Controversial... But Hear Me Out...

I would consider a 4-5-1 against Barnsley right. With this team...

GK: Bywater
DR: Quinn
DL: McNaughton
DC: Keinan
DC: Hudson
MR: Burke
ML: Bellamy
MC: Whittingham
MC: Olofinjana/McPhail
MC: JET
FC: Chopra

Yes, no Bothroyd and Chopra up top. Insane possibly? Maybe. In my eyes our central midfield is too weak to have the bare four across the park. We need five in the middle with the two wide men pushing on. However, I don't feel Bothroyd or Parkin have been doing a good enough job when they've been the lone striker so bringing Chopra back in would put the 'in-form' striker back in front of goal and I would suggest we keep the ball on the floor and use Bellamy/Burke cutting in and the ball playing capabilities of Whittingham and McPhail to split the defence open with through balls on the deck.

What do you reckon?

A gamble. And Jones doesn't do gamble

There are ten games left, I think the team needs stability. not changing the formation all the time. One of our problems I feel, is that we don't seem to know our best formation.

good call Zab BUT trouble is our defence would still pump high balls to Chopra knowing full well he's no Bothroyd or Parkin when it comes to heading or holding the ball up , if we play passing footall on the deck then yes why not .

id give it ago, but as we know if jones did do with that and it didnt work he doesnt have the fore sight to change the game with Subs or possibly changing formation and pushing jet up front with chops. i dont know what to suggest as jones doesnt listen or care about what we think...infact it feels like he looks on the here and makes it his mission to do the opposite ..

id maybe even try whitts on the left again and put bellers up front with chops but bellers on the left


**edit**

Parkin must be pissed off tho as seeing he was a regular at PNE and apart from starting AND scoring against Norwich all he does is keep the bench warm for 85 mins every week .

WE ARE DEFFO TOO WEAK IN MIDFIELD,DJ HAS TO CHANGE THINGS,IT WORKED WITH RAMBO IN THE MIX,WE ARE TOO WEAK
WITH THE PLAYERS WE GOT TWITTS AND MCFAIL ARE FAR TOO WEAK TOGETHER IMO

how bout simply playing the plyers in their most comfortable positions it aint rocket science,chops and bothroyd up top,bellers on the wing,oli wittingham and mcphail in midfield

I'm not so sure we are that weak in midfield. You've got to take into account

Seyi has been out and we have missed him

The quality of Ramsey is undoubted and top Prem sides would miss him

The issue for me is that the BBC (Bothroyd, Bellamy & Chopra) can't hold the ball or mess about with it & lose it too quickly. This puts the pressure back onto the midfield. Also unlike Jay & Chops, Bellamy rarely tracks back in support.

For that reason I think your suggestion of 4-5-1 would work, but hell what do I know

i actually think mcphail and especially whitts have played better in recent games,but like the good post above the attackers give the ball away way too easy,the mid was under pressure so many times last night from loose play by jay and bellamy,but part of me cant blame bellers as hes never played that position before.
it seems olis abscence has really made jones panic and disappear up his own arse tactically
imagine if super kev or hudson got injured the games DJwould play with the formation,he cant see the obvious,What was so wrong in simply bringing gavin rae in for oli and leaving the rest of the team alone

Parkin must be pissed off tho as seeing he was a regular at PNE and apart from starting AND scoring against Norwich all he does is keep the bench warm for 85 mins every week .

Depends what Parkin was promised when he came here. If he was told Jay was leaving in January (which seemed likely), maybe he was told he would be starting. As Jay hasn't left, he's no hope of getting in the team ahead of him

I would consider a 4-5-1 against Barnsley right. With this team...

GK: Bywater
DR: Quinn
DL: McNaughton
DC: Keinan
DC: Hudson
MR: Burke
ML: Bellamy
MC: Whittingham
MC: Olofinjana/McPhail
MC: JET
FC: Chopra

Yes, no Bothroyd and Chopra up top. Insane possibly? Maybe. In my eyes our central midfield is too weak to have the bare four across the park. We need five in the middle with the two wide men pushing on. However, I don't feel Bothroyd or Parkin have been doing a good enough job when they've been the lone striker so bringing Chopra back in would put the 'in-form' striker back in front of goal and I would suggest we keep the ball on the floor and use Bellamy/Burke cutting in and the ball playing capabilities of Whittingham and McPhail to split the defence open with through balls on the deck.

