LinkNR9 0 Posted January 28, 2009 It is interesting to note that many people are saying that Bryan Gunn should have reacted to Southampton''s change of formation at half time (from 4-5-1 to 4-4-2, which is what we were playing). Just out of interest, what do people think Gunn could have done to deal with this? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Beauseant 0 Posted January 28, 2009 [quote user="LinkNR9"]It is interesting to note that many people are saying that Bryan Gunn should have reacted to Southampton''s change of formation at half time (from 4-5-1 to 4-4-2, which is what we were playing). Just out of interest, what do people think Gunn could have done to deal with this? [/quote] 4-5-1 floods the midfield and makes it hard to create space. Its usually defensive (although not always) and makes it easier to press the ball in central areas. It worked pretty well for the first half hour in this respect. When they went to 4-4-2 it shouldn''t have been a problem, but became one because we didn''t stretch them enough and made it too easy for their fullbacks to push on. The problem isn''t the formations per se (ie 4-4-2 v 4-5-1 can result in dominance for either side ), but rather how well they are executed. In my view the problem stemmed from the fact that our back four didn''t get tight enough and allowed the Southampton front two too many opportunities to drop off, pick the ball up and run at us, given their superior pace, while we gave the ball away too easily when in possession and with players committed forward, eg Russell in the lead up to the second goal. The system should have worked but didn''t because of player error, which is a difficult one for the manager to deal with. His big error, in my view was not making changes earlier. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
