Monty

[Stubbsy90+2]

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I think its more about using hindsight to validate a position to prove ‘i was right all along’. The truth is, we’ll never really know how things would have panned out.

I think the most likely explanation for the the turn round in the teams form is a combination of a) a tweak to the formation, or how the players were instructed to play out of that same formation, im not persuaded that anyone on here actually knows) b) the new players that have come in, whove replaced weaker players, and c) something in the dressing room getting sorted. St Mirren was such a terrible performance that there was clearly something wrong with attitude that has since been sorted out.

Its not simply a matter of ‘daft monty was too thick to see what tactically astute fans could see, thank god hes changed it but his daftness has cost us something like 12 points, what a daftie’. Which is definitely a subtext here.

It would only be using hindsight if nobody had bothered there arse to flag up these criticisms when the situation was ongoing. People criticised the 4-4-2 from the get go and outlined where it would fail and it panned out pretty much exactly as expected. People discussed the 4-3-3 and the improvements that switching to it would likely make, it’s panned out pretty much as expected.

Yes there’s been an increase in the level of ability, but the setup was a massive issue and something we should never have been using. Thankfully we’re now playing a different system that suits the players we have and we look miles better for it.

There absolutely is a subtext that his system cost us points previously. I’ve absolutely no doubt that it did because it limited the abilities of near enough all our best players.

[Stubbsy90+2]

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It has nothing to do with formation. Eventually we will all figure that out.

It really does but there’s no point going round in circles with you again about it.

[cammy1969]

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Of course there's a subtext. We've been watching an utter ****show on the field. The changes we're seeing are very recent and many fans believe that Monty could have done better with what he had at his disposal previously. It did cost us points, that's a legitimate discussion.

I'm looking forward to the last quarter of this season, but it doesn't stop me being objective or fairly certain about what went before.

It’s not for me to say who’s right and who’s wrong on this, but what I will add to the debate is the **** show as you say on show and I can’t disagree with you had already got umpteen managers sacked. So I will cut Monty some slack there, and as you also say look forward to the rest of season.


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[Unseen work]

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Not really. There’s been a clear difference in the wide midfield players being pushed up to form more of a front three instead of being deep and narrow. Whilst we’ve always had a second forward plating pretty deep it has also become more of a three in midfield rather than a two up front.

In Will Fish’s interview last week he talked about changing from a 442 to a 433.

I’m glad he has changed it. We might as well recognise he’s changed it.

From the way we set up against St Mirren to Ross County last week I really don’t think there’s much difference other than the players.

We had a right hand side of Whittaker and Jair, a centre mid in Levitt that struggles to press the game and Triantis who made his debut and conceded a pen. Marcondes was dropping deep and in the holes but wasn’t effective and Maolida still finding his feet.

Even at half time when Moriah Welsh came on we saw a difference.

People were also saying in the Forfar game it was much more of a 4231 with Molotnikov behind Doidge.

[blackpoolhibs]

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It has nothing to do with formation. Eventually we will all figure that out.

When you could drive a bus through the middle of our team, it was all about formations. when you dont have the ingredients to make a ommelete, dont try and make one.

We were so easy to play through with the way he set us up, irrespective of who we had available.

Now we have better players, we can play more freely, but hanging out some players to dry with no help certainly did do that, and just look at Levitt playing a bit further forward, look at what he can contribute with the cover behind.

No amount of playing Vente as a midfielder helps better than actually playing someone who's played midfield and is comfortable in midfield.

Another who's been getting it tight, for not actually playing where he should have been.

Some games we had way too many forward thinking players on the park with little defending done from them, leaving the rest of the team to do the defending, it was no wonder we lost so many goals.

I do agree with the influx of better players we now look a completely different side, but in my opinion he made us easy to score against, set us up wrong and lost too many points early in the season with some ridiculous substitutions and system he played.

Hopefully we are now through this and with this new money, it wont matter who we bring on, or what system we play we will be that good it wont make any difference.

[Brightside]

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It really does but there’s no point going round in circles with you again about it.

Im going with the UEFA Pro Licensed coach on this one.

Even on lower level courses you spend about 20% looking at starting formations.

