The set up of the team and lack of bravery

[Tommy2holes]

I actually quite like MM and believe that long term he could be a good servant to our club.

But am I the only one questioning his tactics.

We keep persisting with this 4 3 3 formation and multiple personnel changes.

It's simply not working. The defence is looking solid, of that, there can be no doubt. But we literally give ourselves no real chance of winning games with this formation.

Yesterday was beyond a joke.

Oldham were woeful. Barely managed a shot and yet instead of bringing on Holmes and Goodship he brings on Halford and Demetriou. Both are defensive minded and offered zero threat at all. In fact we seems to regress into our own half after their introduction.

We have to win games MM. We have to start shooting at any given opportunity.

This whole philosophy of knock it long to Akinola and Acquah will see this Southend side relegated and consigned to the history books as the worst team in our entire history.

Please MM start playing to win.

We need points and to go down fighting and having a go. This way of playing in our position is criminal.

 

[East Green I 83]

I actually quite like MM and believe that long term he could be a good servant to our club.

But am I the only one questioning his tactics.

We keep persisting with this 4 3 3 formation and multiple personnel changes.

It's simply not working. The defence is looking solid, of that, there can be no doubt. But we literally give ourselves no real chance of winning games with this formation.

Yesterday was beyond a joke.

Oldham were woeful. Barely managed a shot and yet instead of bringing on Holmes and Goodship he brings on Halford and Demetriou. Both are defensive minded and offered zero threat at all. In fact we seems to regress into our own half after their introduction.

We have to win games MM. We have to start shooting at any given opportunity.

This whole philosophy of knock it long to Akinola and Acquah will see this Southend side relegated and consigned to the history books as the worst team in our entire history.

Please MM start playing to win.

We need points and to go down fighting and having a go. This way of playing in our position is criminal.

I totally agree with this.........bringing on Halford and Demetriou instead of Goodship and Holmes was completely and utterly indefensible. His justification about wanting "height up front because their centre backs were suspect" and using Halfords "long throw" were hard to swallow. Still angry this morning, that game was there to be won, and not to settle for a point

 

[kentblues]

Well first it’s not 433 - it’s not 3 up front it’s 1
4231
But it’s not the formation.
If the one up top isn’t a natural goalscorer and nor are the 3 behind then that is the problem.
If the one up top was a 10-12 goals a season man, and a couple of the 3 behind the it would be very different.

 

[bazzashrimper]

Actually. When Demi came on I thought he did really well. He got us going a bit again in the middle and sprayed a few good balls out to our wide players in good positions. The Halford sub was ridiculous though - Demi should have come on then.

 

[in the know]

As per kentblues and bazzashrimper, what we play is totally different to a 433.
I think with ranger completely out and now akinola too for probably 4 weeks, maybe MM will be forced to changing his more recent favoured formation.
I really hope he doesn't revert to a back 3 (5). We are so solid and feel we are better trying to keep that strength intact.
Can Holmes play centrally behind aquah?. I don't know enough about him, but from what I saw in his cameo, he wasn't quick and looked rusty with little touch. I'm sure he can do better, but I don't see him sprinting on to aquahs flick ons, or waiting on a shoulder and sprinting into gaps for through balls. I just can't see him fitting in with what we have available.
I'd be tempted to stay with our back 4. Elvis in his usual place.
Abandon rotating the mid with only 13 left. Manage their training instead.
Ferguson in front of the back 4 with taylor, jd, and dieng in front of him.
Oliyanka linking with aquah up top with support from the 3 behind getting well forward.
Dieng covers for Ferguson on his odd ventures upfield
Feel that plays to our developed strengths and gives us good midfield energy and drive. And still the chance of drawing fouls in and around the box, which I see as our main way of scoring some goals.
We are a threatening team from corners now too with aquah, dieng, hobson, ferguson, all capable of heading goals.

 

[bazzashrimper]

How about trying RHF up top with Acquah in a 4-4-2? He seems to like to shoot and if he is ever running a channel seems more than capable of getting a decent cross in.

