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KeelansGlove

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Ok so we all know its 4-5-1 or nothing and all our wide players are wingers and not forwards so it would be ridiculous to pretend we ever play 4-3-3 but are there alternatives or is CH right this is the only way ?

I am more than happy to agree that this should be our preferred system in most games certainly all away games and big teams at home, I am even happy to concede that starting with this formation on Saturday was the correct thing to do, but what do we do when it isn''t working ?

I would also like to point out I think we have a great squad capable of so much better.

My first point doesn''t actually look to change the formation just work on the interplay between our midfield and strikers, there is clearly a problem here Pilkington , Howson and Redmond more than happy to launch a shot from way out but sometimes it isn''t the right thing to do.

The final third is where all the good work the Norwich team do breaks down and counts for nothing (and this does not seem to be improving)

I am sure reviewing the games so far this season could improve this from both sides , strikers taking up better positions and midfielders looking to play them in or run further with the ball more often rather than hit and hope every time.

There is also no reason in the absence of a true number 10 that Elmander Hooper or RVW could lay as the AM at least for the final 20 minutes of a game we feel we can win.

We could also play a second striker on the flank for the last 20 minutes of a game.

4-4-2

We have any great options this season in midfield and a pairing of Fer/Tettey or Fer/Howson should be able to protect our back four unless we play a team with 4 creative central midfielders (please note CH Arsenal !) We also have Whittaker and Olsson in the squad versatile defenders who could certainly do a job further up the field if we wanted to try an alternative formation.

3-5-2

More and more teams are playing this formation and whilst the last time we tried it was a disaster it doesn''t mean it couldn''t work in certain circumstances or perhaps be worth a try for part of a game.

Martin - Bassong - Bennett

Redmond - Tetttey - Fer - Howson - Olsson

RVW - Hooper

4-1-2-1-2

Our beloved diamond system so effective under Lambert, ok so it may be too attacking in most games but as I said before we have some really good adaptable players, we may even find a way to get Wes back in the team. Any number of players could play in the hole behind the strikers and with 2 up front it wouldn''''t be such an issue to play a player like Wes who doesn''t actually shoot enough. I think Redmond or Snoddgrass behind the strikers could work well and Fer at the base of the diamond could break everything up and show off the full range of his passing.

My general point is that if we were more adaptable we would win more games and even when something didn''t work you couldn''t blame the manager for trying, we are just so predictable its painful.

People say nobody plays 2 strikers in the prem heres a little list of players from this weekend.

Palace Chamakh Gayle

Sunderland Fletcher Altidore

Villa Agbonlahore Benteke

Man U Rooney RVP

Stoke Walters Ireland Crouch

Liverpool Suarez Sturrage

WBA Anelka Anichebe

Southampton Lambert Rodriguez

Fulham Bent Berbatov

West Ham Vaz Te Morrison

I understand that these player were utilised in a number of formations but these are strikers being relied upon to score goals.

We should go into all games with a plan as to what to do if plan A isn''t working we just don''t seem to have a clue.

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Analyzing the ar$e out of a game is what we pay the manager and coaches for. Personally I just go to see us win.Simplistic you may think but I was always taught that football is a simple game and over analysis is killing it.

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I agree to some extent, the problem is when you have the best squad your club has every had and yet you are still not able to win games it really cannot be considered a matter of bad luck

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Most of the teams you suggested didn''t actually start or play 4-4-2.
Palace: Started playing 4-2-3-1, only changing to a 4-4-2 for final 15 minutes. 
Villa: Played their usual 4-3-3 with Abonglahor and Weimann playing on the wings.
Stoke: Ireland''s an attacking midfielder, not a striker for a start. Plus, Walters was utilized on the right wing in a 4-2-3-1 formation.
Liverpool: Play 3 at the back, with two wing backs and 3 central midfielders. This allows them to play two strikers.
WBA: Anichibe started out wide in a 4-2-3-1 formation
Southampton: Rodirguez started out wide in a 4-2-3-1 formation
West Ham: Started with no recognized striker. Vas Te plays out wide and Morrison is an attacking midfielder. There shape was an incredibly defensive 4-6-0
So, it''s actually really uncommon for a team to start two strikers in the premier league. Of the three you mentioned who you could argue played 4-4-2 (although United and Fulham both play 4-4-1-1) only Sunderland won convincingly. So out of 20 possible teams three, at best, played a 4-4-2. Dosn''t do the 4-4-2 argument any favours when 85% of managers play a 5 man midfield. But I guess 85% of managers are wrong.

