The wide men

[Rip Van We Go Again]

A good friend of mine who frequents the site, but hasn't joined, has asked me for your thoughts on Downing and Ashley not doing the necessary graft in midfield, thus leaving the middle 2 exposed.

Your opinions please.

[N'ZMAV]

I think if were play 2 out and out wingers we'd be better with 3 in the centre of the park. Especially when Reo-Coker is available.
More of a 4-3-3 than a 4-5-1. But, we also need the right striker to link it all together, which, I don't think Carw is.
I thought they worked hard enough but we were just over-ran on Saturday.

[Mazrim]

I see no problem with Young or Downing's work rate.

[Olneythelonely]

I think they both graft, but it's usually having to help the fullback out, rather than the middle men. The trouble is, that neither Clarke or Bannan are a destroyer. When Reo-Coker is back I think our results will improve.

What annoys me most about our wide men is their insistance on playing on the wrong wing. Downing is crap on the right.

[N'ZMAV]

What annoys me most about our wide men is their insistance on playing on the wrong wing. Downing is crap on the right.

Couldn't agree more. Young needs to stick to the right & downing to the left.

Other clubs seem to be sticking wide players on opposite wings these days. Adam Johnson gets stuck out on the right wing for City when he plays too. Same for Brunt at Baggies & Arshavin at Arsenal. TBF some times it works, depends on how good the opposition full back is.

[peter w]

It depends on what they are being told by the manager. If they are told to stay out on the flanks then they will do. You can see the tactical set-up when the opposition have the ball. Its not a case of trying to close down in the middle but more keeping your shape and staying with the plan that you have. With us you can see that we aren't looking for our wide men to narrow the midfield as they stay wide to give us width to enable us to use the one seeming strength we have, and that's our counter-attacking.

The biggets problem is that the central-midfield don't protect the back 4 enough. That is to do with the players age and lack of experience. There's not a great deal that can be done about that because of the amount of injuries that we have. The problem with youngsters is that they are inconsistent and some times will play well, and sometimes not. When you have a team not winning then confidence will be a major destructive influence on them and their performances.

We just have to keep going through this stage. Yes, there have been problems with the team, yes the back 5 are looking dodgy. But, until the central-midfield can offer the protection any back 4 need in any standard of football by experienced players - even just one would do, then we will be in this situation. The merits of Downing and Young really are irrelevant in this and we don't need them trying to come inside to cover others. Time Stephen Ireland stood up.

[Pete3206]

Nothing wrong with either Downing or Young as regards to work rate. I didn't see a lot wrong with Villa in the 2nd half on Saturday. The problem was that Houllier cocked up the team formation to accomodate Pires and as a result, the damage was done in the 1st half.

As soon as Fonz came on with Young and Downing working the flanks, we began to worry Arsenal. We were undone with sucker pucnches when we were chasing the game.

[Concrete John]

When we're playing one striker the onus is on the widemen, and the furthest forward of the central three, to support the striker.  If they're doing that it will mean they can't get back as often or as quickly as we would like.  This should be compensated for by the two holding players, but as someone above says we've got kids in there and that lack of experience is showing.  It's a tactical problem, but not sure there is a solution until either NRC or Petrov is fit.

[JUAN PABLO]

I know one thing...    Fonz needs to play,  he embarrased carew ..

[Monty]

If you have two wide players, like many have said, you're going to leave a central two exposed just because of sheer geography. If you want to play two wide players, you have to have three central players in some fashion - 4-5-1, 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 or whatever else you can think of - just because of literal space issues.

[darren woolley]

My thoughts are there is nothing wrong with our widemen we need to have Gabby back and drop pires and get NRC in there then we should be ok.

[Phil from the upper holte]

No problem with the widemen for me either, my problem is with the so called senior players!

Carew, Friedel, Young L, Warnock, Collins & Dunne

[Concrete John]

If you have two wide players, like many have said, you're going to leave a central two exposed just because of sheer geography.

You see, this is a point I just don't get.  It was a debate we often had under MON as well.  I think it CAN work, but it needs two key elements:-
1.  A proper defense midfielder.
2.  All the other players to work very hard.

Think of the Man Utd treble winning side and the midfield of Giggs, Scholes, Keane and Beckham.  OK, we haven't got playes of that ability, but when we played 4-4-2 under MON I think the problem wasn't wide, but central.  Pertov lacked energy to get around and was better in a 3.  Had we played NRC instead with Milner I think we would have seen a better balance.  If we look at our current squad, a central pairing of NRC and Bannan with two of Albrighton, Ash and Downing wide could be very effective in a 4-4-2.

[Concrete John]

No problem with the widemen for me either, my problem is with the so called senior players!

Carew, Friedel, Young L, Warnock, Collins & Dunne

I don't think the two in bold have done all that much wrong this season!

[supertom]

Downing and Young are both best on the left hand side. That's a problem right there.

That 2nd striker role has offered us nothing, whoever's played there. Ash had a couple of decent games up there, but on the whole, he's still more useful on the left. We got something out of it with Heskey up top because of his hold up play, but by the same token, Ash isn't scoring enough to make up for Heskey's, or indeed any of our strikers shortfalls.

As for our central midfield. It's not so much being exposed, as not having two decent solid central midfielders on our books to play the system GH wants. At best we'd be playing Nigel and Petrov, but that's not good enough for where we aspire to be. We need new blood.

Until that time we need to play 3 in midfield.