I don’t want to sound big headed, but my previous rant, foresaw this coming. First home game of the season after the shambles away at Southend was somewhat overshadowed by a decent result mid-week in the West Midlands and the Rovers faithful were out in full force at Ewood Park to cheer on the lads against newly promoted Doncaster Rovers.
Chants of “Rovers ’till I die” stemmed from both sets of fans, however it was the ones from Yorkshire who finished chanting the loudest while a small section of the Blackburn fans instead opted for the unsurprising chant of “You’re not fit to wear the shirt”. Now, I’m not going to get in to the debate of whether the chant from the home fans was really necessary as different people will have different opinions and the last thing we need right now is to cause more petty disagreements and upheaval among fans than there already is between boycotters and non-boycotters.
I want to keep this short, sweet and simple – even though I know that won’t happen. In my previous rant, I warned that it was evident that Southend were interested in playing simple football against us. Being the underdogs, it was only natural that Phil Brown’s side came in to the match wanting to specifically target our strengths. By sitting deep and narrow, they nullified the ball getting to our playmakers in the form of Whittingham and Dack which forced us to have to dedicate to the wide areas and our downfall trying to break in to the final third at times was the lack of overlapping, pace, incision coming from our full backs – at the time Williams and Nyambe.
In a system like the 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2, one of the key advantages they offer is that you have two wide players which allows them to play off each other, overlap each other and work their way up the touchline towards the opposition byline to put your team in a crossing position. In our case, our wider players aimed to sit a little bit narrower who were Bennett and Samuel at the time, almost playing like shadow strikers.
That’s fine though, as long as the full back carries on their duties out wide to stretch the opposition defence, creating a 2v1 situation in the final third once the opponent’s own full back comes in to the equation. Unfortunately, as I made clear in my previous rant, both Nyambe and Williams looked lost and physically lacking going forward. Even in the odd few times where they found themselves in a legitimate crossing position, rather than even just drill the ball back towards the edge of the box and hope that someone like a Whittingham or Smallwood from midfield would smash one home from 25 yards, they would pass it backwards, keeping it safe and allow the opposition back four to regroup and push forward.
In a system like the 3-4-3, or even the 3-5-2 which are two formation variations Tony Mowbray has utilised often at his previous clubs, you suddenly no longer have the advantage of two players on your side in the wide areas to play off each other and thus the wing back role came to existence – the hybrid full back slash winger. Playing with this approach, particularly at League One level where players are both physically and technically limited, then leaves managers with a difficult decision of deciding whether to use natural wingers with pace and crossing ability in these positions or go with the more defensive options of full backs who may not be as fast, may be poorer crossers of the ball but will probably provide more defensive stability and almost make the formation look like it’s actually five at the back.
If you do utilise single wing backs in a league like this, you either have to genuinely have the players capable to do so – which we might do, if we use wingers with actual pace like Chapman or even Bennett who played in this role for Bristol City a few seasons ago, sacrificing defensive ability and hoping the extra center back balances it out – or you have to be prepared for an extremely tough time. This is because most teams in this league will utilise wingers… why you might ask? Because defenders are dreadful and can’t organise a piss up in a brewery.
When you play with the single wing back and come up against a team who will play with both a full back and winger, they suddenly have a 2v1 advantage in the wide area and this was something Southend exploited perfectly on the first game of the season because even though we played a 4-2-3-1 ourselves, Samuel – a forward playing as right attacking midfielder for some strange reason – was clearly lost for the whole 90 minutes. Now against Doncaster, our shape off the ball looked better with both Whittingham and Bennett trying to protect the wing back behind them during the limited occasion when Doncaster did have possession in the first half (don’t get me started about the second half) but ultimately because the shape becomes a 5-4-1 off the ball, we end up jockeying the opposition back, we fall back deeper and deeper and when we do eventually win the ball back, we are then left with a lone, isolated, helpless Danny Graham picking his nose on the other side of the pitch looking like a toddler who’s lost his parents in Asda. Which again is why your wing backs need to immediately bomb forward and transform in to wingers in a blink of an eye, as soon as the ball is retained and won back in this kind of system. This is where your insurgency and intensity going forward comes from in a system like this and instead we opt to just pass it out and let Doncaster’s bus regroup.
If we look at Antonio Conte’s Premier League winning side last season who utilised a very similar formation to the supposed abomination that Rovers looked to be playing in against Doncaster, both ex-Bolton man Marcos Alonso and ex-Latic Victor Moses played in their wing back roles. Alonso is naturally a more defensive option, however considering like Rovers in terms of the league we are in, Chelsea have one of the strongest squads in the Premier League, Conte knew that sacrificing the right wing back in the form of Victor Moses wouldn’t necessarily hurt the team much because in this kind of system, instead of retaining two center backs behind the ball to prevent counter-attacks, you retain all three. Most of the time when one wing back bombs forward, the other will also sit back more, providing a little more defensive stability. He also knew that regardless of system, his team would naturally see more of the ball due to their quality personnel – again, similar situation to what Rovers are in. So even in the scenario where Moses may struggle defensively, Chelsea still retain an extra center back backing him up which equates to the amount of defensive fire power they’d have had anyways playing a back four.