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[quote user="Dandy Mountfarto"]He''s not suggesting that we neccessarily play 4-4-2 though. He''s suggesting that we use more than 1 striker, they aren''t the same thing.[/quote]
There are two potential ways to play two strikers in common formations:
One is to play a back three. Only one team in the premier league does this regularly (Liverpool). Whilst I''m not adverse to playing a back three, it seems rather pointless. The biggest advantage of a back three is when it comes up agianst two strikers (which, as I''ve already mentioned, is becoming increasingly rare in the premier league) as it allows you to man mark the two strikers and have a defender free to cover. If you''re not playing against two strikers, then you have too many central defenders (3 guys covering 1 man), this is ok, as long as you have defenders capable of stepping into the midfield, but can any of our defenders actually do that?
The only other way to play two strikers in a normal formation is to play a 4 man central midfield. This 4 man midfield doesn''t necessarily have to be flat, it can be a diamond, feature one midfielder sitting deeper than the other etc. But most also have their own issues. A flat midfield four is often outmanned when coming up against the increasingly common 5 man midfield (3 central midfielders vs 2), a diamond has issues with width, a 4-3-1-2 is relatively easy to defend, mark the playmaker and they lack creativity. 
You might suggest playing an unbalanced formation, such as a lopsided 4-3-3 featuring two strikers and one winger, but that can still have issues, particularly when it comes to defensive shape.
I can''t see any real solutions here. Each formation has it''s own strength and weaknesses, but the weaknesses that can be created by a switch to a two striker system at the moment far outweigh the potential benefits (which I would still dispute). I still think the current 4-1-4-1/4-1-2-3 formation gets the best out of the players available, what we need to do is find ways to improve play within this formation.

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If we must be pedantic, the OP is talking about using more than one player recognised as a striker/forward rather than a midfielder, and that the ''front X'' of the majority of other teams in the league contain players considerably more attacking than ours. Look at how Welbeck is used for England, he''s clearly a striker and he''s used in a wide position, but comes inside to support the striker much more than the player on the opposite flank, there''s no reason why we couldn''t do a similar thing, in fact Pilkington was essentially doing that for much of the Cardiff match.I disagree that such a 4-3-3 with 2 (or even 3) recognised forward players is an untenable system, a large number of teams use it. I''m perfectly happy with our current system, but there''s no reason why we have to insist that we can only have one striker on the pitch at any given moment.

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[quote user="ricardo"]Analyzing the ar$e out of a game is what we pay the manager and coaches for. Personally I just go to see us win.Simplistic you may think but I was always taught that football is a simple game and over analysis is killing it.[/quote]

And over coaching....

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I wonder how we''d get on with a genuine 4-3-3?  Use either Becchio or Elmander as the target man, RvW and Hooper sniffing around beside him. Drop both wingers and keep the midfield three. Encourage width from the full-backs with Tettey programmed to drop back and cover when the fullback pushes on. Olsson could do this job very well. Every reason to believe Russ, Whittaker or Elliot Bennet could do a similar job on the right. Not suggesting its a viable option, but on paper it would seem to solve a number of problems

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From looking at the heat maps and positions players were receiving the ball Norwich morphed into a 3-4-2-1; the Christmas tree.

 

Tettey moved back alongside Turner and Bassong, with Fer and Howson in the central midfield positions. Martin and Olsson were level with the central midfield (Martin had more touches in Cardiff half than Norwich''s). Snodgrass and Pilkington moved inside (to allow the full backs to go beyond them), Pilkington basically moved into the No 10 role he was so central.

