The Five Point Plan: Save Our Season

Simple premise: 5 things you'd do to get us actually earning some points because if we don't soon, it'll be too late.

For me:

1) Play a standard midfield three. No players charging about everywhere or weird #10 roles that make no sense. André, and two of Joao Gomes, Mario Lemina and Tommy Doyle. That's it.

2) This should go without saying but FFS can you try marking properly on set pieces? Hopefully a step forward has been made here with Galaxy Brain Wilson being chucked.

3) Keep better control of the ball. We pretty much never have the kind of spells in possession we used to have under Nuno, whether we're winning or losing. The ball is your friend.

4) Don't be afraid to go direct to Strand Larsen - and when we do, get players around him. This shouldn't be difficult and he's a very good outlet if we don't pretend he's Niall Quinn and hoof it 10 foot in the air.

5) Personnel - no more Doherty, no more Hwang, no more Bellegarde please. We have better players than all of them and they should all be miles down the pecking order. The goalkeeper situation is a mess but we can't do a great deal about that now.

Over to the rest of you.

I'd switch to 3-4-3. It would combine extra protection at CB but still allow us to have a front three, with two DMs in the middle. Take your pick which two out of the three. Doyle would be used off the bench when we need a goal and can be more attacking from that area of the field. Hopefully when Meupiyou is fit again he can be CB cover on the bench.


.................... Johnstone

......... Bueno - Dawson - Toti

Semedo - Gomes - Andre - RAN

........... Forbs - Larsen - Cunha


Completely agree with No.5 in your post btw. They can all get in the bin, unless Hwang is played centrally when coming on for Larsen. Playing him wide is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

You missed out sack GON.

1. Play a back five.

Purely because it suits more of our players. I think we get a bit too hung up on formations. Just pick the best formation for your team, and I feel a back five is better.

I'd go 3-5-2 now.

Dawson, Bueno, Toti, Ait-Nouri and Semedo all benefit from a back five for different reasons, I believe.
Andre, Lemina and Gomes can all play in a midfield three properly.
Most importantly, Cunha can play with no restrictions off Larsen. He's our best player and he can't defend. On Saturday he didn't track the run properly (again) and they crossed it for Collins. But, I don't blame Cunha. What's the use in him being back there all the time?

Also, none of our wingers are good enough to say they have to play. In some games, I'd switch a midfielder (probably Lemina) for someone like Forbs, and go 3-4-3.

But I think that 3-5-2 is competitive. It's athletic, physically strong and every player is in their best position.


2. Start Jose Sa.

He is, in my opinion, the best keeper at the club by some distance (not much of a compliment)

It will require work from O'Neil to get him back on side, realistically he may not be able to do it. But he's so much better than Johnstone.


3. Set-pieces.

Agree with the first post. A huge part of modern football and we've been terrible this season.

I don't buy that sacking this chap will make everything better, O'Neil should've been overseeing things.

I don't care if the players hate it or whatever, it's such an easy area of the game that you can improve with repetition, and we must do it.



4. Don't be afraid to drop your 'big' players

Lemina has been abysmal at times this season, and he has played every minute.

When you have Tommy Doyle on the bench, it's bizarre. Lemina is a better player than Doyle normally, but not like this. But he has been scared to sub his captain.

I know I'm on the wrong forum for this but Semedo has been atrocious as well, aside from a very good first game against Forest.

Doherty (not been that bad this season), Lima and Rodrigo Gomes could all play RWB. Are they as good as Semedo? Absolutely not - when he's on form.

But Semedo has been terrible. Lewis-fucking-Potter was giving him lots of trouble on Saturday. He lost us the game against Liverpool through stupidity and at Villa through bottling a tackle.

He was brilliant last year, but he's nowhere near it now. Bad games need to have consequences.



5. Stop needlessly playing out from the back

This doesn't just apply to Wolves to be honest. It's infuriating watching some teams nowadays, and I include us in that, due to the insistence of playing out from the back.

The keeper giving it to a midfielder facing his own goal with someone breathing down his neck is the personal favourite. Just stop!

We have Andre, so you can't bypass midfield, but it's about balance. It's about risk and reward. We invite so much pressure.

I believe to play out from the back successfully you need a keeper who is good on the ball, at least one full-back who is very good, at least one centre-back and a defensive midfielder. We only have the latter in Andre, so don't do it.

Work your way into the game and naturally more space will become available when the opposition tire.

Deutsch Wolf said:

Simple premise: 5 things you'd do to get us actually earning some points because if we don't soon, it'll be too late.

For me:

1) Play a standard midfield three. No players charging about everywhere or weird #10 roles that make no sense. André, and two of Joao Gomes, Mario Lemina and Tommy Doyle. That's it.

2) This should go without saying but FFS can you try marking properly on set pieces? Hopefully a step forward has been made here with Galaxy Brain Wilson being chucked.

3) Keep better control of the ball. We pretty much never have the kind of spells in possession we used to have under Nuno, whether we're winning or losing. The ball is your friend.

4) Don't be afraid to go direct to Strand Larsen - and when we do, get players around him. This shouldn't be difficult and he's a very good outlet if we don't pretend he's Niall Quinn and hoof it 10 foot in the air.

5) Personnel - no more Doherty, no more Hwang, no more Bellegarde please. We have better players than all of them and they should all be miles down the pecking order. The goalkeeper situation is a mess but we can't do a great deal about that now.

Over to the rest of you.

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I can't find any flaws in this.
Unfortunately I'm a complete numpty when it comes to tactics and coaching.

