Our formation, shape, set-up, balance...

[Abseits]

I'm badly struggling with getting my head around what Warburton is trying to achieve. I genuinely can't understand our formation and would not be able to describe it but maybe that's just down to me being an old fogey weaned on 4-4-2.

I believe Warburton has overarching principles based on entertaining, creating scoring opportunities and looking after the ball. That's fair enough but I'm not seeing it on the pitch.

Last night we seemed to have 3 at the back, 1 up front and 6 somewhere in the middle-ish. No surprise that we were therefore wide-open at the back and toothless up front then. But surely we'd boss the middle third with SIX players in there? Didn't happen... first half Forest dominated the game and moved through the thirds with far more pace, energy and intent than us. To me, there was only one winner looking likely and it wasn't us. Absolutely useless approach for a home team playing ordinary opposition in my view.

Miraculously we scored with what felt like our only serious attempt of the half and went in ahead.

2nd half was more even but I put that down more to Forest tiring and not harrying and closing us down so much rather than anything dynamic we were doing. Still threatening nothing meaningful up front, not troubling their keeper and a dreadful lack of supporting runs up to and past Dykes.

The last 5 minutes were shocking. Just needed 2 banks of 4 and see the game out but we had some sort of random spread of players haphazardly dotted about and not tracking their players pushing on. I honestly thought Forest would score a second given how disorganised and all over the place we were in added time.

I could swallow this against Fulham due to their quality but that Forest side is a midtable squad in transition adapting to a new manager. We looked like an away side trying to nick something against them.

I'm afraid this is all starting to look alarmingly like Warburton's first season here. Bright start, goals and points a-plenty and then the wheels came off. Big week coming up.

[72bus]

I also felt we were all over the place at times , still don't know how we came in ahead at HT , was noticing when forest switched Half's and I was in line with there defenders how much quicker they were than ours and how they moved the ball faster

[Riverwild]

I think at some point this season we will have a new manager. I cannot see Warburton sorting out our defensive problems.
He's had 2 and a half years to address the defence. He's not done that consistently. How our owners have missed that is beyond a joke. Forget about playing great football that's not good enough. We need a coach who can do both defend and attack. I'm sorry, Warburton is NOT that coach. The owners need to step up now.

[Stainrod]

I think at some point this season we will have a new manager. I cannot see Warburton sorting out our defensive problems.
He's had 2 and a half years to address the defence. He's not done that consistently. How our owners have missed that is beyond a joke. Forget about playing great football that's not good enough. We need a coach who can do both defend and attack. I'm sorry, Warburton is NOT that coach. The owners need to step up now.

Here we go again .

[Jeffqpr]

I think at some point this season we will have a new manager. I cannot see Warburton sorting out our defensive problems.
He's had 2 and a half years to address the defence. He's not done that consistently. How our owners have missed that is beyond a joke. Forget about playing great football that's not good enough. We need a coach who can do both defend and attack. I'm sorry, Warburton is NOT that coach. The owners need to step up now.

Your off your rocker mate

[72bus]

Warbs is doing a good job , as said it's just individual mistakes or fine margins .we are in most games bar Fulham . Unlucky v forest , dembele should have been tripped at Peterborough , Chas goal onside in cup ..don't know how anyone else would get more out of them

[3London]

Here we go again .

agreed! we are playing some of the best football for the past few years - scored in every game we have played in the league - punching well above our weight in terms of budget and are there or thereabout with about 6 other teams for the last play off place.

as we currently stand Fulham , Bournemouth, and WBA are streets ahead of everyone else in terms of Squads and Budget.

we have to expect to have peaks and troughs over the course of the season as every team will.

also we are in no position ssquad wise to compete in the premier league at the moment. look at Norwich they stormed the league last season.

I Think we are building and maybe a couple of seasons away from getting ourselves in a proper position to challenge.- and the club will want to do that with Warburton.