I watched an u14 game a few weeks ago. A parent was shouting at their kid to stop going forward as "you're playing the 6 in a 433". The boy was doing exactly what the coach had instructed in that situation.
When they lost the ball they would quickly move into 2 compact banks of 4. There is NO match formation anymore. Hasn't been for years its just an easy way to report on starting line ups.

The game isn't played like a basic FM simulation. We didn't lose games because of a 442 starting line up - and it wouldn't have been any better if that starting line up was 433. We swapped Jair for Maolida, and probably Campbell (or a dropping in Vente) for Emi. That's a huge power up.

[Carheenlea]

The article a couple of days ago on The Hibs Observer had a a quite comprehensive study of the two formations, and while the changes were not hugely radical it pointed more towards the inclusion of a proper number 10 being a big factor in the upturn of fortunes.

https://www.hibsobserver.co.uk/tacti...ing-personnel/

[Brightside]

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The article a couple of days ago on The Hibs Observer had a a quite comprehensive study of the two formations, and while the changes were not hugely radical it pointed more towards the inclusion of a proper number 10 being a big factor in the upturn of fortunes.

https://www.hibsobserver.co.uk/tacti...ing-personnel/

The guy that does that is excellent. He's been doing the same stuff on twitter for a few years.

[The Modfather]

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It would only be using hindsight if nobody had bothered there arse to flag up these criticisms when the situation was ongoing. People criticised the 4-4-2 from the get go and outlined where it would fail and it panned out pretty much exactly as expected. People discussed the 4-3-3 and the improvements that switching to it would likely make, it’s panned out pretty much as expected.

Yes there’s been an increase in the level of ability, but the setup was a massive issue and something we should never have been using. Thankfully we’re now playing a different system that suits the players we have and we look miles better for it.

There absolutely is a subtext that his system cost us points previously. I’ve absolutely no doubt that it did because it limited the abilities of near enough all our best players.

I’ve yet to see a set up proposed that would have mitigated some of the fundamental issues in the team we had pre January.

What formation would have mitigated our only right sided options for a month being Whittaker & Tavares? With no subs able to replace them other than out the frying pan and into the fire options like Stevenson at RB in the Motherwell game.

Or a midfield 3 of Levit, Newell & Jeggo. With Delfierre & Rudi the options to change it.

433 would have given an extra body in the midfield, would have allowed Youan to play wide left and Vente up top. That’s fair in terms of the positives. However it wouldn’t have mitigated things like any basic cross into the box and you have a good chance of scoring. Whittaker our only option at RB. Or the fact that if teams double up on Youan as our only threat then Vente will be isolated. He doesn’t look suited to creating his own chances. He’s then relying on a midfield 3 of Jeggo, Levitt & Newell as well as Tavares on the right to create for him.

I don’t see any real fundamental formational changes accounting for our upturn in performances and form. Pushing the two wide men higher and Emiliano doing a similar role to the role that existed before he joined in the 442 is more of a minor tweak than a radical change IMO. Half the first team changing in Rocky, Miller, Moriah-Welsh, Emiliano, Maolida & Boyle. As well as not having a bench full of kids is the real game changer IMO.

Up until the St Johnstone game, where our performances got progressively worse culminating in that St Mirren Performance, we were 4th or 5th and realistically expecting to go above Hearts that weekend. 442 was far from perfect but up to that point it was doing ok. We then ended up having no options but to play Whittaker & Tavares every week with a bench padded out by kids. It’s no coincidence IMO that our limited options also coincided with the drop off in performances and fall down the league. Which was halted when we were able to change 6 players in our starting 11.

[WeeRussell]

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There is NO match formation anymore. Hasn't been for years it’s just an easy way to report on starting line ups.

While you may have some solid points, that part is completely untrue. Some of your preceding and following comments suggest surely you don’t believe that either?

[superfurryhibby]

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Im going with the UEFA Pro Licensed coach on this one.

Even on lower level courses you spend about 20% looking at starting formations.

I watched an u14 game a few weeks ago. A parent was shouting at their kid to stop going forward as "you're playing the 6 in a 433". The boy was doing exactly what the coach had instructed in that situation.
When they lost the ball they would quickly move into 2 compact banks of 4. There is NO match formation anymore. Hasn't been for years its just an easy way to report on starting line ups.