 

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[quote user="Dandy Mountfarto"]If we must be pedantic, the OP is talking about using more than one player recognised as a striker/forward rather than a midfielder, and that the ''front X'' of the majority of other teams in the league contain players considerably more attacking than ours. Look at how Welbeck is used for England, he''s clearly a striker and he''s used in a wide position, but comes inside to support the striker much more than the player on the opposite flank, there''s no reason why we couldn''t do a similar thing, in fact Pilkington was essentially doing that for much of the Cardiff match.I disagree that such a 4-3-3 with 2 (or even 3) recognised forward players is an untenable system, a large number of teams use it. I''m perfectly happy with our current system, but there''s no reason why we have to insist that we can only have one striker on the pitch at any given moment.[/quote]
But players like Welbeck are different. They have the attributes to both play a wider role and up front as a striker. Which of our current strikers have the attributes to do that? Hooper and RVW both like to play centrally, running onto passes and linking up the play, whilst Elmander and Becchio are target-men. Which one of them can possibly play out wide? We have Redmond, Snodgrass and Pilkington to play in those positions, I think we should try and use them before moving our strikers into roles that clearly don''t suit them.

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Many thanks for understanding what I was on about Dandy strikers have the best skills for putting the ball in the net regardless of where they are played in a formation.

"Players like Welbeck are different" , Hogwash don''t forget one of our current coaching staff thought Grant Holt was a winger.

Playing Hooper or RVW wider is always an option, as you no doubt remember under previous management we very rarely if ever had 2 wingers on the pitch (in the days when we didn''t have wingers)

Getting early crosses to one central and one wide striker could certainly be effective.

I am not saying any of this is the answer I just find it incredibly frustrating that we have a manager who just rotates players within a rigid system and blames luck when it doesn''t work. Failure to win would be far more acceptable if I felt we had tried everything.

This would also make it more difficult for opponents to set up against us. Currently there is never a shock when the team sheet arrives.

Keep believing that our midfielders are the answer to our goalscoring problems and I will see you in the championship.

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Also if you consider players like Welbeck such a different breed , how is it you are so happy to contemplate that we should rely on goals from Pilkington, Redmond , Snodgrass or Howson to keep us up despite the fact they are neither strikers or prolific.

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But what we have yet to see is proof that Hughton won''t play both Hooper and RVW in the same team. I could point out that he''s been unlucky not to have that option through injury but let''s forget the good or bad luck aspects and just say he hasn''t had this option because of injury. I asked Hughton about playing them both together and he said there''d only be a few occasions where he could see himself playing 2 #9s together up top. He did talk about playing Hooper off RVW. He said he felt RVW would be more suited to being the #9 because of his ability to make forward runs and his movement in the box. He also talked about the new strikers giving him greater options from the bench if only one starts. He envisaged different strategies for different games.

 

I was expecting Hooper and RVW to start on Saturday but I believe there were still fitness issues. I shall be watching with interest to see what happens when Hughton has all his strikers fit at the same time. You can hear what he had to say here.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocPY4-tUaSI

 

''ass how oi tawk [H]

 

 

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If Hughton had brought Elmander and RVW on together after 70-75 minutes and we had still not managed to score (if he considered Hooper to be knackered, which I didn''t) then I would have had no problems with Saturday.

Or my choice would have been to bring on another striker on 70 minutes in place of a midfielder (central or wide) and then perhaps swap Hooper out on 80 minutes if he was flagging ( I thought he played really well)

Im certainly more interested in what CH does than what he says and what he does is very little.

As I said earlier in the thread I understand the formation and wouldn''t want to change it to start any game BUT we must be more flexible during games otherwise we will be relegated.

