4-2-3-1

[Hibee Mac]

Can we stop persisting with this formation? It's bloody awful with the players we have and this is now two managers in a row who have persisted with it beyond reason.

I think it comes down to a few things:

Our two central midfielders - whenever we play this formation our two in the middle sit so deep that it's like we are playing 6 defenders and 4 attackers. There's no link in the middle and our shape is all wrong. It happened under Hecky and same again under Ross.

Our wide men - Boyle is brilliant, however on the other side we have Horgan (and previously the man who's name shall not be named... rhymes with jam telly). When playing wide left they are too separated from the striker, Horgan also has the habit of standing still on the touch line instead of making a penetrating run in behind. We don't have a good enough wide left attacker.

Urgency - I know this should be less to do with a formation but I don't know what it is.... Whenever we play this formation (usually at the start of our recent games) we are lethargic, don't press the ball and insist on lumping it up top.

Rant over .... Can we please try a different formation though Mr Ross??

[The Wireless]

Not quite sure what the formation had to do with McGregor losing out for the 1st goal and Gray getting skinned for the 2nd. However respect your opinion. I did happen to notice Omeonga cross for Doidges equaliser and we scored 2 goals with 1 Striker on the pitch whilst on the introduction of 2 we failed to score. It is all subjective.

[MWHIBBIES]

442 isnt great either. Rangers murdered us.

[Nicho87]

Doidge too often looked isolated and expected to press an entire back four.

Said on way home would much prefer a flat 4-3-3

Allan would be the one to drop out.

The front 3 would stay high, attack attack attack

[Hibee Mac]

Doidge too often looked isolated and expected to press an entire back four.

Said on way home would much prefer a flat 4-3-3

Allan would be the one to drop out.

The front 3 would stay high, attack attack attack

This is also what I'd go for. I actually agree with the poster above that when more strikers were brought on we actually regressed.

Don't think 2 strikers is the solution, just want us to stop playing this formation.

[ancient hibee]

Boyle and Horgan were far too wide.St.Mirren just waltzed straight through the midfield(like every other team we play).

[Pretty Boy]

4231 is a good formation. We just don't know how to play it nor do we have the players to do so.

A shaky defence, only one decent wide player and a midfield that don't seem able to grasp the positional requirements is a huge part of the reason why we have won only 1 league game all season playing that formation.

St Mirren walked through us for 25 minutes today as did Hamilton a few weeks back. We have got away with it, to some extent, on both occasions because both teams are essentially rubbish and have tired after expending a lot of energy pressing us.

[Smartie]

I didn't really feel like the formation influenced the goals for or against us. Their goals were pretty poor defensive lapses by us and our goals were pretty decent attacking play around that box that could have arisen from any formation playing any way.

If you look at the match as a whole though, the formation was a poor choice and it was badly executed. It didn't seem to offer us anything and it never does ie it wasn't strong in any department. Our defence was constantly exposed, our wide players struggled to find themselves 1 on 1 with an opponent and struggled to create from out wide. Doidge was isolated and we didn't ever dominate the midfield. I suppose we got a bit more of the ball in the second half but did very little with it.

We simply don't have the players to play this way and the formation needs binned. It is pretty worrying that Ross has watched recent games, seen us struggle with it and still went with it again.

Unfortunately he seems to want to play this way although it is hard to suggest an alternative that isn't equally deficient in some way.

I was also pretty disappointed with McNulty and was struggling to see how he fits into a team.

Maybe we need to play Whittaker in the holding role, which he did very well the other night?

God knows what we do at Ibrox.

It's annoying, because we have some very good players at our disposal.

[Hibee Mac]

I didn't really feel like the formation influenced the goals for or against us. Their goals were pretty poor defensive lapses by us and our goals were pretty decent attacking play around that box that could have arisen from any formation playing any way.

If you look at the match as a whole though, the formation was a poor choice and it was badly executed. It didn't seem to offer us anything and it never does ie it wasn't strong in any department. Our defence was constantly exposed, our wide players struggled to find themselves 1 on 1 with an opponent and struggled to create from out wide. Doidge was isolated and we didn't ever dominate the midfield. I suppose we got a bit more of the ball in the second half but did very little with it.

We simply don't have the players to play this way and the formation needs binned. It is pretty worrying that Ross has watched recent games, seen us struggle with it and still went with it again.

Unfortunately he seems to want to play this way although it is hard to suggest an alternative that isn't equally deficient in some way.

I was also pretty disappointed with McNulty and was struggling to see how he fits into a team.

Maybe we need to play Whittaker in the holding role, which he did very well the other night?

God knows what we do at Ibrox.

It's annoying, because we have some very good players at our disposal.

Agree completely. That's the worrying part is that Ross is seeing this but not changing it until the second half of every game.

[CMurdoch]

Newell and Omeonga played the 2 very well until Newell had to go of injured after 51 minutes.
At that point it started to look a mess with the ball either played square or hoofed/shelled to the front guys and that was despite having the best player on the park in Docherty who was probably a little frustrated by his new colleagues lack of urgency hence his attempted tutelage of them.

[AlbertK86]

I didn't really feel like the formation influenced the goals for or against us. Their goals were pretty poor defensive lapses by us and our goals were pretty decent attacking play around that box that could have arisen from any formation playing any way.

If you look at the match as a whole though, the formation was a poor choice and it was badly executed. It didn't seem to offer us anything and it never does ie it wasn't strong in any department. Our defence was constantly exposed, our wide players struggled to find themselves 1 on 1 with an opponent and struggled to create from out wide. Doidge was isolated and we didn't ever dominate the midfield. I suppose we got a bit more of the ball in the second half but did very little with it.

We simply don't have the players to play this way and the formation needs binned. It is pretty worrying that Ross has watched recent games, seen us struggle with it and still went with it again.

Unfortunately he seems to want to play this way although it is hard to suggest an alternative that isn't equally deficient in some way.

I was also pretty disappointed with McNulty and was struggling to see how he fits into a team.

Maybe we need to play Whittaker in the holding role, which he did very well the other night?

God knows what we do at Ibrox.

It's annoying, because we have some very good players at our disposal.

I’d play Whittaker at ibrox I the holding roll.

His experience will be vital.

Newell or Hallberg in beside him and Omeonga.

Pity Docherty can’t play cos he is exactly what we need against them


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[Real Emerald]

Maybe that’s what it was meant to be but for most of the game it looked like 4-2-4. Our midfield 2 we’re getting swamped and as soon as we lost possession our dodgy looking back 4 were immediately under pressure. I though when we went 2 down JR would have tried to reorganise but he persisted and we got back to 2-2.

Regardless of drawing level it seemed a bizarre formation to persist with for so long. It wasn’t working and we were fortunate not to be further behind.

[J-C]

Why was Newell playing very deep as a DM, the game just passed him by totally, Horgan is like a man down and even more so in this formation, plays high up the ground and can't hold onto the ball, this then puts pressure on the other midfielders. It's a good system but we dont have players good enough to play it.

[Scooter]

4-3-1-2

I think would suit the players we have

Stevenson
Hanlon
Jackson
McGinn

Newell
Omenonga
Docherty

Allan

McNulty
Dodge

Leaves out boyle which you just dont want to do

[Smartie]

4-3-1-2

I think would suit the players we have

Stevenson
Hanlon
Jackson
McGinn

Newell
Omenonga
Docherty

Allan

McNulty
Dodge

Leaves out boyle which you just dont want to do

Sticking Boyle in there for McNulty pretty much gets you my team.

I might be tempted to have Whittaker in place of Allan, Whittaker holding and Newell, Omeonga and Docherty buzzing about.