The game isn't played like a basic FM simulation. We didn't lose games because of a 442 starting line up - and it wouldn't have been any better if that starting line up was 433. We swapped Jair for Maolida, and probably Campbell (or a dropping in Vente) for Emi. That's a huge power up.

It's amazing with all that coaching, football insight and advantage over the people who just have to watch the dross that managers ever get it wrong, how can that even happen?

It would have been better if Monty had changed the formation earlier and we definitely did drop points because of it. Most folk see that and they don't need a pro licence to do so.

[Donegal Hibby]

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Not really. There’s been a clear difference in the wide midfield players being pushed up to form more of a front three instead of being deep and narrow. Whilst we’ve always had a second forward plating pretty deep it has also become more of a three in midfield rather than a two up front.

In Will Fish’s interview last week he talked about changing from a 442 to a 433.

I’m glad he has changed it. We might as well recognise he’s changed it.

Agree with this , Boyle looks a lot more like his old self playing further up wide right , Vente also looks better playing higher up than he was which he's mentioned himself. Extra man in midfield has made a big difference too .

I think we are all glad he's changed it even though it took him longer to do it than it should have .
https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.c...otball-4532206

[B.H.F.C]

I agree with him that the biggest change has been the personnel.

I’d said all along that I thought he should have changed but I don’t think it would have seen the level of improvement we’ve seen over the last few weeks when we were relying on some of the players we were at that point.

[superfurryhibby]

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Agree with this , Boyle looks a lot more like his old self playing further up wide right , Vente also looks better playing higher up than he was which he's mentioned himself. Extra man in midfield has made a big difference too .

I think we are all glad he's changed it even though it took him longer to do it than it should have .
https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.c...otball-4532206

Agreed, Boyle was wasted playing through the middle.

[Stubbsy90+2]

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Im going with the UEFA Pro Licensed coach on this one.

Even on lower level courses you spend about 20% looking at starting formations.

I watched an u14 game a few weeks ago. A parent was shouting at their kid to stop going forward as "you're playing the 6 in a 433". The boy was doing exactly what the coach had instructed in that situation.
When they lost the ball they would quickly move into 2 compact banks of 4. There is NO match formation anymore. Hasn't been for years its just an easy way to report on starting line ups.

The game isn't played like a basic FM simulation. We didn't lose games because of a 442 starting line up - and it wouldn't have been any better if that starting line up was 433. We swapped Jair for Maolida, and probably Campbell (or a dropping in Vente) for Emi. That's a huge power up.

Go with whoever you want, I’ll go with my own opinion

[Brightside]

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While you may have some solid points, that part is completely untrue. Some of your preceding and following comments suggest surely you don’t believe that either?

I'm just saying claiming a formation just simplifies it too much. We never stick to a starting line up. We never ever just had 2 people in the middle of the park, but people saying its 442 therefore there are only 2. Monty and others have explained how thats not the case. Fish saying we shipped to 433.....but did we? So saying its 4231 , 442, 433 etc doesnt really matter. Its what we do when we have the ball, and what we do when we don't have it, and how we play against the different styles of other teams.

I really enjoyed the game v Dundee - even the first half. They made it very difficult for us to break them down and its was only when we became more adventurous and quicker in our passing with Levitt (including plenty mistakes) that we made inroads on them. Just a different player offering something else.

[Smartie]

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I'm just saying claiming a formation just simplifies it too much. We never stick to a starting line up. We never ever just had 2 people in the middle of the park, but people saying its 442 therefore there are only 2. Monty and others have explained how thats not the case. Fish saying we shipped to 433.....but did we? So saying its 4231 , 442, 433 etc doesnt really matter. Its what we do when we have the ball, and what we do when we don't have it, and how we play against the different styles of other teams.

I really enjoyed the game v Dundee - even the first half. They made it very difficult for us to break them down and its was only when we became more adventurous and quicker in our passing with Levitt (including plenty mistakes) that we made inroads on them. Just a different player offering something else.