With Fergie and Taylor in the middle, probably with olyinka and dieng playing narrow wide roles

 

[onceknownasrab]

I totally agree with this.........bringing on Halford and Demetriou instead of Goodship and Holmes was completely and utterly indefensible. His justification about wanting "height up front because their centre backs were suspect" and using Halfords "long throw" were hard to swallow. Still angry this morning, that game was there to be won, and not to settle for a point

It wasn't 'indefensible.' I definitely heard MM defend it. I don't have all the facts the manager has and I do not propose to say whether his set up and substitutions were right or wrong. I will say the substitutions were uninspiring, even deflating, and I can't help but feel the team may have thought the same. There were several on the bench, who would have expected to get a run out, that must wonder WTF.

A point away is handy but we are shipping needless points through a lack of cutting edge. I think we have players that can bag a few more than they are and I feel the set up is not helpful. I back MM and I hope he sorts it out. At the moment I think the sorting needs to be done between his ears.

 

[davewebbsbrain]

Olayinka is the key to saving our season

 

[geoffmundo]

Olayinka is the key to saving our season

When will we see him though? Not next week by the sounds of things

 

[Leigh_Seasider]

There wasn’t anything wrong with the system and the game plan worked yesterday apart from one thing...we didn’t score. We could’ve and should’ve come back to Essex with 3 points. Oldham didn’t once look like threatening. Frustrating but better than getting our arse whipped like we were at the start of the season.

Something needs to spark/fall for us in the final third. Olayinka might help but RHF, ANG, Holmes, all need to up their game too. I happen to think ANG did well yesterday and we were unlucky with the woodwork/Acquah header and clear pen not given.

 

[Clarky176]

He's managing the line between defensive solidity and attacking threat. We need more attacking threat, but yesterday we had enough good chances to win.

I think MM believes playing 2 CM's will leave us overrun, so plays 3 at all times, whether its 3 or 4 at the back.

This means it will always be 1 up front.

Sometimes this has failed and we don't manage a shot on target, sometimes it works and we score some, sometimes we get chances and don't take them (yesterday).

Question is, with the players we have, is 442 viable, and is it worth the risk of weakening our defensive game?

 

[DistantBlue]

Actually. When Demi came on I thought he did really well. He got us going a bit again in the middle and sprayed a few good balls out to our wide players in good positions. The Halford sub was ridiculous though - Demi should have come on then.

I agree with your view on JD yesterday

The best contribution I’ve seen from him for a while
However I share your view re Greg although I like him too
The whole thing looks so random and confused They we’re there for the taking
I think even I might have scored yesterday ??

 

[sufc4life21]

I think the formation is fine as it matches the players we have available. We need players to put the ball in the net! Chance were created yesterday and we failed to score. Olayinka, holmes and Ferguson are the only players I think are capable of scoring few from open play! Failure in January not to sign a striker or 2 could well end up costing us are league status........ just need to look at the striker options available to see we will struggle to score. Worst set of strikers we've had in my time of being a fan!

 

[southendkid]

I don't know how you can look at yesterday and think the formation is the problem. Off the top of my head we had:

Acquah's header straight at the keeper.
RHF hitting the bar.
Acquah hitting the bar.
Acquah being one on one with the keeper (admittedly at a tight angle) and messing up a lob.
Akinola's attempted header which probably would have gone in if he hadn't mistimed it.

That's 5 golden chances to score, how is the formation bad if it can create that many opportunities in 60 minutes?

 

[BluePartridge]

This Oldham game is the game that will haunt me if we get relegated. The chances Acquah had! I think the first header he took off Akinola as well!

I don't know what is more inexcusable, missing the (CLEAR) one-on-one, or missing those two point blank free headers. Great work by Emile Acquah to get those chances, great work, but please for the love of God you need to score them.

 

[tallboyblue]

As per kentblues and bazzashrimper, what we play is totally different to a 433.
I think with ranger completely out and now skills too for probably 4 weeks, maybe MM will be forced to changing his more recent favoured formation.
I really hope he doesn't revert to a back 3 (5). We are so solid and feel we are better trying to keep that strength intact.
Can Holmes play centrally behind aquah?. I don't know enough about him, but from what I saw in his cameo, he wasn't quick and looked rusty with little touch. I'm sure he can do better, but I don't see him sprinting on to aquahs flick ons, or waiting on a shoulder and sprinting into gaps for through balls. I just can't see him fitting in with what we have available.
I'd be tempted to stay with our back 4. Elvis in his usual place.
Abandon rotating the mid with only 13 left. Manage their training instead.
Ferguson in front of the back 4 with taylor, jd, and dieng in front of him.
Oliyanka linking with aquah up top with support from the 3 behind getting well forward.
Dieng covers for Ferguson on his odd ventures upfield
Feel that plays to our developed strengths and gives us good midfield energy and drive. And still the chance of drawing fouls in and around the box, which I see as our main way of scoring some goals.
We are a threatening team from corners now too with aquah, dieng, hobson, ferguson, all capable of heading goals.

