wrong shape today....... from the start

I was away in Germany so missed the last home and away games but I was keeping up with things. I read somewhere the Noone or Harris had had a good 45 minutes in a feee roaming roll. I suspect Slade thought he'd found an answer that worked and so started Noone in that role today.

Big Mistake!

We had no width on either side. Noone couldn't possibly be a force on two sides of the pitch at once and with Gunner, Whitts and Adeyemi all playing central mid we had no effective wide play.

Not once in the first half did we get a telling cross (or even an inside pass) from our left hand side. Furthermore when Noone moved right we had no chance of switching our attack or even defending well on the left because John was exposed time after time.

Noone also spent a lot of time doing the same job as Le Fondra trying to stay close to Jones which made things even worse.

We ended up with no outlet on one side and as a result were always on the back foot.

Slade and his staff/carers only changed this late in the game by bringing on Harris. Most supporters gasped at the fact that Adeyemi was taken off instead of Whitts and I fully agree but it seemed the Manager was trying to get some width on both sides, something that should have been done from the start. That would have been the positive thing to do instead of playing four in midfield, 3 centrally and one winger trying to cover both sides of the pitch.

In my opinion Slades a noggin!