I sort of agree with you... but for our time under Monty does it not really boil down to one player in our team who could either be a forward who drops deep or a central midfielder who plays further forward to the other 2, the rest of which has been much the same throughout? Turns out Vente wasn't great at that role, Marcondes on his day is, Levitt changed the game when he played there and put in a shift on Saturday?

Biggest change for me is the improvement in the player next to Newell deep in midfield (I didn't fancy Levitt there at all) as well as Boyle finding form, Maolida being an excellent player and Vente getting a decent run in the position that should suit him best?

[HibsObserver]

Thanks for linking to this, Brightside - and thanks to all for the kind words on the Monty interview, and in general - it's much appreciated. One of the main benefits of doing what we do is being able to produce long-read articles rather than having to trim them down for word counts/space as we would for traditional print newspapers. I firmly believe it allows us to fully convey the subject's thoughts rather than having to trim down quotes or not include as much context as we'd like and as a result I think the fans get a better deal.

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Realiy good interview with more details added by the Hibs Observer boys.

https://www.hibsobserver.co.uk/inter...ntity-tactics/

A few points have been made that I'll address below, but just want to thank everyone for their continued support of the Hibs Observer.

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Can anyone copy and paste the article? Don’t subscribe to it.

I can understand people not wanting, or not being able, to subscribe, but it would be appreciated if folk weren't asking others to copy and paste our work here. Our raison d'être is producing high-quality, in-depth coverage of Hibs that you won't get anywhere else, and we can only do that by having a dedicated family of subscribers. We feel that the cost of subscriptions - and we have a couple of subscription options at the moment - is about as fair as it can get, given the effort and time we put into our coverage, and what other titles are asking readers to pay for subscriptions. I reckon with the way the media is going, subscription models are the future. Totally get that it's not for everyone, but paying for our content does help us keep doing what we're doing.

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Well worth a subscription. Better than anything you’ll read or hear about Hibs in the MSM.

Thanks Carheenlea, and glad you're enjoying it so far.

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It is mainstream media though, it’s a Newsquest title.

Indeed, Newsquest is our parent company, and we've never hidden that or pretended otherwise. What we're trying to do is offer something a good bit different to what the likes of the Evening News, the Daily Record, The Sun etc. are doing. No one else in the media is covering Hibs in as much detail as we are. So we may be MSM in name, but I reckon we're doing things our own way.

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Was it not £12 for a year on £1 for the first 6 months on promo?

That was our introductory offer, yes. Don't want to circumvent the forum rules on advertising etc. but we have a similar 'try-it-and-see' deal on at the moment for a four-month period.

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The guy that does that is excellent. He's been doing the same stuff on twitter for a few years.

He is; we're lucky to have him. I'm obviously biased, but I think his videos with the tactics board are a nice touch - especially for folk who can't be bothered with xG and the like but are still interested in tactics.

[WeeRussell]

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I'm just saying claiming a formation just simplifies it too much. We never stick to a starting line up. We never ever just had 2 people in the middle of the park, but people saying its 442 therefore there are only 2. Monty and others have explained how thats not the case. Fish saying we shipped to 433.....but did we? So saying its 4231 , 442, 433 etc doesnt really matter. Its what we do when we have the ball, and what we do when we don't have it, and how we play against the different styles of other teams.

I really enjoyed the game v Dundee - even the first half. They made it very difficult for us to break them down and its was only when we became more adventurous and quicker in our passing with Levitt (including plenty mistakes) that we made inroads on them. Just a different player offering something else.

I agree that better players in the right positions are far more important. Just not the bit about formations only existing for reporting on starting 11s 👍

[Brightside]

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I agree that better players in the right positions are far more important. Just not the bit about formations only existing for reporting on starting 11s 👍

Its a great discussion anyway, and makes a nice change for it be a civil one.

[Tyler Durden]

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I'm just saying claiming a formation just simplifies it too much. We never stick to a starting line up. We never ever just had 2 people in the middle of the park, but people saying its 442 therefore there are only 2. Monty and others have explained how thats not the case. Fish saying we shipped to 433.....but did we? So saying its 4231 , 442, 433 etc doesnt really matter. Its what we do when we have the ball, and what we do when we don't have it, and how we play against the different styles of other teams.

