El_Nombre wrote:Players can play in more than one position. When you play a player completely out of touch with where they normally do, that is square pegs in round holes. I think it's unfair to say that Roberts playing left wing is a square peg in a round hole. And if the problem is loanees going in January then whats the point of playing any of them? Whats the point in playing Donnellan? We are only going to be stuck with Kory Roberts in January. Aren't we right back to square one where all of the loanees are concerned anyway if you look at it like that?
Loanees can be signed on for longer or if needs be replaced. OR change the formation to suit then. That doesn't mean we play the wrong team now because the loanees might go.
We weren't talking Kory Roberts though (and "
stuck with" is very harsh on a young lad who has never disgraced himself on the field, and looked very good on 2-3 occasions out of- what?- 5?) . I was specifically referencing Kieron Morris. Your original question was "
why are we persisting with 352?" I think we've established that in order to play 442, we'd have to either leave out (at least) one of our consensus-best attacking options to accommodate a player who hasn't put in a performance anywhere near his best since March, or play up to three players out of eleven... let's call it, for the sake of argument... out of their most natural or favoured position, just for the sake of keeping that one bloke out of the team.
All of our points this season have come playing 352. We lined up 442 at Gigg Lane, barely registered a meaningful attack all game, and probably would've lost 3-0 in the process on another day, primarily because 352 suits Oztumer, Leahy, Devlin, and the Chambers/Edwards combination a lot better than 442 does. It's a very risky game, compromising exactly half of our outfield, just to either accommodate Morris, or play a bloke out of position to avoid doing accommodating him. In response to your original point,
this is why we're playing 352, not because it's "
fashionable", as you put it.
Even back to the days of Grigg or Bowerman as lone frontman, there have been hoards clamouring for 442 every time we lose a couple on the spin, and it always seems to neglect the facts that at least one key player (Westcarr, Sawyers, Oztumer) isn't it a natural fit in such a system, and we cannot start with 12 men.