My view, for wht its worth!!

I honestly think Hucks is screwing our whole team up. On his day, good individual player, but when the going gets tough, he does not dig in - thats why he is a liability on the LW away from home. Especially at places like Reading.

He's not that great up front as a pair either, so we give him a role behind the main striker, with someone else also behind the main striker (McVeigh). In theory, I can understand the reasoning for doing this.

However, the problems begin when you look at the midfield. 4-4-2 is all about partnerships - the 2 CB's, winger/RM or LM helps out their full back. 2 CM's and 2 CF's. 4-3-3 is different, cause you are a man short in midfield. The right-ish or left-ish midfielder will kind of help out the full back, but he's not gonna be on the case as much as a traditional RM or LM would be.

Therefore, you are really exposing your full backs as they are on their own, hence why you need a strong full back. Drury on his own is an excellent defender, but there's not much you can do in a 1 on 2 situation (sorry, si-yoo-ashun). On the other hand, Colin has got a thankless task - to be fair, I don't rate the guy but I don't think we're exactly helping him either.

I'm going back a bit here, but how good was Ruel Fox when he tracked back? He helped out Culverhouse in the defending, and Cully himself helped Foxy out in the attacking. Likewise Taffy and Phillips, or later on Eadie.

We therefore MUST get back to 4-4-2. If that means Huckerby exposes Drury, then so what, he's being exposed enough as it is!! At least on the right we would have a bit more protection for RB. Problem though is we don't have any natural RW's or LW's left in the squad, apart from Huckerby! It's a crazy si-yoo-ashun which clearly needs to be resolved in the summer.

Posted By: Barry C, Feb 1, 12:37:22