What do you reckon?

im 100% with you on the formation but if we play 451 Chops cant play, he's proven he cant play as a winger and in a 451 the striker has to be able to hold the ball up and bring the midfield into play, that isnt Chops game. If we play that formation may preferred line up would be:

Bywater

Mcnaughton
Dekel
Hudson
Quinn

Jet
Whitts
Macca
Blake
Bellamy

Jay/Parkin

We definetely need to flood the centre of our mdifield! Funny thing is, we have never lost or conceded a goal when playing this formation yet DJ rarely uses it and the fans hardly ever bring this point up! We play 451 until the end of the season we go up, we continue with 442 then its a lottery!

of course if Oli is fit he would start ahead of Blake

I would consider a 4-5-1 against Barnsley right. With this team...

GK: Bywater
DR: Quinn
DL: McNaughton
DC: Keinan
DC: Hudson
MR: Burke
ML: Bellamy
MC: Whittingham
MC: Olofinjana/McPhail
MC: JET
FC: Chopra

Yes, no Bothroyd and Chopra up top. Insane possibly? Maybe. In my eyes our central midfield is too weak to have the bare four across the park. We need five in the middle with the two wide men pushing on. However, I don't feel Bothroyd or Parkin have been doing a good enough job when they've been the lone striker so bringing Chopra back in would put the 'in-form' striker back in front of goal and I would suggest we keep the ball on the floor and use Bellamy/Burke cutting in and the ball playing capabilities of Whittingham and McPhail to split the defence open with through balls on the deck.

What do you reckon?

Providing McPhail doesn't get any where near the first team, I'm so bloody desperate I'd try anything which wasn't thought up by Dave Jones.

I would actually try something slightly different....

GK: Bywater

DR: Quinn
DL: McNaughton
DC: Keinan
DC: Hudson

ML: Whittingham
Attacking Inside LM: Bellamy
Holding CM: Olofinjana
Attacking Inside RM: JET
RM: Burke

FC: Chopra


The idea being that Bellamy and JET are essentially playing the same role as normal but slightly more infield allowing them more of a free role. Their strength is running at defenders and from this position they will be able to. The two Attacking Midfielders also assist as a 2nd & 3rd Striker.

Olifinjana holding the Middle. Although, when defending, it would be difficult to get past Bellamy and JET anyway.

Having Whittingham on the Wing and Burke on the other creates natural speed in the team.

4-5-1 worked very well up in portsmouth

i like the idea of when where attacking its 3 up top but when we havent got the ball it falls back to a five in the middle

I would consider a 4-5-1 against Barnsley right. With this team...

GK: Bywater
DR: Quinn
DL: McNaughton
DC: Keinan
DC: Hudson
MR: Burke
ML: Bellamy
MC: Whittingham
MC: Olofinjana/McPhail
MC: JET
FC: Chopra

Yes, no Bothroyd and Chopra up top. Insane possibly? Maybe. In my eyes our central midfield is too weak to have the bare four across the park. We need five in the middle with the two wide men pushing on. However, I don't feel Bothroyd or Parkin have been doing a good enough job when they've been the lone striker so bringing Chopra back in would put the 'in-form' striker back in front of goal and I would suggest we keep the ball on the floor and use Bellamy/Burke cutting in and the ball playing capabilities of Whittingham and McPhail to split the defence open with through balls on the deck.

What do you reckon?

The thing is with DJ though, he wouldn't ever have the guile or knowledge to come up with a tactically and structually sound plan as you have in your post. If he tried something like that, he'd probably tell the players to play long balls to chops

Glad to see this topic has got everyone talking. One common theme is the distribution of the defence being long ball which wouldn't help us. The best games we have are always when we play it out of defence on the floor. Why don't they spend training fine tuning this strategy???

In my opinion, Bothroyd hasn't delivered for the last 3 months now and needs to be shown his standards aren't good enough. Chopra needs to play down the middle and JET needs to be more involved in games. I reckon sticking him in the middle would really add the bulk we need. You've all seen how strong he is and I believe I am right in saying he has played there before.

JET needs to be played in the middle I think

Bywater

Quinn Keinan Hudson Mcnaughton

oli mcphail

burke bellamy
JET

Bothroyd

Our best form is when we play 4-4-2 I don't know why jones is playing this stupid 4-4-1-1