Ten games in; a bit of a stream of consciousness analysis

... a ramble on squad balance and tactics and why it all feels a bit unsatisfactory somehow...

This is not an ordered or worked piece, so don't take it as such, but a dashed off this-is-how-it-looks-to-me-what-do-you-think piece. I'd be interested in everyone else's thoughts - particularly, anyone who's played us and other "pre-season favourites" - how do we stack up?

My concern pre-season was that the squad looked a bit like it had been thrown together almost randomly. It looked a little like we'd basically signed any free agent who was prepared to take our contract offer there and then, rather than being something assembled to fit and play to a preconceived tactical pattern.

(Personally, I suspect quite a bit of the "we can play a number of different ways" talk is to mask the fact we've got a group of players, many of whom are very talented, but who don't obviously fit together into a team. I still can't understand, for example, how we thought we were going to fit Pringle, Noble, O'Connor and Arnason into a single midfield unit, or that it makes sense for one or two of them to be "cover" in a squad that already boasted Taylor and Bradley before we discovered Rose was good.  I have a suspicion that "we need time to gel" might translate a little as "we need to keep meddling with the team until we find one that's greater than the sum of its parts".)

On formations and how teams get out of this division

Anyway, however we got here, we've got to a stage where we're playing one of two formations. The first is a sort of 4-4-1-1 formation, with Odejayi as a lone forward, Pringle in a "free" role and two wide midfielders cutting in and some very talented players sitting on the bench while picking first team regular wages. The second is a more orthodox 4-4-2, in which we force players into roles they're not ideally suited to (see, particularly, Pringle as winger) and exposes the lack of a genuine second striker in the squad.

Theory: there are two ways out of this league. You can do what Swindon did, which is to build a side capable of outplaying everyone else, using expensive signings and a set of formations that aren't generally adopted in the lower leagues, with inverted wingers and false nines and all sorts of other fripperies. Positives of that: you're much better able to cope in the league above, where things are a little more sophisticated and there are some significant wage budgets in play. Negatives: you can only do it successfully if you are genuinely loads better than the rest.

The other way is to have a very simple system and operate it effectively more often than not. Quite a lot of these systems involve getting the ball as quickly as possible into crossing range and driving it across the opposition penalty area. As a rule of thumb, the number of passes used to get the ball into crossing range is inversely proportional to the wage bill of the team in question. Frequently, this sort of approach relies at least as much on physique, organisation and vigour than it does on raw ability. Crawley last year were prime exponents of it. I'd argue that Port Vale might be an example this year. The greatest ever exponent of it was us under Moore the first time. Positives of this approach: it's easier to pull off, especially with a limited budget. Negatives: there's a risk of it getting found out at a higher level, unless (like us under Moore) you manage the magic trick of marrying structure and skill together.

The risk of being neither one thing nor another

Now, to me, our problem is that we're somewhere between these two methods. I couldn't tell you what our "default" approach is. Sometimes we launch it to Odejayi and ferret; sometimes we pass it. I'd like to say that shows we're adaptable, but actually it seems to me that what we do depends on how the opposition start the game. So, when Oxford stuck an auxiliary central defender at the base of their midfield, to basically bottle up Odejayi and eat into Pringle's space, we ended up launching things for Odejayi to chase. (But for a rash challenge by Raynes that gave us a penalty, I think we'd have had all on to get something out of that game: Oxford had our number first half, but the lift we got from the equaliser and the slump it delivered to them changed the balance of the game).

What I would say is that the unwillingness of the players to do a generic slung cross into the box suggests that it's policy to work the ball, that we're aiming for the Swindon thing. Which is fine, but I'm not sure we're quite good enough, overall, to outplay the rest of the league.

Evidence for this? First, look at the proportion of goals we've scored from outside the area. It's really high. This shows two things: that we're opening up space nicely in and around the opposition box; and that we're not making chances inside the penalty area. The first is encouraging, the second worrying. The "Swindon formula" often runs aground on the rocks marked on maps as "playing perpetually in front of the opposition back four" - and we do that a lot, particularly away from home, where we have possession and pressure but not always opportunities.

Second, look how both Rochdale and then Oxford were able to knock us out of our passing stride. Oxford's set up is described above. Rochdale switched a pacy winger to counter Ainsworth, pulling our whole attempted set up out of sync.

On overall squad balance

Theory: midfields win you games, forward lines win you championships. (The idea being that a poacher can nick you a goal in a tight game that you don't deserve otherwise to win). Our midfield squad must be the envy of the rest of the league. Our striker line up? Less so.

We don't have a genuine striker in the entire squad, barring Denton, who's too callow to be relied on. The nearest, Nardiello, has scored a goal every four games over his career and only once hit double figures. A glance at league two's top scorers suggests that an adequate forward ought to have been within our grasp. Having made all the fuss about getting Grabban to decide on his future early (in order to help us build a squad), it seems really odd that we've failed to get anyone in to do what is a crucial job. And I know Tubbs was supposed to be that man, but I genuinely can't believe that he's so amazingly outstanding that he's worth forgoing every other option for.

Defensively, we've two specialist central defenders, covered by our best midfielder and potentially a couple of other midfielders who can fill in. Realistically, they're not going to be dropped outside injury or suspension. Is there a risk of them getting complacent? Is three specialist central defenders really an unaffordable luxury at this level (when 5 first team central midfielders for two places isn't)?

A sort of conclusion

So, there's good news and bad news.

The good is that we're talented. We've got goals from midfield for the first time in a while. Odejayi is the marauding pain that defenders hate to play against that we've not had for years.

The bad is that we're basically a midfield squad with supporting cast. The defence isn't so robust that it'll win us the league by sheer meanness, the forwards not so sharp that we can play badly and win.

Essentially, we've got to play very well, very often. That's tough in a division that bears the very hallmark of inconsistency. We don't have the default pattern of play that allows us to slog out a win without playing that well. When people talk about winning things the hard way, they don't mean this situation usually, but for us that is where we're at - if we're to get promotion, we're going to have to do it by being that much better than that many other teams for that much of the season. Big task.

Part of me wonders whether it might have been cheaper and easier to have bought a set of giants and just clobbered our way out...