Maybe we look threatening the problem is we don’t actually score .

 

[Welly7]

I don't know how you can look at yesterday and think the formation is the problem. Off the top of my head we had:

Acquah's header straight at the keeper.
RHF hitting the bar.
Acquah hitting the bar.
Acquah being one on one with the keeper (admittedly at a tight angle) and messing up a lob.
Akinola's attempted header which probably would have gone in if he hadn't mistimed it.

That's 5 golden chances to score, how is the formation bad if it can create that many opportunities in 60 minutes?

You're right in that the formation isn't the problem. I think the 4231 suits the players we have and yesterday we had enough chances to win the game. The trouble is it is how they are being told to play.

Take the first 20 minutes or so at Forest Green compared to yesterdays game. There was a much more obvious willingness to press higher at FGR, especially from the wide areas. The work rate from the front three to press was very good and once we had our goal we then settled into being more compact and looked to keep the ball in front of them.

Yesterday it was like that from the outset. Behind the ball, nice and tight in our shape and very little pressing in their half. Yes we created chances, but I always felt it was more of a case of 'when we find ourselves in their third' rather than 'what we can do to play our way into their third.' Very little ambition from MM yesterday to force the issue of getting into their final third time and time again. Too content to be defensively sound and wait for a chance to fall for us.

 

[amsemp]

I don't know how you can look at yesterday and think the formation is the problem. Off the top of my head we had:

Acquah's header straight at the keeper.
RHF hitting the bar.
Acquah hitting the bar.
Acquah being one on one with the keeper (admittedly at a tight angle) and messing up a lob.
Akinola's attempted header which probably would have gone in if he hadn't mistimed it.

That's 5 golden chances to score, how is the formation bad if it can create that many opportunities in 60 minutes?

Totally agree with this to be fair. I don’t see the formation being the problem. Plenty of free flowing attacking teams play 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1. They’ve never been regarded as defensive systems. On another day, Acquah’s headers would‘ve gone in and RHF’s shot would’ve been crossbar and in. We’d then have won 3-0 and this thread wouldn’t exist. The difference between yesterday’s performance and a completely different outlook is literally a couple of inches.

I like what Molesley is doing and the difference in performances from the start of the season is like night and day. We’re hard to beat and solid defensively. Hopefully Acquah can now pick up some confidence after the last game and I think Olayinka’s return will be a huge boost. Play him in the hole as a number 10 in a 4-2-3-1 and I think we’ll be fine. MM tried his bollocks off to get another proven goal scorer in and was consistently knocked back. I really don’t think the blame for that can be laid at his door. All he can do now is try and get the best out of what he’s got. If you can’t score regularly, but can keep a clean sheet, why wouldn’t your first priority be on keeping things tight and ensuring at least a point? We could commit so many bodies forward and go for the goals, but why try and outscore teams when the likelihood is that we won’t, and it’ll cost us our clean sheet and point in the process.

 

[rigsby]

The best pathway to become a great forward at Southend United is to have a longterm injury. Take Goodship for example, just 4 months ago he was lazy, useless and needed to F off back to non league. Now with each game he misses his ability improves, i'm surprised a Championship club aren't sniffing around he has become that good.

Of course Emile Acquah should never start a game because he is the worse striker ever but if he does he should stay on the whole 90. Who cares if he is now the only recognised target man MM should never have a game plan of 60mins. He should risk losing him for the season when its 0-0 by keeping him on. After all us fans only think of the game that day....why doesn't MM?

 

[davewebbsbrain]

We played 4231 against FGR and we scored 3. Some days they go in, some days they don't. We hit the bar yesterday and their keeper made a point blank save. Could easily have been 2-0