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need to stop worrying about what every other team is doing and concentrate on our strengths

one up front is not one of those, and wolfie and hooper will soon get bored with it as well (even holty the carthorse hated it and he was probably more suited to playing that role than either of them), we could play anyone up there as long as they ran around and made a nuisance of themselves and it would still have the same effect = no goalsi still think 442 is the best option for players weve got, it just needs players to be disciplineda 4132 with the strikers playing wider might work as long as the midfield get in the box, again though this doesnt really make use of redmonds pace out wide which is probably our biggest asset/threat at the minute

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If he doesn''t play Hooper and RVW together against the mighty newly promoted Cardiff i think its safe to assume they wont be playing together at all. We play 4-5-1 thats it no plan b no subs before 80 mins! its just the Hughton way. Can''t remember a game where CH has made a positive impact on a game through a substitution

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[quote user="Hannibal II"]If he doesn''t play Hooper and RVW together against the mighty newly promoted Cardiff i think its safe to assume they wont be playing together at all. We play 4-5-1 thats it no plan b no subs before 80 mins! its just the Hughton way. Can''t remember a game where CH has made a positive impact on a game through a substitution[/quote]

 

RvW was/is carrying an injury so was never going to start that game.

 

Norwich haven''t played a 4-5-1 in the last 4 games - it''s not hard to work that out - just look at where the players are standing on the pitch.

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That''s the point I made Beth. I don''t think Hughton has had the opportunity to start them togather so in that respect what he says is surely the only pointer we have.

 

I think Glove is more interested in what he''d do than what Hughton does. In that respect I''d have done different too. I thought that we needed Redmond sooner and Hooper for longer. I would have swapped Pilks for Redmond 10 mins into the second half. Would have waited another 15 mins before making another change. If Redmond had sparked a goal we would have had the personnel/formation on the field to comfortably see it out or to take advantage if Cardiff went for an equaliser. This is not being wise after the event, it''s what I said at the time. But I see it as putting forward my opinion not necessarily a criticism of Hughton who isn''t here to give his reasoning.

 

  

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What formation would you call it then when you look at the last 4 staring XI? 4 defenders 3 centre mids 2 wide players one attacker.....

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[quote user="KeelansGlove"]Players like Welbeck are different" , Hogwash don''t forget one of our current coaching staff thought Grant Holt was a winger.

Playing Hooper or RVW wider is always an option, as you no doubt remember under previous management we very rarely if ever had 2 wingers on the pitch (in the days when we didn''t have wingers)

Getting early crosses to one central and one wide striker could certainly be effective.
  .[/quote]
If you honestly think playing either RVW or Hooper wide will be an effective stratergy, then you clearly don''t understand football. None of their attributes make any sense for a wide player. Neither are slow, but they are not particularly pacy, they''re not fantastic dribblers and I don''t think they are particularly strong crossers either. Unless you want to play them as inverted wide players, but even then I would argue that they''re attributes don''t make sense as a wider forward. Welbeck, Rodriguez etc. these strikers you mention have attributes that neither Hooper or RVW have, mainly their pace, how can Hooper or RVW hope to perform to a similar level when they are fundamentally lacking in the attributes that would allow them to play wide?
Also your point about the previous management makes no sense. Under Lambert, we usually played a diamond midfield. We didn''t play wingers at all. The two strikers allowed our strikers to move wider as we would still have one central striker. I honestly can''t ever remember Lambert playing a forward in a wide role. Holt often moved out wide during games, but was encouraged to because of the system we played. 
So,in conclusion, your point is that we should play one of our forwards out wide, even though it doesn''t suit their game, because the previous management team didn''t do that? WTF.

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[quote user="Hannibal II"]What formation would you call it then when you look at the last 4 staring XI? 4 defenders 3 centre mids 2 wide players one attacker.....[/quote]

 

Looking at starting XIs can be deceptive. Personally I''d call it a 4-3-3 as Snodgrass and Pilkington in every game since Stoke have ended up playing just about level with the striker. As I said earlier on this thread Norwich''s shape against Cardiff was a 3-4-2-1 as the players moved up the field looking for the win. In the first half the formation went a bit asymetrical as Pilkington difted into a central position as pretty much all the attacking came through Snodgrass on the right wing - Olsson became a left winger - the second half was a bit more balanced when Cardiff added an extra defensive midfielder to limit the amount of space behind the striker, so Pilkington pushed out a little wider, but Martin and Olsson provided the real width.

