The Box (1 Viewer)

[Offhegoes]

I really don't want to see Robins play with 2 strikers again. It didn't work last season, and it hasn't this season. Our great form last year was when Vik played as the lone striker. The only time it worked in his tenure was Biamou & McNulty in the League 2 season.
For me Simms & Wright are lone front men, with 2 AMs supporting. Both scored their goals in that lone role at previous clubs.
He has been stubborn to change it this season. He could of played Palmer & Sakamoto there (before Palmer's injury), but didn't. When Allen came back a few weeks ago, he still kept the 2 strikers.

 

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[SBAndy]

I seriously think he backed himself into a corner spending big on 2 strikers. It’s understandable that he wants to make it work and justify his spending but we’ve lacked control in the majority of games this season. A return to the box is inevitable.

The one thing I will say is the playoff final showed the value of playing 2 up top. We looked lost in the box formation first half with an intense Luton press and their choice to largely bypass the midfield when on the ball. There is going to be a time and a place to revert back, but it shouldn’t be our primary strategy/formation.

 

[Deleted member 9744]

I think people are forgetting that last season when we played one up front that one was Gyokeres, who was brilliant at holding onto and running with the ball. Gyokeres was not so effective with a partner up front, or to be more accurate, the partner was not so effective with Gyokeres there.

Simms, Godden and Wright are all very different to Gyokeres. I am sure I have seen someone explain that Simms has always done better in a two and indeed I really can't see him playing up front on his own. He looks largely a penalty box player and has little impact elsewhere. Godden did it reasonably effectively in League 1 but let's be honest probably lacks the pace to do it in the Championship.

Wright I think might be more suited to it. He does have the pace and has shown that he can hold the ball at times. He just needs to do it more often. If he does end up playing this way tonight I do hope our fans will encourage him.

 

[Nick]

The issue with a penalty box player is getting the ball and the player in the penalty box at the same time.

 

[nunchuckas]

I think Robins does intend to use the box a lot of the time, but we haven't had the personnel available for it yet. He will need a fit O'Hare/ Allen to do all the running around to partner a Palmer (when fit) or a Sakamoto/Ayari (when up to speed).

 

[napolimp]

I really don't want to see Robins play with 2 strikers again. It didn't work last season, and it hasn't this season. Our great form last year was when Vik played as the lone striker. The only time it worked in his tenure was Biamou & McNulty in the League 2 season.
For me Simms & Wright are lone front men, with 2 AMs supporting. Both scored their goals in that lone role at previous clubs.
He has been stubborn to change it this season. He could of played Palmer & Sakamoto there (before Palmer's injury), but didn't. When Allen came back a few weeks ago, he still kept the 2 strikers.

I agree with a lot of what you said. I think the box worked particularly well last season because we had Gyokeres, but I don't see any reason why either Simms or Wright can't be goal-scoring lone front men. I'd like to see us go back to this as soon as we have the personnel available - pretty much O'hare - and both him and Sakamoto in behind could potentially be quite exciting, although I acknowledge there could be a lack of goals there. We seem to do better soaking up pressure and playing on the break.

 

[Dickie]

The issue with a penalty box player is getting the ball and the player in the penalty box at the same time.

…in roughly the same place

 

[BlueSkiesForever]

Absolutely agree, as much as many on here are against change in general I think there definitely needs to be a change of formation, the box being the easiest to move to as it’s just an inversion of our front 3 attacking players.
Eventually I would love to see us play 4 at the back, as I’ve mentioned many times, but I don’t think that’ll come any time soon as Robins seems very comfortable with 5 at the back.

 

[theferret]

I really don't want to see Robins play with 2 strikers again. It didn't work last season, and it hasn't this season. Our great form last year was when Vik played as the lone striker. The only time it worked in his tenure was Biamou & McNulty in the League 2 season.
For me Simms & Wright are lone front men, with 2 AMs supporting. Both scored their goals in that lone role at previous clubs.
He has been stubborn to change it this season. He could of played Palmer & Sakamoto there (before Palmer's injury), but didn't. When Allen came back a few weeks ago, he still kept the 2 strikers.

We had a great start to the 21/22 season with 2 up top.

 

[Legia Sky Blue]

I hope all those people confident that we will see a change in Wright's fortunes are correct, but so far he hasn't shown the basics required of that position as a sole striker. He hasn't looked particularly adept at holding the ball up or running the channels like Gyokeres did. Hopefully my reservations are wrong.

 

[Alan Dugdales Moustache]

I hope all those people confident that we will see a change in Wright's fortunes are correct, but so far he hasn't shown the basics required of that position as a sole striker. He hasn't looked particularly adept at holding the ball up or running the channels like Gyokeres did. Hopefully my reservations are wrong.

No you're not

 

[Adge]

 

[BlueSkiesForever]

We still played poorly-ish but I think we played less poorly using the box than we did not using it. Also remember the opposition was West Brom and not Rotherham, two completely different quality teams. I saw more promise from us playing the box than I have done in any of the last 7-8 games or so playing the weird 5-2-1-2 formation.

To me it seemed clearer what we had to do in attack with just one up top, and it was only the first time we’ve used it, give it a few more weeks, keep Saka on the pitch, bring Binks back, put Kitching in for Fadz, put Lati next to Sheaf, slowly give O’Hare more minutes, just give it time and I think we’ll start seeing results. If we resort back to the shitty formation and style we’ve been used to over the past 5-6 weeks then it’s all been for nothing and we’ll continue playing poorly.