Steve Morison wants to change Cardiff City's style of play next season:
Started at Reading Away:
Steve Morison ripped up the playbook and opted for a 4-2-3-1 which dropped a centre-back and found room to accommodate both Tommy Doyle and Rubin Colwill, a quite potent creative force in tandem. It was a system designed to facilitate a different style of play, too, one that encouraged Cardiff's more attacking players to see more action and for the Bluebirds to hold more possession of the ball.
STEVE MORISON:
"We tried it initially but then we realised we needed to be a bit more pragmatic in what we did. It was about getting results and we did. Even going into the Swansea game we were in a really good run of form, so we stayed that way.“
"We had one day with the team for Swansea, so I couldn't have done any more with the team in terms of going into that game. I had one day, the Friday, because everyone was away on international duty, especially players who would have played. We went with what we knew and it didn't work, for whatever reason.
"We had planned to play this team in this way leading into this game because we knew what Reading were going to play, they were going to play 4-2-3-1, so we knew we would be matching up shape. We spoke about it before the Swansea game and some players knew they would be playing this game. Because we had a free week we could work on it properly, we worked on it on Tuesday and Thursday.
"You can see that it's a personnel-driven shape. You can't just do it with any player because it could go wrong really quickly. It almost did a couple of times! Rubin came into the pocket and he passed the ball straight to them and they nearly scored; you're just sitting there going, 'Oh no!'
"But when you get it right... our two goals were fantastic goals."
On whether the new formation will inform his summer recruitment strategy, Morison added: "You want to be able to do both. You want to be able to play in different ways. You want personnel that, when you know you are coming up against a team who are really good in a 3-5-2 or a 3-4-3, then you can match them up to do it. If you want to play a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-4-2 you want to have the ability to do that.
"Having Nels back was great because we had the ability to go with someone who is really good in one-v-one situations. That's why he came back in the team."
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.