 

Formations are not set in stone and adapt to the situation on the pitch - if Norwich were under pressure and looking to hold onto a lead I expect it would have become more of a 4-5-1 as everyone looked to block available space.

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I think in your original point your confusing the touches on a pitch map with the fluidity of a football game. A Left winger can touch the ball in the centre of the pitch and still be the furthest left if the play has been on the right wing prior. Your pitch map can only be taken in context of where the other players in the team are on the pitch around them. A team if coached correctly will move together on the field as one unit rather than individual players. I know your a pretty astute individual Beth, i do get what you say its just you should take that data on its on.

For example a prozone vest can tell you the distance a player has covered but not the influence a player has had on a game. some of the greatest players cover the least distance because they read the game so well.

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on one hand you are pedantic as to what attributes our players do or don''t have (or opponents players) and on the other you clearly believe all our midfielders are strikers in disguise.

But hey I clearly don''t understand football

I have never proposed that Ricky should slinging crosses into the box for Hooper and as I said I have not said we should play any variation of this for 90 minutes but what you alternative ?

Continuing to play a system where none of our midfielders seem to know who or where the striker is cant cross a ball and insist on hitting and hoping from 30+ yards ?

Good luck with that.

Anything positive to suggest rather than prayers considering you are such an expert ?

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[quote user="KeelansGlove"]on one hand you are pedantic as to what attributes our players do or don''t have (or opponents players) and on the other you clearly believe all our midfielders are strikers in disguise.

But hey I clearly don''t understand football

I have never proposed that Ricky should slinging crosses into the box for Hooper and as I said I have not said we should play any variation of this for 90 minutes but what you alternative ?

Continuing to play a system where none of our midfielders seem to know who or where the striker is cant cross a ball and insist on hitting and hoping from 30+ yards ?

Good luck with that.

Anything positive to suggest rather than prayers considering you are such an expert ?[/quote]
So what are you suggesting? If you want us to play 4-4-2, just say we should play 4-4-2. I just don''t think it''s pedantic to suggest that the abilities of our current strikers are different to a striker like Welbeck, and these differences are what allows him to play as a wider forward when compared to our current strike force. 
As to your assertion that we play ''hit and hope'' football, I would argue that this hasn''t been the case recently and it was especially not true on Saturday. According to whoscored.com, we played 54 long passes against Cardiff (a long pass being a pass 25 yards+), this puts us in line with both Arsenal and Manchester City, hardly known for their direct, inaccurate passing. Our passing accuracy was also 82%, which is about equal to teams like Spurs, Everton etc. who are also known for their short, accurate, passing. Hardly ''hit and hope''. I''m also not convinced that our crossing was particularly poor. Of the 41 crosses we attempted, 20 were accurate (they found a Norwich player). When you consider how inaccurate crossing is, most teams only have about a 35% success rate, it becomes clear that our crossing was actually well above average. I would actually argue that there is plenty to be pleased about with the attacking performance against Cardiff, the only issue was that we didn''t score (a big issue mind you). If we had scored, all we would focus on would be the incredible performance that Norwich had put in, the fact that Norwich didn''t score has somehow made some posters into revisionists, who argue that the entire performance was incompetent based on the sole fact that we didn''t score, when this is clearly not the case! I think the only thing Hughton can do at this point is encourage the players to perform in a similar way and hope that the goals start to go in.

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When I say hit and hope I am talking about long range shots that have a much lower percentage chance of resulting in a goal not lumping it up field into the channels.

I would not and do not fault anything of our play outside the final third, defence remains solid indeed now with the improved midfield we look more comfortable against the better teams and less likely to be under constant pressure.

I would be really interested to know who was on the receiving end of these 20 crosses (and if this was including crossfield passes or purely crosses into the box) I certainly can''t recall anything like this amount

What continues to be my biggest frustration with this team is the continued inability to get a striker into a game. Howson and Fer should be feeding balls through to whoever is upfront likewise Pilkington, Snodgrass and Redmond should be putting dangerous balls into the box and getting to the bye line and cutting the ball back.

