IT worked pretty well for a while but now Albion need a change.
Not of manager, I hasten to add. It is the system which needs altering if the Seagulls are to arrest a run of three straight League defeats at Mark McGhee's old club Millwall on Saturday. McGhee admitted as much after an absence of firepower was exposed yet again.
A first blank sheet of the season emphasised the shortcomings up front following the frustrating failure to boost the strike force during the transfer window.
continued...
Alex Revell would have found himself on the bench if Albion had managed to buy two of their three targets, Orient's Jabo Ibehre, Barnet's Tresor Kandol and Aaron McLean from Grays.
Instead, with Gary Hart ruled out by a recurrence of ankle trouble, the former Braintree goal machine found himself as the only central forward in the 4-3-3 formation used so far by McGhee.
It was a big ask, too big as it turned out. An equaliser looked more likely once Jake Robinson provided Revell with some company, to the exclusion of the disappointing Alex Frutos.
"We are asking a lot of Alex Revell," McGhee acknowledged. "He has just come from non-League.
"I think it would have been a great game to have Revell and Jake coming off the bench.
"If we'd signed two strikers that would have happened and, even if we'd been losing the game 1-0, that might have made the difference, two fresh young legs coming on with 20 minutes to go.
"We've played the same way now for a lot of games and generally it has worked quite well with the personnel we have.
"Maybe now we will try 4-4-2. We have got to seriously consider going back to that. Our two wide players, Cox and Loft, looked as likely as any players on the pitch to create something."
The busy probing of little Dean Cox, both initially in the centre of midfield and then on the left wing once the tactics were adjusted, was one of two big pluses.
The other was the outstanding display by Michel Kuipers, which leaves McGhee with a much more difficult decision than whether to change the formation.
It would be hard on Wayne Henderson if he now misses out but Kuipers could not have done much more to stake a claim.
He performed considerably better on the pitch than off it. The dehydrated Dutchman took some time to deliver for a random drugs test after the match.
Any one of the Albion players might have been obliged to provide a urine sample but, given his country's liberal policies and some remarkable saves, the doping controllers could have been forgiven for deliberately targeting Kuipers.
Cruelly, the best of several fine stops came in the build up to the goal midway through the first half which secured a second successive win for Bristol.
Kuipers somehow parried a close-range shot by the disbelieving Phil Jevons after Jennison Myrie-Williams had tricked his way past Joel Lynch and Adam El-Abd.
Unfortunately, the ball broke invitingly for Scott Brown, replacing City's injured top scorer Enoch Showunmi, to slot in.
It was not the only time City's forwards were left holding their heads in amazement.
Twice in the first half Kuipers acrobatically kept out goalbound efforts from outside the area by Jevons.
His second-best save came just after the break. He stayed on his feet, got his angles just right and spread himself to block Myrie-Williams' shot for a corner at his near post when the youngster was clean through.
Albion, despite the rallying meeting called by injured captain Charlie Oatway on Friday, looked low on confidence in the first half.
Their second-half response to falling behind for the first time this season was encouraging, if not especially threatening.
Richard Carpenter came closest to prising a point with a crisply struck drive from 25 yards which Adriano Basso, an onlooker in comparison to Kuipers, was at full-stretch to claw behind.
Robinson, released by Revell, could not squeeze a shot past Basso in the closing stages, the only occasion Albion really threatened inside the opposition penalty area.
That, incidentally, was one of the great frustrations for McGhee, the rest of his coaching staff and the team-mates of Colin Kazim-Richards.
Sheffield United's umpteenth forward signing was a reluctant penalty box predator, preferring instead to sit deep in search of the spectacular.
Albion, unlike the Blades, cannot afford quantity. They can barely afford just a touch more quality and the hope now is that Ibehre or somebody arrives on loan before the transfer window opens again in January.
Not of manager, I hasten to add. It is the system which needs altering if the Seagulls are to arrest a run of three straight League defeats at Mark McGhee's old club Millwall on Saturday. McGhee admitted as much after an absence of firepower was exposed yet again.
A first blank sheet of the season emphasised the shortcomings up front following the frustrating failure to boost the strike force during the transfer window.
continued...
Alex Revell would have found himself on the bench if Albion had managed to buy two of their three targets, Orient's Jabo Ibehre, Barnet's Tresor Kandol and Aaron McLean from Grays.
Instead, with Gary Hart ruled out by a recurrence of ankle trouble, the former Braintree goal machine found himself as the only central forward in the 4-3-3 formation used so far by McGhee.
It was a big ask, too big as it turned out. An equaliser looked more likely once Jake Robinson provided Revell with some company, to the exclusion of the disappointing Alex Frutos.
"We are asking a lot of Alex Revell," McGhee acknowledged. "He has just come from non-League.
"I think it would have been a great game to have Revell and Jake coming off the bench.
"If we'd signed two strikers that would have happened and, even if we'd been losing the game 1-0, that might have made the difference, two fresh young legs coming on with 20 minutes to go.
"We've played the same way now for a lot of games and generally it has worked quite well with the personnel we have.
"Maybe now we will try 4-4-2. We have got to seriously consider going back to that. Our two wide players, Cox and Loft, looked as likely as any players on the pitch to create something."
The busy probing of little Dean Cox, both initially in the centre of midfield and then on the left wing once the tactics were adjusted, was one of two big pluses.
The other was the outstanding display by Michel Kuipers, which leaves McGhee with a much more difficult decision than whether to change the formation.
It would be hard on Wayne Henderson if he now misses out but Kuipers could not have done much more to stake a claim.
He performed considerably better on the pitch than off it. The dehydrated Dutchman took some time to deliver for a random drugs test after the match.
Any one of the Albion players might have been obliged to provide a urine sample but, given his country's liberal policies and some remarkable saves, the doping controllers could have been forgiven for deliberately targeting Kuipers.
Cruelly, the best of several fine stops came in the build up to the goal midway through the first half which secured a second successive win for Bristol.
Kuipers somehow parried a close-range shot by the disbelieving Phil Jevons after Jennison Myrie-Williams had tricked his way past Joel Lynch and Adam El-Abd.
Unfortunately, the ball broke invitingly for Scott Brown, replacing City's injured top scorer Enoch Showunmi, to slot in.
It was not the only time City's forwards were left holding their heads in amazement.
Twice in the first half Kuipers acrobatically kept out goalbound efforts from outside the area by Jevons.
His second-best save came just after the break. He stayed on his feet, got his angles just right and spread himself to block Myrie-Williams' shot for a corner at his near post when the youngster was clean through.
Albion, despite the rallying meeting called by injured captain Charlie Oatway on Friday, looked low on confidence in the first half.
Their second-half response to falling behind for the first time this season was encouraging, if not especially threatening.
Richard Carpenter came closest to prising a point with a crisply struck drive from 25 yards which Adriano Basso, an onlooker in comparison to Kuipers, was at full-stretch to claw behind.
Robinson, released by Revell, could not squeeze a shot past Basso in the closing stages, the only occasion Albion really threatened inside the opposition penalty area.
That, incidentally, was one of the great frustrations for McGhee, the rest of his coaching staff and the team-mates of Colin Kazim-Richards.
Sheffield United's umpteenth forward signing was a reluctant penalty box predator, preferring instead to sit deep in search of the spectacular.
Albion, unlike the Blades, cannot afford quantity. They can barely afford just a touch more quality and the hope now is that Ibehre or somebody arrives on loan before the transfer window opens again in January.
