Extended-Phenotype I don’t think it’s as bad as the doom-mongers make out. A few adjustments and I think the team will click.
1. Wing needs to be played further forward. I’m not sure why he’s so deep, perhaps its due to the CBs lacking confidence and someone in midfield needing to fill in the space behind, or perhaps its based on the idea that as a counter-attacking side, Wing is thought to be better placed further back to collect the ball and start an attack with his superior passing. It’s not really working though, and for a guy who scores so many goals from outside the box, we really need him getting the ball in this hotspot.
2. I always felt Elliot was the better ‘all-rounder’ in terms of adopting a more defensive mid position. On paper, Fraser is also supposedly such a player. Why Elliot isn’t starting is a mystery to us, but perhaps he just isn’t up to full fitness yet or there is an issue with him we are unaware of. Or perhaps Hunt just wants to give his new signings a run out in order to assess who best to play where. It’s nice to have the dilemma. I think Elliot has proved himself though, so hopefully we will see more of him. I wouldn’t be upset with Fraser in the DM hole though.
3. Its harsh on Kelvin, but I don’t really like him in any position. Good as he can be, he’s not a traditional wide man, and he’s not a traditional striker, and I think his inclusion often causes more problems than it solves.
4. It’s just not clicking for O’Mahony. He’s not getting great service at the moment, but he doesn’t really make his own chances either. Counter example with Smith who also had dry spells, at least the latter always seemed to be involved in the game, creating chances for others. It’s hard to tell if O’Mahony is even on the pitch. Ideally you’d want to throw him on late in a game we are winning, so that he can ease into the team without so much pressure on him – perhaps he may come good. But we really do need someone new in the starting 11 to lead the line. I think if we had such a player from the start, our results so far would be very different. If I had a criticism for our new owners, it would be about them not making buying a striker the absolute priority. We were crying out for one even before we got rid of Wareham and Knibbs. To sell both of those guys AND not sign a new striker seems crazy.
5. Not sure what to do with Doyle. It’s always painful when you have strong players competing over the same position, but he really does look like a player not to add to our starting 11, but to replace someone in it – Wing or Savage, essentially. Tough to bench either of them, even after a poor game. But maybe that’s a hard decision that needs to be made. Doyle doesn’t seem like a wide player, and playing him centrally with both Wing and Savage would seem to maintain the problem of Wing ending up too deep. Then again, we had the three of Knibbs, Savage and Wing in the midfield before, so maybe it could work after all.
I guess then, I’d like to see:
.................Pereira
Ahmed, Burns, Williams, Ryan
.......Doyle, Wing, Savage
......Garcia, ????, Lane
Kinda like Kyerewaa, but Garcia is scoring goals somehow, so it would be harsh to drop him even if I’m not sure if RW is really his thing.
Think that is a pretty fair summary of the situation. I wonder if Fraser could take over the defensive midfield role to allow Wing to get up the field - or perhaps even Doyle (as he has lots of energy). And maybe placing Garcia up alongside MoM would help him get chances.
I think this is the issue for Hunty right now. There are lots of options/ways of playing and with new players it will take time to work out the best team and way of playing for the players he has at his disposal and so we are pretty much back to the start of 2023/24 rather than 2024/25 season and it took Selles 16 matches to work out a way of playing that was successful (as I said earlier we lost 11 of the first 16 games that season).
I just hope the new owners are more patient than Hobnobbers.
