It's got to be 4-4-2

[scotlad]

3 hours ago, Third Lanark said:

Who plays 4-4-2 nowadays? We don't have a Faddy or a Snodgrass or two strikers to take advantage of a system which works best with two wide men. We need the insurance of three at the back.

Sweden do, albeit a kind of ersatz 4-4-2 with one of the forwards slightly withdrawn and dropping back into midfield when they lose possession.

I don't think the system is the issue as much as the personnel. The team he picked on Monday looked more set up as a counter-attacking team, and anything we did well generally came when we were on the break.  It was pretty useless at retaining possession and building moves through midfield, which, as the home team, we were expected to do

Ironically I think our best chance of success on Friday - save for the entire England team and coaching staff going on a massive impromptu bender the night before and turning up hungover - is to play on the break.

[Third Lanark]

17 minutes ago, scotlad said:

Sweden do, albeit a kind of ersatz 4-4-2 with one of the forwards slightly withdrawn and dropping back into midfield when they lose possession.

I don't think the system is the issue as much as the personnel. The team he picked on Monday looked more set up as a counter-attacking team, and anything we did well generally came when we were on the break.  It was pretty useless at retaining possession and building moves through midfield, which, as the home team, we were expected to do

Ironically I think our best chance of success on Friday - save for the entire England team and coaching staff going on a massive impromptu bender the night before and turning up hungover - is to play on the break.

Good point there; we are just not equipped to go gung-ho against virtually anybody.

[gkm_vancouver]

OK so here is my reasoning for the 4-4-2.

There is no doubt that the 5-4-1/5-3-1-2/5-3-2  has served it's purpose to stop the 4-0 drubbings, get a defence line that includes both Tierney and Robbo, and try and change regular defeats into more positive winning runs. We did this with a long unbeaten run and got a bit of confidence back. Clarke has always said it was still a work in progress and they needed to continue to make progress if we were to climb up rankings/seedings, be able to qualify more regularly and also potentially get further against the top teams in major tourneys. 

Towards the end of the Nations Cup run we were not even winning in regular time and had to rely on penalties with a back 5. We also keep having great difficulty in getting the better of Israel who deploy a similar formation but play it better than us. This was again evident when we lost the games after Serbia. The emergence of Tierney has been a real boost but our results have been P8 W2 L3 D3 F9 A9 with the 2 wins being Luxembourg and Faroes so not exactly a winning formula for the top 24 teams in Europe. There were also times where Clarke changed the formation during a game and went to a back 4 in order to go for a draw/win.

The Czech game was definitely the one to target for a win and now we have  more pressure to get a win against much more quality opposition. If we can't win with the extra defender because we don't create enough chances until we go behind then a more attacking option with the younger/fitter/faster players - and TBF, some of these players are talented along with the special Gilmour who can keep hold of the ball thus giving defenders confidence they will not be under a barrage of attacks.  We could start with an attacking line up, cause teams problems with darting fast runs from Fraser, Adams, Patterson as well as the current Tierney/Robbo then that is going to give teams a lot to deal with; potentially create more frequent and clearer chances with maybe a case for shoring up in the last 10 minutes if we are still ahead. 

In a 3 game knockout competition you can see the mentality of the winning  teams where they are going for a win in the first game to reduce pressure in following two games. This is the big difference with qualifying - we have fewer games to get a result so need to take drastic action using the younger, faster players rather than a formation that needs a more clinical striker which we don't have and is not getting results we need.

I am dreading a drubbing on Friday if we stick with the same formation and only change when we are behind. It didn't work against the Czechs and it is unlikely to work against the top teams. I would be happy with a draw on Friday then a win against the Croats. Someone said we would be crucified with a 4-4-2 but we could also be crucified with a 5-3-2 i.e. what do we do if we go 2-0 down within 20minutes? We will end up panicking and getting  more desperate and the quality(sic) of our play will reduce. Wouldn't say I am confident it will be a certain winning prospect but I am more confident that five at the back is less likely to get a win in a tourney like this.