I agree with the 3 centre halves, but for all the wrong reasons. I said post Mosquera getting injured that I didn't think we had much choice. We don't have a 2 we can trust, after seeing Dawson look his age on Saturday I'm not sure we even have one. No point going over the incompetence that lead to this again, we are where we are for at least the next 3 months.

Drop Lemina, he's actively damaging the team and the more he tries to make amends the worse he makes it. Andre / Gomes will be injured / suspended soon enough so bring him back then.

Get Johnstone to come of his line, if he's not capable of it then defend accordingly like we used to with Patricio. At the moment we leave space for a keeper to come who doesn't, which is one of the reasons we are so vulnerable in the air and not just from set pieces.

Stop the uber press and go back to counter attacking. We have players that suits and we won't be knackered after an hour.

When we get to the 'winnable' games treat them professionally, linked in a way to the above. We aren't likely to win then in the first 10 minutes, but if we run around like dogs chasing a balloon then we could lose them in that time

I don’t see how a back 3 of Bueno - Dawson - Toti is a better defensive backline than any 2 with Andre in front of the 2.

6. When we have a fucking free kick that could potentially create a goal scoring chance, don't be afraid to try it... even just occasionally... once a month would be a fucking start. Learn when to play tip-tap ball and when to try to threaten to score against your opponent... you know, just like they do against you....time and time again.

Tredman said:

I don’t see how a back 3 of Bueno - Dawson - Toti is a better defensive backline than any 2 with Andre in front of the 2.

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People crying out for a back 3 haven't realised it is nothing to do with 3 or 4 at the back.

Formations mean nothing if the players aren't set up right.

Not their fault mind, but the equivalent of Brendan O'Carroll giving out script writing tips.

Deutsch Wolf said:

3) Keep better control of the ball. We pretty much never have the kind of spells in possession we used to have under Nuno, whether we're winning or losing. The ball is your friend.

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One caveat in respect to this point in particular - it has to be *good* control of the ball. There have been periods of play in most (if not all) of our games this season where we've been up in the 60-70% possession mark - but it's all been safe, boring, backwards/sideways stuff. There's no point in having the ball if we do nothing with it. I agree with your point - we need better control of the ball - but in better areas where we can actually hurt the opposition.

I also absolutely agree with the earlier point about stopping the nonsense playing out from the back. We have Sam Johnstone, Craig Dawson & Toti Gomes - we're not prime Man City under Pep, ffs. We’re shit at it - stop it.

Ultimately most of the things I'd change will only happen by binning the manager/coaches (and of course fucking off Jeff Shi and having a change of policy from Fosun). And as none of that is happening any time soon, I'm not expecting much to change.

Also, to add to the formation/personnel chat.

Taking in to account Gaz’s comments about possibly needing to switch back to a back 5, the fact he seems extremely reluctant to drop his captain Lemina (if he hasn’t dropped him yet, he never will), acknowledging the midfield three is a mess and isn’t working - I genuinely think we might see him move Lemina in to the defence to sit between Dawson & Toti in a Coady’esque role.

This isn’t *me* advocating it, but I can just see Gaz doing it.

- he’s not sold on Santi & has already moaned about potentially having to play “all three of my senior centre backs” - putting Lemina in there negates that without losing his physicality/height or having to make the difficult decision to drop his captain

- it allows us to play RAN & Semedo as wing backs, which they’re clearly more comfortable doing

- it helps Toti, as he obviously prefers playing in a back five (see Collins’ goal at the weekend where he drifts in behind Toti who was defending the space he’d normally be picking up in a back 5)

- it allows us to play Andre & Gomes as an orthodox midfield 2. Joao has already openly said he struggles to play in a midfield three and the way Gaz has set it up so far this season, we’re a shambles anyway.

I think it was TT that said in another thread recently that we are what we are. Is it ideal switching back to 5 at the back? No. But would the players be comfortable doing it, would it make us more organised & would you also be playing to the players strengths? Yes. So whilst we’re in such terrible form, it’s a switch he probably has to make, whether we like it or not.

I can quite easily see him going with this -

If we must go three at the back (as I've said, I don't think it solves anything) then for me:

----------------------Johnstone*-----------------------

-----------Semedo-----Dawson-----Toti--------------

Lima-------J Gomes-----André-----Doyle-----Ait-Nouri

------------------Cunha-----Strand Larsen----------------

*All our keepers are shit so whatever

This way you have the pace either side of Dawson that actually makes the switch worth it. Gets Lima on the pitch and we'd have a viable attacking outlet on both sides (we cannot have two/three attacking players in the entire team FFS). Rodrigo as first sub if either wing back needs changing. Doyle gives you a bit more expansive passing from midfield, if he really can't drop Mario then Joao would have to miss out I'm afraid.

I wouldn't do this and we won't do this.

Apart from at, I think, Forest Semedo has been awful this season, but he was bloody atrocious in a back 3 at the end of last.

Don't worry about all of this saving the season stuff, sounds expensive tbh. Just post a video of the Crusaders home game on socials and hope everyone just gets distracted for a while.

Lycan said:

Don't worry about all of this saving the season stuff, sounds expensive tbh. Just post a video of the Crusaders home game on socials and hope everyone just gets distracted for a while.

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As you’ve just illustrated, I don’t know that Crusaders highlights are going to distract people from the fact that we’re miles off that competition right now.

Any 5 point plan must I'm afraid begin with a new Management team - and then go from there .

I think it needs to start with owners that are actually interested in running a football club.

BillyDee said:

I think it needs to start with owners that are actually interested in running a football club.

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I'd just like somebody who is competent at running a football club instead of this fuckwit or they can fuck off and sell the club.