I can see the sense of going 4-3-3 today - a damaged defence so get the ball up top and try and keep it up there.
But a 3 in midfield of Romm, Pouso and Ambrose was wreckless to say the least. The centre pin being a guy who who hasn't played in this country before, with two workshy players outside him offering no cover to two full backs out of position.
If Pompey were any decent they would of worked our shape out within five minutes and had the game won by half time.
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The long ball game was ineffective & will get us nowhere, there were also a lot of silly mistakes & sloppiness - not something we were used to under Curbs - his teams were often dull but they were efficiently dull.
On a positive note i was able to return to bed afterwards for a few more hours sleep & get up in time for breakfast !!
the midfeild diamond was too big with romm and ambrose playing as out and out wingers, jfh just behind the front 2 and pouso in front of the back 4 left acres for pompey to control the centre of the park. if dowie insists on playing a diamond, romm and jfh don't fit in the system, but i can see ambrose playing behind 2 strikers, but for this to happen the 'width of the diamond needs to be players used to playing in a central midfield role.
also can someone explain why dowie played 3 of the back 4 out of position. surely if fortune is fit enough for the bench he should have started, with luke young right back and kish left back. this would have meant only 1 out of position and allowed faye to fill one of those midfield positions i mentioned before.
Primus!!!! Too many drowning sorrow beers after!
Smack on head smiley thing! ;-)
I'm not sure we will see it again however. Likely set up will be Pouso and Faye sitting a little deeper with the two wide mids given more licence to get foward.
Romm can't play as a diamond as he isn't influential enought inside, whilst Ambrose just don't seem comfortable wherever he is played lately.
Presumably Fortune wasn't fullly match fit, or not deemed fit enough to last 60 minutes. The broken toe would have prevented him from doing that much running in training and probably little or no contact training. I'll give Dowie the benefit on this one. Had Fortune started and had to come off in the first half or at half-time it would have been more disruptive than coming on late. At centre-back with Elk and Faye Charlton have looked ok so on balance I think Dowie was correct to start them.
But I agree with your comments about the diamond, Pouso, was clearly not match sharp and was being over-run, Romm isn't suited to that formation and Ambrose looked out of sorts, even after we switched to 4-4-2. Certainly it resulted in Portsmouth having too much possession in the first half and when Dowie switched things around in the second half it looked a different game. If JFH and Darren Bent had linked a bit better then we could have got something, they didn't appear to be on the same wavelength.
The diamond didnt work at all, your right...Ambrose has been a disappointment for me so far this season & think he needs a free role in the middle. Attacking through the middle, taking players on suits him so much more.
I'd love to see a team along the lines of...
Carson
Young, Fortune, El K/Diawara, HH/Traore
Romm, Pouso, Ambrose, Faye, Thomas/Reid
Bent
Faye & Pouso can always sit, covering the centre and the wingers. Ambrose will always contribute some defensive duties too. This means the wingers can play wide & far up the pitch giving their full backs & wingers something too think about. Its more of a four man attack, yet still pretty defensive. With Ambrose sat behind Bent, it will always be a struggle for the oppo to pick him up! He's great at picking the ball up in space, turning & going. He's not that bad technically either so can spray balls out to the wing & we've seen how well he works with Bent on occassions last season.
Give it a whirl ID.
I didn't think we were that bad yesterday. Pompey were impressive in defence and midfield but didn't look much up front but I think they edged it and they scored when we didn't. Kish had a bad game and it showed what we missed and how much he normally does in terms of closing down.etc. RB not his best position. Pouso looked off the pace but we can't judge on 45 mins with a makeshift team for his first league game on this continent. He was trying to make things work but they didn't always come off.
I thought Carson could have done better for the goal. Marcus had his best game for ages (not saying much I know) but seemed to be the victim of ID wanting to change a system that wasn't working. Ditto when they scored. Sub straight on. Gonna take a while to get use to that and his shirts and ties ; ).
Defence did OK especially as only TEK was playing in preferred position. Ambrose? Never imposed himself or worked with Young and we lost the Young/Romm combinations as well. Romm did at least hurt them and it was his cross that M BEnt put onto the bar. I thought Fortune did the right thing standing off bag of tricks Loulou but the shot was deflected and his was injured.
Faye MOTM Great hopes that when we have a settled team with Pouso Faye in the middle and Romm/Thomas/Reid wide it will work.
I thought JFH did OK but poor service and he's a 60 min player now but he has played 90s in nearly every game. lLsbie worked hard and won a lot in the air. Darren was off the game. Didn't see the ball much but didn't create much space and when he did get it didn't do much.
Overall not too downhearted. HH will be back so young can switch back. Pouso will improve. If Fortune is fit Faye can run the middle and we have super Kev.
Maybe the idea is that under Curbs it was good start and then fall away. Now it is slow start and great run in. Lets hope so.
Dowie should have pulled off Hasselbaink at half time
:-)
I would of took JFH off instead of him.