Lynch -being put up front, Why?

[Theatre of Trees]

I can say EXACTLY the same to you. He did not go up front when the subsitution was made. He went up front later.

Well that's two of us who witnessed it. Lynch went to a left wing back role after the double substitution. He was injured making a run from that position where the defender forced him to go inside on his weaker right foot where he shot just outside the D on the centre. This wasn't too long after the double substitution so may have caused the confusion in the first place.

But I distinctly remember Lynch going to left back because I was working out what MM was doing and making a note of how our shape was changing unlike the fat blokes around me who were just whinging without looking.

 

[Easy 10]

You should have put FACT - that's the official seal of total NSC guesswork

Could've done.
I think the FACTS spoke for themselves though.

 

[London Irish]

What did it for me was him slating Kuipers in the paper weeks before the season started - Im not going to pretend to be a FDM fan - however this showed me Mcghee learnt nothing from the season before and any chance of giving him another chance went.

"Slating" Kuipers? WTF?

 

[Easy 10]

Well that's two of us who witnessed it. Lynch went to a left wing back role after the double substitution. He was injured making a run from that position where the defender forced him to go inside on his weaker right foot where he shot just outside the D on the centre. This wasn't too long after the double substitution so may have caused the confusion in the first place.

But I distinctly remember Lynch going to left back because I was working out what MM was doing and making a note of how our shape was changing unlike the fat blokes around me who were just whinging without looking.

It all comes down to interpretation then.
You say wingback, but he didn't track back ONCE after El Abd had come on. Lynch stayed high up the pitch and (initially) on the left, but was soon basically playing as a striker.

What this whole frigging thing boils down to though is the indisputable FACT that at 3-1 down, McGhee took off a striker (who'd set up our goal), and replaced him with a defender. Or is that in any doubt as well ?

 

[London Irish]

Well that's two of us who witnessed it. Lynch went to a left wing back role after the double substitution. He was injured making a run from that position where the defender forced him to go inside on his weaker right foot where he shot just outside the D on the centre. This wasn't too long after the double substitution so may have caused the confusion in the first place.

But I distinctly remember Lynch going to left back because I was working out what MM was doing and making a note of how our shape was changing unlike the fat blokes around me who were just whinging without looking.

 

[Theatre of Trees]

It all comes down to interpretation then.
You say wingback, but he didn't track back ONCE after El Abd had come on. Lynch stayed high up the pitch and (initially) on the left, but was soon basically playing as a striker.

What this whole frigging thing boils down to though is the indisputable FACT that at 3-1 down, McGhee took off a striker (who'd set up our goal), and replaced him with a defender. Or is that in any doubt as well ?

I don't think he had time to track back because the injury occured a couple of minutes after the double substitution and we had picked up a little impetus from the initial reshaping.

You're also forgetting we had another forward playing at right back before the substitution. To be honest the reshaping after half time at the back was not working as both Reid and Hart were looking like fishes out of water and the team looked seriously unbalanced at the back and we needed to get some impetus going forward because Revell was isolated and chasing lost causes. Consequently, the choice that has to be made is do we sit back and accept a 3-1 defeat or do we try and push forward to get something back?

Initially the formation went 4-4-1/4-2-3 with Lynch and Reid trying to push forward to pin Crewe back in their own half but this changed again when Lynch injured himself when we seemed to go 3-4-2.

The Revell substitution was about who out of him or Hart would cause the more problems up front, I think if Hart had been replaced people would have accepted it more as he is not seen as a specialist forward whereas Revell is. To be honest I was looking to see if he'd stick Santos up there in the reshuffling and initially forgot about Hart.

In conclusion the double substitution was about reshuffling the team not about replacing like with like which is what those around me seemed to be thinking.

 

[Easy 10]

In conclusion the double substitution was about reshuffling the team not about replacing like with like which is what those around me seemed to be thinking.

As reshuffles go, it was a bit of a dogs dinner all round though wasn't it.

What would've been wrong with playing a 3-4-2 along the lines of:

El Abd / Santos / Lynch
Reid / Chippy / Loft / Cox
Revell / OGH

Not ideal, but then playing with 10 men never is. When Lynch got crocked, we could even have brought on (shock horror) LOWE !

 

[Theatre of Trees]

As reshuffles go, it was a bit of a dogs dinner all round though wasn't it.

What would've been wrong with playing a 3-4-2 along the lines of:

El Abd / Santos / Lynch
Reid / Chippy / Loft / Cox
Revell / OGH

Not ideal, but then playing with 10 men never is. When Lynch got crocked, we could even have brought on (shock horror) LOWE !

Cox as a left wing back. The combination of him and Reid prior to the double substitution left vast holes on that side for Crewe to run in. I'd also noticed a couple of times in the first half his inexperience at picking up runs by the opposition's right back.

