That Bobby was right to have Aaron man-mark Poyet? Also, is the three five two the only system that can support a man marker? When Aaron manmarked Totti out of the game what system did we employ that day? We also need to bear in mind that Bobby probably had them practice this system all week, it's not as if it were a surprise to our highly paid prima donnas. The fact remains that our midfield lacks two players, one to tackle and tackle hard and another that has the ability to put his foot on the ball and make that pass.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Answers

I disagree immensely, Syme. Firstly Poyet isn't a playmaker and his main threat is from headers in the box which your CHs should deal with and secondly, having a manmarker effectively takes a player out of the game. Yesterday, Speed and Acuna were doing nothing and the wingbacks were having a mare, so, in fact, when he should have been marking Poyet, Aaron was tracking back trying to snuff out another threat and the CHs weren't prepared for Poyet. Besides which, Hughes has played in four positions this season, and we have to accept at some point that he won't be able to shine in all of them. After an initially nervy start at right back last week, he was great. Unfortunately, the more we fanny around with his position, the less convincing he's going to become. As I said in the pub yesterday, he's setting himself up to be the next Warren Barton. If I were him, I'd get Goma to see whether Tigana still wants him.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

I'm sure syme wasn't blaming Aaron, Dougal. Everyone here acknowledges the fact that it was a mistake to even attempt this formation, and I'd be surprised if we see it again.

Secondly, I don't think you would find one person on here who thinks Aaron hasn't done an admirable job for us for the better part of two seasons. Certainly he has played a lot of footie in quite a few roles, but let's not forget, it is not easy to sit back and watch these kinds of performances. While we can easily say we need a couple of midfielders, and the concensus is that is where we are weakest, we can not accept losing games when we should be winning them. We have to win HOME games, nuff said!!! Considering our London record, this was a game we NEEDED to win! Point fingers all you want, the side as a whole failed to show that they have the ability to gut it out when times are tough.

The only consistent thing we've shown is that we are inconsistent at best. We want to be in Europe??? Believe me,if we can't win home games,we don't want to be in Europe.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Sorry, Sparxx, I wasn't trying to say that Syme was slagging off Aaron. I generally meant that, by fannying around with him, we are spoiling him. If we'd persisted with him in one position since his youth days, I think we'd have quite a player, but as it is, we have a jack of all trades and master of none. And it's a shame.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

PS. I wish I had your faith that we'd never see this formation again!

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

At least we haven't got any live games for a while.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Oh crap, just remembered that the Worthington Cup game is live on ITV2, there's another path to Europe gone if nufc.com are to be believed.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

I love Aaron, think he's great. The problem is that he succeeds in so many different roles that bobby has taken him for granted and expects him to excel in every department. Give him one position to call his own, and leave him be. Throughout the game Poyet doesn't do much however, if he scores important goals then he needs to be manmarked.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Just saw the analysis of GP's goal. Aaorin was close to him until Acuna failed to track Anderton (?). Hughes was closest and had to go with DA (it could be argued he was slightly out of position). If you're going to expect a man to stick like glue to an opponent, the rest have to do their job elsewhere. But of course, that takes practice...........

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Screacher that is as much down to the formation as anything else, the players didn't really have a clue what they were meant to do, assumed areas where players normally are in a 4-4-2 didn't exist with 3-5-2, it was a complete farce.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

I thought their 2nd goal perfectly summed up the lunacy of yesterday's tactics plus our utter unprofessionalism.

The player supposed to be being "man-marked" scores from a very difficult position from a cross by a player 30 yds away who is being closed down by our "man-marker" because one of our m/f geniuses didn't track him into the LWB position - where of course there is no LWB.

The player who is supposed be being "man-marked" jumps for the cross beyond the far post, with no challenge whatsoever by his actual marker, our RWB, who makes no attempt to jump and at least try to put him off, but simply turns around to watch the looping header sail over our goalkeeper who is rooted to his goal-line.

Absolute bloody pantomime of the first order!

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Oh come on Clarky. It wasn't as bad as all that. Oh yes it was. Oh no it wasn't...............

"He's over there" as somebody shouted to Aaron. "Look out behind you Nobby" came the reply.

Widdow tw@nkers.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Just answer one question for me Screach - how could any sane person voluntarily select Nobby Solano to play as a wing-back more than once - ie. after having seen him play there??

Can somebody

PLEASE

explain this to me? It's deeing me heed in!

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Agreed Clarky, it's baffling. We clearly don't have the wide players to play wingbacks. As for the formation (and I use the word loosely) we did adopt, the only purpose of playing 532/352 should be to have an extra man in the middle of the park. This is understandable in some respects given some of the recent performances our 2 man midfields have put in. But to play that formation and dedicate the supposed extra midfielder to following a player who isn't even a playmaker is nonsensical and basically takes one of our players out of the game as well as one of theirs. Poyet's threat has always been on set pieces and crosses - situations where he's likely to be marked anyway. His skill is in getting away from a marker - quite how we expected Aaron Hughes to avoid this problem just by telling him to mark him is beyond me.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Oh God - just realised, Villa play 3-5-2 and have Merson to manmark...

-- Anonymous, October 23, 2001

All this b#ll#cks about formations and players not knowing it is nonsense. As somebody ahs already said, it's a good system if you have the plyers and also mentioned here is the point about releasing extra players. To my mind it is a more defensive formation that can allow for variations (sweeper, two markers/three zonal markers/ spare man in midfield. etc) what it does do though is leave gaps behind the wing backs. It doesn't help as everyone has said that we play wingers as WB's, different mind set. As for AH, his CH instincts got the better of him and he went to the ball. It comes down to one basic point, 11 out of 14 didn't play well and Spurs did play well, the fact we were negative t'boot exacerbated the poor performance.

-- Anonymous, October 23, 2001