Some musing on picking effective formations. We found it hard to play Shearer, Sir Les and Tino at the same time. We never went for a full 4-3-3 but Keegan attemted playing Ginola left and Tino right in place of Gillespie. He sensibly tried this at home first and we beat the Wombles with it but then got turned over by Sheffield Wednesday and shelved the experiment until Dalglish arrived.

In one of his first and most memorable games in charge, Leicester at home, we played Tino in a free role and Gillespie down the right and as we probably all remember, the defensive failings of this formation were more than compensated for in attacking flair. Not surprisingly though, this was not repeated in the same fashion.

During our run-in that season Kenny fielded a sequence of 5-3-2 formations with Elliott and Barton on the wings with combinations of Albert, Peacock, Bez and Watson as a back 3. Batty and Lee nailed down midfield with Beardo, Gillespie, Ginola and Clark relegated to the bench whilst Tion roamed around between midfield and Al and Les. we were simply devastating. It got us into the Champions' League.

Games with Al, Sir Les and Tino

Opponents	Venue	Match Date	Points	G/F	G/A
Tino on Wing
Wimbledon	Home	21-Aug-96	3	2	0
Sheffield Wednesday	Home	24-Aug-96	0	1	2
Leicester City	Home	02-Feb-97	3	4	3
Tino in Free Role
Chelsea	Home	16-Apr-97	3	3	1
Derby County	Home	19-Apr-97	3	3	1
Arsenal	Away	03-May-97	3	1	0
Nottingham Forest	Home	11-May-97	3	5	0

With current personnel we might toy with fielding Dyer down the right, Bernard down the left and Bellamy/Robert behind 2 from Cort/Ameobi/Shearer. It would need another tough tackling, neat passing player like Batty.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

Answers

I thought we did play 4-3-3 (or 4-3-1-2) with Tino in the free role. I think the weakness of our central midfield is our main problem at the moment (me and several thousand others). With current players we can't fit Dyer, Solano, Robert and Bellamy into the same team without being a pushover in midfield. Perhaps our strongest formation would be (with everyone fit and no new signings):

Cort Robert Bellamy Dyer Lee/Speed Acuna/Bassedas/my granny Elliott/Bernard Distin O'Brien Hughes

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

Dan 2, can you try that again? I'm having difficulty understanding how the 14 players you named (13 without your granny) would play. I also suspect the lack of goalie could cause problems (unless we bring KK back as manager).

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

/=OR ?

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

Softie,

Is it possible to report the percentage of games that a player participates in either as player or substitute? When a player doesn't participate can you say record why? ie injury, suspension or just dropped.

Should make interesting reading. Cheers SE.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

In that case PB, will you play in goal??

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

SE: I'm working on that, but it unfotunately means reading virtually every copy of the Ronnie Gill for the last 8 years to keep track.

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

"unfotunately means reading virtually every copy of the Ronnie Gill for the last 8 years"

Unfortunately? Sounds like a statto's dream Softie. :-)

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

It's the thought of all those contradictory "Exclusives" and piecing together which ones are total b*llocks and which are merely hearsay :- )

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

I thought about playing Robert in a roaming role, but I'm not sure about where other players fit in.

We are no longer a massive club like Man Utd (and some say we never have been) so decent players won't be happy being on the bench as backup - like Butt and Solskjaer at Manure.

It's worth trying out though, probably when we know the outcome of our season, maybe in the last 5 or 6 games (we will be 20 points clear of everyone then and uncatchable of course :) )

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001

Sorry Lads,

Have to disagree I would love to see Robert and Solano on the wings with Dyer "in the hole" behind Shearer and Bellamy up front as Bellamy has the runs on the board. All we need is the decent holding midfielder to defend and pass why can't Bobby see this?

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2001

And where would you play cort then Nige??

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2001

Sorry, I am not Nige, however Cort would be on the bench to replace Shearer.

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2001

I reckon Shearer should be on the bench to replace Cort.

Cort wins hardly any headers - neither does Shearer to be honest.

Cort misses a few chances - Shearer does as well really.

Maybe in a month we can see if Shearer is more like his old self - hopeuly he will be, but Cort is a more mobile player, seems to get into scoring positions instead of the wingers having to pick out Shearer. Wingers should just have to put the ball into danger zones and the striker should be there, not pick out a slow moving striker. Hopefully a bit pace will come with the recovery, but I'm not holding my breath unfortunately (otherwise I might suffocate :) )

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2001

I'd see Cort ahead of Shearer simply because I can't understand how he keeps scoring. An extended run off the physio's couch will show whether he is just extraordinarily lucky or actually oddly gifted.

I won't stand for Bellamy being dropped until he is either shagged out or injured. An absolute gem, and my hat tastes lovely. The rest of them are fighting for the other place.

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2001

"I won't stand for Bellamy being dropped until he is either shagged out or injured"

And how, exactly, would he get "shagged out"?

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001

..... through doing the running for every bugger else, that's how!
He'll be even 2 inches shorter by the end of the season at the present rate of energy burn!

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001