 

[Turkey]

Bored with it now to be honest. Some people simply won't hear a WORD against McGhee regardless of what was staring them in the face. Revell came off, El Abd came on, and Lynch was pushed forward, then within a couple of minutes he was playing a striker. I was there. I saw it. It happened right in front of me. I was annoyed.

I WILL speak against McGhee. I have said a number of times I'm not happy with Hammond at the moment. I saw it in front of me, he went to left back.

 

[Easy 10]

Cox as a left wing back. The combination of him and Reid prior to the double substitution left vast holes on that side for Crewe to run in. I'd also noticed a couple of times in the first half his inexperience at picking up runs by the opposition's right back.

As I said, nothings going to be ideal when you're a goal down and a man down. But we know Lynch is a capable leftback, so the onus / priority wouldn't have been on Cox to defend or help Lynch out anyway. We needed goals to get back into the game, and I just cannot see how McGhee's tactical decisions could possibly be construed to have given us the best chance of clawing something back from that game. As it stood, Crewe still had umpteen dangerous breaks through the middle where they could easily have added to their score. We were lucky to get away with 4 in the end.

It was just a mess.

 

[Turkey]

What this whole frigging thing boils down to though is the indisputable FACT that at 3-1 down, McGhee took off a striker (who'd set up our goal), and replaced him with a defender. Or is that in any doubt as well ?

That's not in dispute. However, before this subsitution he'd put Robinson on for Stokes. A striker for a midfielder.

We were getting slaughtered with Reid LB and Hart RB. He made a mistake in the first place - playing Reid LB and Hart RB - but he realised it wasn't working and changed it.

And please f***ing note my criticisms of McGhee. I'm sick and f***ing tired of people telling me what I do and do not think. I don't think he's perfect and never makes a mistake.

 

[Turkey]

As reshuffles go, it was a bit of a dogs dinner all round though wasn't it.

What would've been wrong with playing a 3-4-2 along the lines of:

El Abd / Santos / Lynch
Reid / Chippy / Loft / Cox
Revell / OGH

Not ideal, but then playing with 10 men never is. When Lynch got crocked, we could even have brought on (shock horror) LOWE !

It wasn't that much different to your proposal. In fact, it was even more attacking because it left just two defenders at times as Reid and Lynch pushed forward to support the midfield.

Reid / El Abd / Santos / Lynch
Chippy / Loft / Cox
Robinson / OGH

 

[Theatre of Trees]

But we know Lynch is a capable leftback, so the onus / priority wouldn't have been on Cox to defend or help Lynch out anyway.

Disagree. Lynch cannot deal with two people going forward at once he needs help and that help should come from whoever is on the left hand side.

The whole thing was a mess because we lost a player from the one position we have no way of replacing and had to rejig the side twice in order to make some kind of fix. I'd also add that Crewe were the last team you'd want this to happen to because Gradi has always coached them to make fast, pacy counter attacks using slick passing. If this had been a clogging team we may have done better - who knows.

It was a bizarre game that hinged on two possibly three moments; the free kick, the sending off and the third goal coming 30 seconds after we hit the post.

 

[London Irish]

As I said, nothings going to be ideal

That's about the most sensible thing you've said on this subject, yes, we down to 10 men and the options were not good.

Yet what I don't understand is, given that, your hysterical reaction to what McGhee did, particularly as we generally played quite brightly after the subs were made.

I've looked at your solution, and I'm afraid it's the classic fans' reaction to chasing a deficit, just empty the defence and stick a player up front. I would suggest that could be meat and drink to Crewe's pinpoint passing game which would have exposed the weakness particularly in your left flank.

Now you might respond that McGhee's solution didn't pay off in the end. Fair enough. But have some humility about the possible problems in your own suggested formation and rein in the hysteria. To pretend with any confidence that your formation would have done better is fanciful in the extreme.

 

[Easy 10]

Disagree. Lynch cannot deal with two people going forward at once he needs help and that help should come from whoever is on the left hand side.

The whole thing was a mess because we lost a player from the one position we have no way of replacing and had to rejig the side twice in order to make some kind of fix. I'd also add that Crewe were the last team you'd want this to happen to because Gradi has always coached them to make fast, pacy counter attacks using slick passing. If this had been a clogging team we may have done better - who knows.

It was a bizarre game that hinged on two possibly three moments; the free kick, the sending off and the third goal coming 30 seconds after we hit the post.

I'd agree to a certain extent with that, but there WERE other options to shore up the defence once Mayo had gone, to give us an element of stability WITHOUT needing to push Lynch forward into a totally unfamiliar role. Would a lineup of:

El Abd - Santos - Lowe - Lynch

Loft - Chippy - Reid

OGH - Revell

not have been more sensible ? Its all ifs and buts now obviously, but the glaring fact remains that the match descended into a shambles from our point of view PRIMARILY because McGhee failed miserably in re-jigging the team to accomodate Mayos sending off. Its McGhees JOB to come up with solutions, but from where I was sitting, we went from bad to worse as a direct result of his lack of tactical nouse.
I'm confident MOST league managers would have made a better fist of it than McGhee did.