I really enjoyed the game v Dundee - even the first half. They made it very difficult for us to break them down and its was only when we became more adventurous and quicker in our passing with Levitt (including plenty mistakes) that we made inroads on them. Just a different player offering something else.

I think a lot of people now understand that we'll have a shape when in possession and potentially a different shape/approach when out of possession. And that traditional formation labels are a bit too simplistic.

But equally when people were asking for a change in Monty's approach, to get to more of an obvious 4-3-3 a large part of that was about improving the centre of midfield. For a lot of games when we played the 4-4-2 our shape when out of possession was terrible. We had Newell and Levitt outnumbered and we were too easy to play against. Prime example being the January defeat at home to Rangers when the first 2 goals come from our awful midfield set up and Rangers players have acres of time/space.

I wouldn't accept that it's only the new additions to the squad that could have improved that. Monty could have gone to a 3-5-2 or he could have played Jeggo and Newell deeper with Levitt in front of them.

Basically Monty deserved to be criticised for naive choices during Dec/January and he now deserves credit for fixing things.

[Sergio sledge]

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I’ve yet to see a set up proposed that would have mitigated some of the fundamental issues in the team we had pre January.

What formation would have mitigated our only right sided options for a month being Whittaker & Tavares? With no subs able to replace them other than out the frying pan and into the fire options like Stevenson at RB in the Motherwell game.

Or a midfield 3 of Levit, Newell & Jeggo. With Delfierre & Rudi the options to change it.

433 would have given an extra body in the midfield, would have allowed Youan to play wide left and Vente up top. That’s fair in terms of the positives. However it wouldn’t have mitigated things like any basic cross into the box and you have a good chance of scoring. Whittaker our only option at RB. Or the fact that if teams double up on Youan as our only threat then Vente will be isolated. He doesn’t look suited to creating his own chances. He’s then relying on a midfield 3 of Jeggo, Levitt & Newell as well as Tavares on the right to create for him.

I don’t see any real fundamental formational changes accounting for our upturn in performances and form. Pushing the two wide men higher and Emiliano doing a similar role to the role that existed before he joined in the 442 is more of a minor tweak than a radical change IMO. Half the first team changing in Rocky, Miller, Moriah-Welsh, Emiliano, Maolida & Boyle. As well as not having a bench full of kids is the real game changer IMO.

Up until the St Johnstone game, where our performances got progressively worse culminating in that St Mirren Performance, we were 4th or 5th and realistically expecting to go above Hearts that weekend. 442 was far from perfect but up to that point it was doing ok. We then ended up having no options but to play Whittaker & Tavares every week with a bench padded out by kids. It’s no coincidence IMO that our limited options also coincided with the drop off in performances and fall down the league. Which was halted when we were able to change 6 players in our starting 11.

:agree

Our options on the right during that run were so poor, it was obvious (and culminated in the St Mirren game) that opposition managers were targeting the right because of it. That's not Whittaker's fault, he's a 16 year old boy who's not ready for the first team, but he was pretty much our only option.

Perhaps Monty felt he needed that body in front of Whittaker to offer more protection to him that was afforded with a 4 in midfield and felt he couldn't change as it would make it worse? The only options we had in that RM/RW role were Youan and Jair and both were tried, and both turned in abysmal performances.

Having Miller and Boyle back, with Cadden back in the mix now makes our right hand side so much stronger and has made a massive difference to the team.

That combined with the change to 3 midfielders and the much improved options we have in the team has made a significant difference and there is absolutely no guarantee that a 433 still containing Whittaker, Triantis, Levitt, Jair and Youan would have made any difference to the team.

[Tyler Durden]

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The guy that does that is excellent. He's been doing the same stuff on twitter for a few years.

akki_tiwari17 is another good account on Twitter who has started doing some great analysis threads on Hibs.

[neil7908]

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I agree with him that the biggest change has been the personnel.

I’d said all along that I thought he should have changed but I don’t think it would have seen the level of improvement we’ve seen over the last few weeks when we were relying on some of the players we were at that point.

I think this is spot on. It has likely to helped a bit but it's also worth noting most folk on here were desperate for us to go 433. We've not been playing that, it's been 4231.

