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Diane

Two Upfront Anyone?

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Just wondering is it time to start two upfront, especially at home rather than leave Jerome on his own. Not a moan about Jerome because he works his socks off, holds up the ball well and has got 6 from 13 games but he needs help.

Appreciate we''ve only got Oliveira who people didn''t rate yesterday, though he hasn''t had much game time or Lafferty who Alex doesn''t rate but surely we can get a striker in Jan, someone who would compliment Jerome.

Just seems to me its all too negative nowadays and teams are frightened to lose hence most play one upfront

What do you think?

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Two up front means it''s more than likely you''d have to bench or play out of position our still most creative player, Wes Hoolahan. With two wide players, attacking full backs and a no 10 all working effectively, one up front is just as attacking as two strikers. I know we have some off form, but we have some very talented attacking players that can chip in with goals and help to support Jerome.

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I think two upfront doesn''t really make you more attacking. I also think with the make up of this squad it doesn''t really make sense. We only have two real strikers who are both pretty similar players (big, not too quick, target man types) and we have a huge selection of talented attacking midfielders. Two up top means us dropping one of those midfielders.

The only way I could see it working would be to maybe put Josh Murphy upfront with Jerome/Nelson for the classic big man/little man combo. Only when we''re chasing a game though.

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It certainly didn''t make us more attacking yesterday although Oliviera did play slightly behing Jerome. In fact it gave us less options because it meant Wes was moved. I said yesterday I would have preferred Naismith for Jacob leaving Wes where he was. I guess two up front works with a diamond but I don''t think the diamond suits our current attacking players.

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We have scored 26 goals in the league so far this season; only Newcastle have scored more. Scoring is not the problem, conceding is. Is there any reason to think that reverting to 4:4:2 would improve us from a defensive point of view?

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[quote user="westcoastcanary"]We have scored 26 goals in the league so far this season; only Newcastle have scored more. Scoring is not the problem, conceding is. Is there any reason to think that reverting to 4:4:2 would improve us from a defensive point of view?[/quote]
Not with these players Westy.

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To play two up front we need two strikers on the books capable of scoring goals in this division and i question whether we have them on the books.

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The formation is a secondary issue, it''s the attitude of some of the players that needs the be addressed, if it can be!

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[quote user="Crabbycanary3"]Til, leave this, you''re needed on the ''Pass'' thread[/quote]I''m on it Crabby. [;)]

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[quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="westcoastcanary"]We have scored 26 goals in the league so far this season; only Newcastle have scored more. Scoring is not the problem, conceding is. Is there any reason to think that reverting to 4:4:2 would improve us from a defensive point of view?[/quote]
Not with these players Westy.
[/quote]I agree nutty, though it was a rhetorical question. IMO it would actually exacerbate the problem.

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[quote user="westcoastcanary"]We have scored 26 goals in the league so far this season; only Newcastle have scored more. Scoring is not the problem, conceding is. Is there any reason to think that reverting to 4:4:2 would improve us from a defensive point of view?[/quote]

I agree it wouldn''t improve our defensive problems and that 26 goals isn''t to be scoffed at, just think Jerome looks so isolated at times so thought I''d see what people thought.

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[quote user="Diane"][quote user="westcoastcanary"]We have scored 26 goals in the league so far this season; only Newcastle have scored more. Scoring is not the problem, conceding is. Is there any reason to think that reverting to 4:4:2 would improve us from a defensive point of view?[/quote]

I agree it wouldn''t improve our defensive problems and that 26 goals isn''t to be scoffed at, just think Jerome looks so isolated at times so thought I''d see what people thought.[/quote]The reason Jerome looks so isolated is because of the way we are set up for games.

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The way we set up has meant we''ve scored 26 goals. Cam has been a huge part of that. I reckon he''s the fittest player at the club. Only Klose has played more minutes. Cam is producing even if it''s three games in a week. He''s scored six and the fact that most of our goals are scored from open play has a lot to do with him keeping defenders busy.

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In theory I guess the two up front would enable us to relieve pressure with and out ball and encourage the opponent to sit deeper with two players to occupy them.

Unfortunately I am not sure we have the personnel to make it work; Sat showed the practical limitations of 2 up top with the players we have; Oliveira is an improvement on Kyle but still needs to improve. Josh M could be an option but again may be a little soon. All are well ahead of Carlton.

However as others have pointed out the issue isn''t scoring its defending, too many and simply of the same nature - allowing and then failing to deal with crosses.

The consequence of having pinto and olsson thrill us is the space left behind, that simply allows too many crosses in. We need greater discipline from the def midfielders to sit deep and fill the spaces left behind and from the full backs themselves to ensure we dont permanently have commit both forward at the same time, especially when we are already ahead in the game. It is that lack of game awareness and discipline that frustrates me (and it seems the manager)

And then there is how we deal with crosses; our centre backs win 2 headers in 3; (Bassong 75% the high and Bennett the lowest at 62%) so we are aerially strong (although I would be interested in the in the pen area performance). Klose contests at least 40% more headers per game than any partner and wins more than two of them contest.

This suggests that we are conceding from crosses from a combination of a lack of concentration, poor positioning, poor organisation and a lack of leadership.

We have three internationals to pick from and strong leaders and characters; its easy to see why the manager gets frustrated at their inability to do their jobs for a full 90 mins.

From an attacking sense I would want to see the support attackers (jacob, brady, pritchard on Sat) get themselves ahead of Jerome for a change, they have the pace to do so.

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Would like to see Jacob up with Jerome or Oliveira with someone like Canos or Josh providing the width.

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