[Riverwild]

I respect your opinions, but I don't agree with them in terms of Warburton.
I say we bring in a solid defensive coach ASAP. If the manager does not agree with this I would move him on.
I would like our next coach to come from either Germany or Holland.

[Undecided]

Here we go again .

Exactly what I thought when I read it.!

[Abseits]

I made my comment about "wheels coming off" as per Warburton's first season here off the top of my head and without checking the facts/stats. I've now had a quick look and here it is in B/W....

That season we drew with Reading on matchday 13 played 22nd October. That put us 5th placed on 23pts. Obviously this was a very good start and very encouraging. Most people got carried away with it all despite an alarming amount of goals flying into our net, but far do's you'd have to be a real misery guts to be displeased at that point.

That was as good it would get. We were winless in next 6 games (L4, D2) and tumbled to 16th! We basically bobbled about that position-ish for rest of the season. In the 19 games following the Reading game that had put us 5th, we were W4, D4 and L11,

Around mid-January I started pointing out that Warburton wasn't all he was cracked up to be and his record was not good. This idea was given very short-shrift and the consensus was that "he was the right man for the job", "he's doing very well considering our tiny budget" and "he just needs time".

Obviously it's too early to say if this season is going down the toilet like 2019/20 did but my view is that recent games strongly suggest that it is. The stark thing is we are still shipping goals at an alarming rate. In nigh on 120 games in charge Warburton hasn't even come close to sorting our defensive set-up out. I say set-up because I don't think it's a problem specific to any one defender or the back-line as a whole - it's about the whole's teams shape and set-up, the balance if you will. Hence the thread title.

Ultimately t's impossible to talk about the team's performance and aspirations without Warburton coming into the conversation. Between now and January I'm very intrigued to see what our manager does to keep us on track and in touch with the top 6.

[dave58]

3 centre backs dont work with our lack of pace, might be a bit better when Wallace comes back Jordy Dunne Dickie Barbet all good player but all cart horses in that system i've seen milk turn faster

[gator]

I agree with most of the posts here except ones that imply we should sack Warburton, he obviously has made mistakes in our set up but I think he is doing ok given the squad we have, some are expecting us to be more competitive with clubs with much deeper squads which is going to be difficult considering our defensive frailities! January is going to be interesting for transfers, do we add some quality in positions of need which to me are wingback and maybe striker or do we hope injured players come back and contribute (Field and Wallace)? As for the formation the OP is on about I think not having Wallace is so key here, Uncle played great against Forest but the right side has been a problem as well, I don't think it would make much difference going to a back 4, we are still lacking quality at fullback!

[Qprtanpa1]

Warburton has earned our trust in many ways, but defense remains the albatross that continues to burden our ability to fully ascend.

Need a full-time defensive coaching wizard to improve formation and tactical awareness.

And we DESPERATELY need at least one back with speed.

Opposing teams with speedy strikers are eating us up cause we can’t keep up.

This should be our overriding goal in the January transfer window.

[Abseits]

Cannot seriously believe that it's all down to the absence of the 34 yr-old flying wingback Edinburgh Express that is Lee Wallace? Yes, Lee was doing great before injury but no way on earth would he be flying up and down the left flank for 90 mins twice a week. Anyway, I think it's a system thing, not a personnel thing. That first squad Warburton had that went on a diabolical winless run had likes of Barbet, Leistner, Manning, Rangel, Eze, Chair, BOS, Wells and Hugill in it with Kane, Ball and Cameron in the mix too.... not too shabby really but Warbs unable to get them purring.
Anyway, this is all getting longwinded and verbose. Warburton needs to shore us up defensively without taking away too much from our cutting edge up front.

[Macca]

MW needs to start making us hard to score against and the system we play with 3 donkeys at the back doesn't work how he can't see that as it's happening week in and week out, has to change the system how he changes it I don't know how, this can't go on within a couple of weeks we will be Down the bottom.
He is getting paid enough to figure it out, just have to wait to see how the next couple of games go.