That formation a few weeks ago could have looked like the below:

Marshall

Whittaker Fish Hanlon Stevenson

Newell Levitt/Jeggo

Tavares Campbell Youan

Vente/Doidge

I don't care what formation you play, that team doesn't win many games.

[WeeRussell]

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Its a great discussion anyway, and makes a nice change for it be a civil one.

Give it a page or two.. the cavalry haven’t arrived yet 😁

[Baader]

Not only to get overly carried away and obsessed with formations but they do matter. Craig Levein got flack for playing a 4-6-0 once...

Monty's system was wrong for the personnel he had to work with and was exposed. Players coming on have been better but the change in shape and his eventual receptiveness in deploying it after saying he wouldn't is significant too.

[Brightside]

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Not only to get overly carried away and obsessed with formations but they do matter. Craig Levein got flack for playing a 4-6-0 once...

Monty's system was wrong for the personnel he had to work with and was exposed. Players coming on have been better but the change in shape and his eventual receptiveness in deploying it after saying he wouldn't is significant too.

You didn't agree with it - that doesnt make it wrong. Again I think he's covered that well in the article.

[007]

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Not only to get overly carried away and obsessed with formations but they do matter. Craig Levein got flack for playing a 4-6-0 once...

Monty's system was wrong for the personnel he had to work with and was exposed. Players coming on have been better but the change in shape and his eventual receptiveness in deploying it after saying he wouldn't is significant too.

Did he ever actually say he wouldn't change formation (shape)? Was it not more that we wouldn't change how we play meaning possession based out from the back as opposed to direct?

[GreenNWhiteArmy]

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Thanks for linking to this, Brightside - and thanks to all for the kind words on the Monty interview, and in general - it's much appreciated. One of the main benefits of doing what we do is being able to produce long-read articles rather than having to trim them down for word counts/space as we would for traditional print newspapers. I firmly believe it allows us to fully convey the subject's thoughts rather than having to trim down quotes or not include as much context as we'd like and as a result I think the fans get a better deal.



A few points have been made that I'll address below, but just want to thank everyone for their continued support of the Hibs Observer.



I can understand people not wanting, or not being able, to subscribe, but it would be appreciated if folk weren't asking others to copy and paste our work here. Our raison d'être is producing high-quality, in-depth coverage of Hibs that you won't get anywhere else, and we can only do that by having a dedicated family of subscribers. We feel that the cost of subscriptions - and we have a couple of subscription options at the moment - is about as fair as it can get, given the effort and time we put into our coverage, and what other titles are asking readers to pay for subscriptions. I reckon with the way the media is going, subscription models are the future. Totally get that it's not for everyone, but paying for our content does help us keep doing what we're doing.


That was our introductory offer, yes. Don't want to circumvent the forum rules on advertising etc. but we have a similar 'try-it-and-see' deal on at the moment

I've just signed up. Looking forward to reading your content

[worcesterhibby]

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Thanks for linking to this, Brightside - and thanks to all for the kind words on the Monty interview, and in general - it's much appreciated. One of the main benefits of doing what we do is being able to produce long-read articles rather than having to trim them down for word counts/space as we would for traditional print newspapers. I firmly believe it allows us to fully convey the subject's thoughts rather than having to trim down quotes or not include as much context as we'd like and as a result I think the fans get a better deal.

Just a quick one from me on Hibs Observer (I am a subscriber). I would love to see a detailed expose of the refereeing bias in the Scottish top flight. fouls to yellow cards ratio/ number of penaltys given for soft VAR shouts against us and denied, or more likely not even looked at when for us. The treatment of Martin Boyle by referees compared to the treatment of Hearts and Rangers players when it comes to "contact" in the box. etc etc

I know you have done pieces on individual decisions, such as the referee analysis after the Aberdeen game, but it really needs some proper journalistic time put into producing an overview to expose what many of us beleive is happening week on week, season on season. None of the rest of the MSM will touch it because they either pander to the Old Firm or don't want to rock the boat. I would hope Hibs Observer was different.

So far your work covering Hibs has been excellent and very much a step up from Ther Daily Ranger, The Evening Jambo and all the rest and I thank you for that. Now please go to the next level and do some real analysis and investigative journalism around the car crash that is refereeing in Scotland.