep the ball in the opponents half " flukes " tend not to be fatal. When you have 18 players in your own penalty area anything can happen.

Nail hit right on the head. Teams that concede regular in the last minutes of the game are lacking in either mental fitness or physical fitness, or both. Fergies teams scored regularly very late on because they had the physical fitness to play for the full 90 minutes and the mental resilience to keep playing football the right way under severe time pressure. They knew that five minutes is a long time in football and chances will come if you play your football and don't just keep lumping it onto the centre halves head from the half way line.

I agree. Nobody is above criticism in my book. The manager gets the pats on the back when things are going well, he gets kicked up the backside when they aren't . That's fair enough for me , any other way is just asking for trouble.

I've not got a problem with that. I'll just keep my eye on the stats for this season.

How many did we concede when that shyster Coyle was in charge that season ? I don't see the point of being economical with the facts. You're not a teacher are you ?

It's a bit of a pointless discussion because we won't be signing Allen any time soon. Having said that he'd be perfect to replace either of Smallwood or Evans. We don't want him playing too far forward, we want him getting the ball forward from the back third of the pitch to the front third. Feeding Dack and Graham. What those two ( Smallwood and Evans ) rarely do.

Tugay only got 13 goals for us in 270 appearances but I'd call him a playmaker. Allen's a class act at this level.

I didn't see the game but I agree with you about Joe Allen, just what we're short of.

In that case why don't you start a thread regarding goals in the first ten minutes ?

At the end of the season we'll see. At the moment not being able to play out a game has cost us 2 points already. I hope we don't need them come next May.

I'm not on about last season. The opposition last season was very poor by and large, it took most of them all their time to score at any point in the game. It's the seasons before that when we were playing at this level and conceding late goals regularly that worries me.

People who actually went yesterday are pointing out that the Evans and Smallwood centre midfield pairing wasn't too impressive. I've come to the conclusion that at this level you need more from midfield than they've got to offer. The two of them aren't going to contribute much going forward and if Dack has an off day we're struggling to create much. I know it's early days yet but we seem to have plenty of water carriers in midfield but no game changers. If this Scots lad is a game changer we should be looking at him. With a bit of luck we can loan some of our surplus water carriers out. Having said that there doesn't appear to be a queue forming to take them off our hands.

I'm not a fan either and I hope we can do better but if he does come in he's an improvement on Nuttall and probably on Samuel. I know I'm not saying much there.

You've got to draw the line somewhere. I think these days when you regularly get 5 minutes time added on that 85 minutes is about right.

Well you can never have too many hard lads. Ask Mark Hughes.

Several nails hit well and truly on the head.