THIS HAS BEEN THE CASE SINCE THE FIRST GAME OF LAST SEASON AND STILL SHOWS NO SIGN OF IMPROVEMENT.

I think Hooper had the luxury of one early cross on Saturday if we were able to service one striker rather than going for the top corner from 30 yards every time we got a tiny sight of goal we might be able to beat teams like Cardiff.

As you have the stats can you tell me how many of our shots were from inside the area On / Off Target ?

I really think Hughton has a problem setting a team up to win a game, no problem setting a team up not to lose one.

If we take it that despite playing well were are unlikely to get too much against the top teams due to the sheer riches of talent they have and acknowledge how tough it is to try to breakdown resilient teams like Hull and Cardiff, where exactly are we going to pick up points ?

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We3ll I''m still interested to see if Hughton gets Hooper and RVW in the same side. It''s no good saying he hasn''t done it because he hasn''t had the opportunity to do it. I would have made the single change Redmond/Pilks earlier, KG would have gone with Elmander/Pilks and played 2 up top. And Hughton did what he did. That''s three completely different changes. Who''s right? I don''t have a clue!

 

As for the game. I must have been somewhere else. Just how many of the efforts on goal were from distance and how many from inside the box? How many times did Snodgrass get to the bye line? Anyone got these figures? Because my memory isn''t the same as KGs.

 

 

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[quote user="Phillip J Fry"]
If you honestly think playing either RVW or Hooper wide will be an effective stratergy, then you clearly don''t understand football. None of their attributes make any sense for a wide player. Neither are slow, but they are not particularly pacy, they''re not fantastic dribblers and I don''t think they are particularly strong crossers either.[/quote]As opposed to pacy dribbling cross master Danny Welbeck.

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[quote user="KeelansGlove"]As you have the stats can you tell me how many of our shots were from inside the area On / Off Target ? [/quote]
This ones actually pretty easy. Norwich had 31 shots against Cardiff. 13 of these came from outside the area. 5 were on target, 5 off target and 3 blocked. 18 of those shots came from inside the area. 4 were on target (whilst this may sound low, a quick comparison with other sides stats will show it is about average for most sides), 9 were blocked (this includes the Fer shot cleared off the line) and the remainder (5) were off target. Hopes this clears that up for you.
As for your question about the crosses, the website I used defines a cross as a ''attempted/accurate pass from a wide position to a central attacking area''. Your question about who received the crosses is much harder, and would require alot of work to find. If you really want me to, then I will trawl through the stats to find exactly who received the crosses, but I tend to trust the site that I got these statistics from, as they are powered by OPTA, who are usually reasonably accurate.
And to Dandy Mountfarto, I think it''s strange that you question the idea that Danny Welbeck isn''t pacy, he''s probably faster than any member of our team bar Redmond and Olsson. I think you are correct to assert that he is neither particularly skillful or an accurate crosser (although his link up play is quite remarkable in terms of accuracy. A factor alot of people forget is how defensively responsible Welbeck is, which is far more important in a wider role than upfront. This defensive responsibility is something that I feel our strikers lack, and would make us vulnerable if they were to play wider. Both Hooper and RVW are strikers, and are at their best when playing in a central attacking role. Playing them out wide would just make them more ineffective than they (apparently) already are, IMO. 

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Tbh I''m fine with the system and line up we''ve been moving towards in the last few league games. However I think that on the rare occasions where we play teams that are worse than us, or we are desperate for a goal, then playing Hooper in a similar role to Welbeck/where Pilkington played against Cardiff is a better option that what we currently do, which is either disastrously switch to 4-4-2, or make ineffectual like for like changes.Mostly I posted because I''m sick of hearing people go off on one about 4-4-2 and tactical dinosaurs and the like whenever anyone mentions playing more than one striker. Talk of 1 striker systems and 5 man midfields is a complete red herring, most teams play with at least 3 players in and around the central midfield area, and generally speaking, you have to match that or be overrun in midfield. Beyond that, there is a lot of scope for different systems and line ups, as pointed out by KeelansGlove.

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