The advantage the system gives them though as opposed to perhaps playing with a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-4-2, is that when they have a flat 5 off the ball with a bus of 4 in front of them, they are incredibly difficult to break down. There are of course other advantages – as well as disadvantages – that this approach has over some of the others described above, but I don’t want to steer off topic. So, Conte being Italian unsurprisingly enjoys defensive football. But, just because football is defensively minded does not mean it cannot also be attacking. What I mean by this is that the Italians are renowned for their counter-attacking systems, turning defence in to attack in a matter of seconds. Drawing the opposition in to their own half before hitting them on the break, getting the ball wide and whipping it in to the big lad in the box. But the key element of difference here between Toné Mow-bray-inho and the Chelsea manager, is that Conte recognised he had the players to play this system. Both Alonso and Moses are extremely pacey players who are brilliant technically. Their work rate is fabulous and not only can you guarantee they’ll put in the leg work required to make up for the lack of a second wide man, sprinting up and down the touchline for 90 minutes but also great crossers of the ball to feed the likes of Diego Costa in the box.
I warned that Williams – despite being our player of the season last season (even though, let’s be honest. It was mainly because we were Loan-a-lot Rovers last season and couldn’t give the award to a player we didn’t own.) – when signed, was not signed to be an attacking left back and considering he played at center back for Bristol City, many just saw him as a left footed center back who could put a shift in and maybe help prevent relegation, within what was already a financially deprived squad. He lacks pace, he does not have the ability required to take on players and every single cross he attempted yesterday was laughable.
As for Caddis who was made the right wing back yesterday as Nyambe dropped to center back, being honest, he tried bless him. Paul Caddis has never really been a wing back. He’s a solid right back. He’ll offer you physicality against soft opposition wingers, decent bursts of acceleration and a half decent ball in to the box from deep when required. However, should we really be surprised he looked knackered after 60 minutes or whatever it was of trying to constantly bomb up and down the touchline trying to provide an actual passing option for Richie Smallwood (who I thought was the only player who deserved an applause at the end of the game yesterday)? No, not really.
To be fair to Paul, he tried to put in one or two decent balls in to the box when he had the opportunity to (yet we continued to persist trying to play down Williams’s side of the pitch) and had a shot on goal. But I cannot help but think that a Liam Feeney on the bench or a Harry Chapman or even a Craig Conway when fit, playing just in front of him (rather than have the liability that is Elliot Ward playing as an extra center back against a team playing in League Two last season) would have been more of an ideal option?
I don’t understand it when after a match such as the Doncaster result, our manager comes out and states our pace was far too slow in the first half. Can somebody please enlighten me, who other than Elliot Bennett on that pitch yesterday and Ryan Nyambe who was playing center back actually has an ounce of genuine, unique, impressive pace on them, relative to the league we are in? Anyone? It’s like playing five defenders and then complaining we aren’t getting enough shots on goal… oh wait, he complained about that too.
We don’t need an extra center back on the pitch to be “defensively solid”, Tony. We don’t need to try and be “defensively solid”. We will always concede goals in this league and by pure ability we should be able to outscore opposition whilst remaining conservative at the back. If we hold on to Mulgrew and Lenihan then utilise the likes of Williams and Caddis to be steady full backs who provide the extra passing option out wide, keeping things simple, helping us – as you want – to hold on to the ball better, they can also play simple support through balls down their line to the wide areas for our wide array of wingers – and you want to sign another midfielder? What for? To warm the bench with the rest of them so you can prioritise wing backs and play more defenders on the pitch? – so that we can actually advance in to the final third, with pace, make opposition defences feel uneasy, get in behind them and put the ball in the box where we will be guaranteed goals. This will achieve the “right balance” you have been talking about for the past few weeks and searching for, for weeks in pre-season.
It is no coincidence that as soon as we switched to two strikers, with wingers for full backs to play off that Nyambe actually overlapped for the first time in 90 minutes playing a one two with our wide player and managed a crossed assist for the goal. It’s also no coincidence that as soon as we brought on Ben Gladwin who provided strength, pace and actual crossing ability (one of which was a great cross where it really should have been tapped in) down the left that we suddenly looked like the genuine Blackburn Rovers teams will have come to Ewood Park fearing. Applying pressure to opponents, making them feel like they are being bombarded with attacks. I think we created more chances in the last 10 minutes, playing 4-4-2, getting the ball wide and whipping it in than we did for 80 minutes all game passing the ball backwards, slowly, sideways and waiting for these so called wing backs of yours to do something.
