4-3-3 the right way forward?

[Dion-In-Disguise 0]

Hi, this is my first post on the pinkun.

IMO it is evident that the current crop of players arent quite up to scratch and unless the board make money available to the new manager then we could be playing our football in league 1 next season. Pretty much every team who has come to Carrow Road this season has passed us off the park, especially in the final third whereas we can only seem to keep the ball in our own half. So to stop teams finding holes within our team, why dont we play 4-3-3? This would give us a more solid base in the centre of the park and would enable hucks and croft to play more attacking roles where they play their best stuff and can cause havoc amongst the oposition full backs. 

I also believe that we need to bring in some big, athletic midfielders in the francis/etuhu mould. (Even though rusty is in that mould he doesnt have the quality of these two).I would also give Brellier another go in the holding role as i think he has the potential to be the next Gary Holt but Spillane should also be given a go.

My team at the moment would be:

                                                                        Marshall

Semmy                    Dion                                                                           Murray                    Drury

                                                                        Brellier

                                                Rusty                                       Spillane                   

Croft                                                                                                                        Huckerby

                                                                      Strihavka

 

 

I think that with Dion and Murray at the heart of the back four we have two leaders and two reliable players. The 3 centre mids arent the best players in the world but with an extra body in there, teams should find us more difficult to break down. When we played this system at the beginning of last season we were playing brilliantly at the start but with Earnie holding the line up front it gave us a huge disadvantage when we put balls in the box and it didnt allow us to play the longer ball when sometimes we needed to. So in Dave we have a stiker who is fast, tall, will battle and can hold the ball to allow the midfielders the time to join the attacks.

I''m sure some people will say it''s too defensive but on the counter attack we should be very dangerous and hucks and croft will have much more freedom to attack. Rusty also scored quite a few at Stoke in a three man midfield so hopefully he can do the same here.

I''m interested in what others think!

[Buncey 1]

Hello, welcome to the forums.First, not to take away and rubbish your ideas but I just can''t see that formation working. After all, similar formations have been tried by us, sheffield wednesday comes to mind.Second. Our problem at the moment is goals. Now I really cannot see that midfield scoring or even creating goals and for me that is the problem. We struggled much of last year with hughes and robinson being planks in the middle in a smiliar formation and for me these formation just don''t work for Norwich. It encourages the midfield to be more lazy and rely upon our wings to do all the work. Hux and croft are easily identifiable as our major threat and will be man marked very tight.Third. I don''t disagree with Dion being at the back, he is my favourite player but murray alongside him? I''d prefer shackell. Unfortuneatly I cannot see Dion playing much part in any consistent back four and hurts me to say it but for that I can''t see him warranting a first team place. What we need now is a consistent first team, which I think has been part of the problem with players not knowing who''s coming or going. I am who is going to play upfront tommorow, that''s anyones guess, I bet even Duffy don''t know.Well I hope that wern''t too negative but err welcome anyways.

[Northern Canary 0]

It depends, often any 4-3-3 played by Norwich has been much more of a 4-5-1 resulting in the middle striker being left alone with no support. If 3 forwards were actually used with an attacking mentality and the midfield got stuck in well then it could be very effective indeed. I don''t think we have good enough players to full it off, even though it is one of the better formations imo, but we don''t have the players for most formations anyway so worth a try i suppose.

[Dion-In-Disguise 0]

First, not to take away and rubbish your ideas but I just can''t see that formation working. After all, similar formations have been tried by us, sheffield wednesday comes to mind.

Against Sheffield Wednesday we played a 4-3-2-1 formation with the 2 behind the striker(brown and huckerby)playing narrow, directly behind Cureton so the attacking 4-3-3 isnt really similar because we would have much more width. As for Cureton being the target man in that game and brown playing off him...[:$] So with Dave up there we would have a half decent target man.

[Buncey 1]

If we were to play "your" formation then it has to be assumed huckerby does what he does best and drift out wide and at this point what difference does it make if he actually stands on his marker or stands off him a bit? Now arguably in the sheffield wednesday game we went out with a 4-3-2-1 formation. However as the game drifted on and we got pushed back more and more hux and brown ended up on the wings perhaps where they shouldn''t be and left not only our strikers isolated but also left our full back isolated (and thus the goal he scored). The problem is that I can''t see the players being able to adapt to this, or a similar formation let alone being good enough. The problem is out widre hucks is never going to get back enough to cover and our left is our weakest area defensively. If we had truely good wingers and a players in mdifield who could attack and get in the box more, it''d work, however we haven''t and couldn''t see it working.

[Carlos Valderrama 0]

[quote user="Fellas"]Hello, welcome to the forums.

First, not to take away and rubbish your ideas but I just can''t see that formation working. After all, similar formations have been tried by us, sheffield wednesday comes to mind.

Second. Our problem at the moment is goals. Now I really cannot see that midfield scoring or even creating goals and for me that is the problem. We struggled much of last year with hughes and robinson being planks in the middle in a smiliar formation and for me these formation just don''t work for Norwich. It encourages the midfield to be more lazy and rely upon our wings to do all the work. Hux and croft are easily identifiable as our major threat and will be man marked very tight.

Third. I don''t disagree with Dion being at the back, he is my favourite player but murray alongside him? I''d prefer shackell. Unfortuneatly I cannot see Dion playing much part in any consistent back four and hurts me to say it but for that I can''t see him warranting a first team place. What we need now is a consistent first team, which I think has been part of the problem with players not knowing who''s coming or going. I am who is going to play upfront tommorow, that''s anyones guess, I bet even Duffy don''t know.

Well I hope that wern''t too negative but err welcome anyways.
[/quote]

Correct me if I am wrong (i am sure you all will) but didnt we play 4-3-3 for most of our promotion season.  Hucks left, Svensson/Crouch middle, Harper/Mackenzie right.

Get this system right and its a cracker in my book, perfect attacking formation that can quickly change into an effective defensive formation.

However get it wrong and its an absolute minger of a formation.

A good manager could get this right.

[Dion-In-Disguise 0]

Just my opinion Fellas!

So what would you do?

[Mick Dundee 0]

CRiiKKeyy hows about this one then..........3-4-3

--------------------------Marshall--------------------------

----Otsemobor----------Shackell------------Murray------

----Croft----------Smith----------Rusty------Hucks------

------Hartson---------Cureton---------Big Dave------- This is how i think we should go out against Burnley anyway, more attacking, if cureton is still not available whack Martin in there, i want big dave and hartson to push their weight around, leap up like a salmon and come chargin in at the back post like an angry croc!!! Cureton/Martin can pick at the scraps ohhhhhh it gets me excited just thinking about it!!! CRIIIKEEEYYYY