 

[Easy 10]

That's about the most sensible thing you've said on this subject, yes, we down to 10 men and the options were not good.

Yet what I don't understand is, given that, your hysterical reaction to what McGhee did, particularly as we generally played quite brightly after the subs were made.

I've looked at your solution, and I'm afraid it's the classic fans' reaction to chasing a deficit, just empty the defence and stick a player up front. I would suggest that could be meat and drink to Crewe's pinpoint passing game which would have exposed the weakness particularly in your left flank.

Now you might respond that McGhee's solution didn't pay off in the end. Fair enough. But have some humility about the possible problems in your own suggested formation and rein in the hysteria. To pretend with any confidence that your formation would have done better is fanciful in the extreme.

I am quite calm thank you LI, although I appreciate that any criticism of McGhee will naturally be branded as "hysterical" by your goodself, so as to be as dismissive and condescending as possible.

As you can see from other posts, my solution was NOT to "empty the defence and stick a player up front" at all. I'm not saying my formation would necessarily have been the answer, or would have changed the result. But I'm a great believer in players playing where they are accustomed to, or as close as circumstances allow. Its abundently clear that McGhee had NO plan to cover the possibility of losing Mayo, and his attempts to fix the problem went from bad to worse.

He DID have options, but I think he made the wrong choices. All opinions, but I ALWAYS think we'll have a better chance with players playing in their accustomed positions, rather than fannying about throwing young defenders forward and up front.

 

[Theatre of Trees]

I'd agree to a certain extent with that, but there WERE other options to shore up the defence once Mayo had gone, to give us an element of stability WITHOUT needing to push Lynch forward into a totally unfamiliar role. Would a lineup of:

El Abd - Santos - Lowe - Lynch

Loft - Chippy - Reid

OGH - Revell

not have been more sensible ? Its all ifs and buts now obviously, but the glaring fact remains that the match descended into a shambles from our point of view PRIMARILY because McGhee failed miserably in re-jigging the team to accomodate Mayos sending off. Its McGhees JOB to come up with solutions, but from where I was sitting, we went from bad to worse as a direct result of his lack of tactical nouse.
I'm confident MOST league managers would have made a better fist of it than McGhee did.

The problem with that formation is it leaves Chippy having to cope with two in midfield. The 4-3-3/4-5-1 formation I believe has been bought in to give him and the back four a little more protection. What Crewe would do was just direct everything through the middle and you have the same problem again. The other problem is Reid actually gives us a decent attacking option at right back and his forward runs does push the opposition left winger back. El Abd is not a forward looking player in that position and in a game which we needed to chase I think Reid was a better option staying at RB.

If you have to lose numerical value somewhere it's usually going to be upfront. The defence and midfield needs to be solid to enable them to compete against the opposing team. I actually thought McGhee did reasonably OK with his changes. He did it once at half time, brought on a more forward inclined player at 50 minutes to replace a midfield player because Revell was isolated up front. However, the third goal and the uncertainty at the back regarding Hart and Reid meant another change and one that did give us a little spark we lacked before. The plan was to have one up front augmented by Cox and Robinson using their pace to come in from the wings and covering midfield when Crewe had possession. That was undone by Lynch's injury which meant another rejig and pushed Cox into a more central place in midfield.

We did push forward and leaving Santos against pacy forwards was always going to be a gamble which thankfully we only got punished once for thanks to Henderson's saves.

Whatever you think as a supporter even when chasing a game you have to be reasonably solid in defence and midfield.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I've looked at your solution, and I'm afraid it's the classic fans' reaction to chasing a deficit, just empty the defence and stick a player up front. I would suggest that could be meat and drink to Crewe's pinpoint passing game which would have exposed the weakness particularly in your left flank.

That's you told - nay, OWNED - then Easy. Your facile two-dimensional classic fan's solution would have rendered the Albion "meat and drink to Crewe's pinpoint passing game"

You couldn't MAKE this stuff up. Priceless

 

[Easy 10]

That's you told - nay, OWNED - then Easy. Your facile two-dimensional classic fan's solution would have rendered the Albion "meat and drink to Crewe's pinpoint passing game"

You couldn't MAKE this stuff up. Priceless

Yup, I submit.
McGhee clearly is in fact a genius operating above a level most of us fans simply cannot begin to comprehend. There was me thinking that when losing the game, dragging off a promising forward, putting our centreback on the left wing and later up front (when injured) was questionable, but I've certainly been shown the error of my ways and this was in fact all a cunning plan.

We're lucky to have such skilled amateur managers on here to point out to us dunces how the game actually works. I thought it just descended into a f***ing shambles, but clearly nothing could have been further from the truth, it was all carefully planned after all.

Hey ho.

 

[Turkey]

It was a shambles before the subsitution you condecending prick