Yes, we conceded two goals from individual mistakes. Yes, we all know Elliot Ward hasn’t been the same since his injury. Yes, we all know David Raya is a great shot stopper and will learn with time. But taking all that out of the equation, we still would’ve only drawn 1-1 against a poor Doncaster Rovers team who came to Ewood, not even wanting to play football, set up like my Sunday league side, narrow with all men behind the ball, and adding insult to injury brung on the fast lad (Alfie May) with twenty minutes to go when the opposition back four are knackered. Full credit to Darren Ferguson and Doncaster Rovers, they were expected to do exactly that. They clearly saw we were susceptible on the counter attack from our match against Southend and they executed their plan to perfection. Any kind of point for them was going to be a massive success.
Go back to basics Tony, keep it simple. Stop talking about changing formation to exploit opponents in the press and what not when we are falling at the first hurdle and have midfielders who can’t even cross the ball past the first man. It’s teams that should be adapting to us, not vice versa. We play how we want, we’re Blackburn Rovers, we have internationals in our side who should be running circles around some of the players in this division. Heck, we have a better squad right now in League One than what we did last year in the Championship!
We have the attacking quality and personnel to score goals in this league and we won’t achieve the 90 point target you set yourself without actually scoring goals. We need to be able to get the ball wide, run at opponents, we can’t pass the ball along the floor through two solid defensive banks of ten and when it all goes wrong, play it wide to a wing back who is isolated and hope he does something with it whilst on other occasions all we seem to do is take our time passing it around our defensive line pretending we’re controlling the game. Over 10,000 Rovers fans sat in Ewood yesterday could see the problem and the solution… I was delighted when you first became Rovers manager and I still firmly believe you are the right man for the job. I just sincerely hope, you don’t let me down and your comments post-match of “the formation wasn’t the problem”, worries me.
If he sticks with the current formation, then we need to play actual wingers instead of full backs as our wing backs, who do actually have the pace to take on the opposition and cause them problems going forward. We cannot prioritise players such as Williams, Nyambe and Caddis over some of the gifted footballers and athletes we have sat on the bench. It would probably make sense to stick with the formation as it would allow us to get more of our gifted midfielders on the pitch at once. For example, if we reverted to a 4-4-2 with Graham and Samuel up front, then went with Smallwood and Evans in midfield with Chapman and Conway as wingers… where does that leave Dack? Where does that leave Whittingham? Where does that leave Bennett? Where does that leave the new midfielder that Tony says he’s on the verge of signing?
Whilst if we play a back three of Williams, Mulgrew, Lenihan, we can then consolidate Bennett as our right wing back as he has experience playing there who can provide pace going forward and the work rate required. Instead of signing a midfielder, sign a left back who can actually run and cross a ball in to the box, give Jack Doyle a go or we could of course consolidate giving the human battering ram that is Elliot Ward another chance (so, what exactly happens when Elliot Ward gets injured again and we have another center back injured? A back three of Williams, Mulgrew and Nyambe? League Two here we come!) or persist with playing Williams at left back unless we’re happy with a right footed player out on the left who could be Conway.
Play Smallwood alongside Evans who complemented each other well yesterday in the middle of the park and then you are free to do as you like for the remaining last three spots within the final third. Dack, Gladwin, Chapman, Whittingham and Conway are all good options to play behind Graham. Some of them like Gladwin and Chapman who have winger-like qualities could also play the wing back roles. Meanwhile players like Bennett who I mentioned as a potential wing back, could also play behind Graham or as a second striker. We have plenty of options. But, we are still left with the issue of whether we should be playing two strikers or not, so that Samuel could also fit in to that mix. Regardless of what we do, we need to aim to have as many of our better, more technical, pacier players on the pitch at once, most importantly in roles that suit their abilities and attributes.
But I guess at the end of the day, what do I know… if I had any common sense in me, I wouldn’t keep ruining my Saturdays watching the abomination that has been Blackburn Rovers for the past few years. But funnily enough, I guess the real issue at hand, going back to the start of the article, really is that, we all well and truly are Rovers ’till we die. Whether that be Blackburn Rovers, or Doncaster Rovers.
This weeks Rovers Rant was written by @KYAN1TE.
Rovers Rants are a fantastic opportunity for you – Rovers fans – to get the opportunity to do exactly that, rant about Blackburn Rovers and have your rant published on our website.
Your rant can be as long or as short as you like and you will of course be credited for your work. It’s a great chance to get your work published, shared and read to hundreds of fellow Blackburn Rovers fans out there.
If you would like to write your own future Rovers Rants, please send an e-mail with a short example of your work to: admin@readrovers.com.
Good luck!
