http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/Article.aspx/1397139

 

ABERDEEN FC boss Mark McGhee was man enough to admit he got his tactics wrong in their 0-0 SPL draw at Falkirk.

But he is convinced a 4-3-3 formation is the best if he is to bring success to Aberdeen FC.

McGhee also revealed youngster Fraser Fyvie will have a key role to play once his squad have adapted to his methods.

Q Do you have the players at the club now who can make the 4-3-3 system work?

A It’s looking more and more like we don’t.

We have the right sort of play-maker for it in young Fraser Fyvie.

He is a highly promising midfielder who is capable of making the range of passes needed to make the system a success.

But the problem at Falkirk was that most of the time the ball went away over his head up to the front players.

People didn’t give Fraser the ball often enough, so the amount of times he got to actually pass it were very limited.

All we saw was passes being lumped back to front.

Fraser and the other midfielders need to be given the ball a lot more if the 4-3-3 formation is going to be of use.

But we clearly don’t have enough natural passers of the ball in that midfield area at the moment either.

Gary McDonald likes to run at defences with the ball and Mark Kerr is a battler and does other  things he is very good at.

But we are going to have to come up with more passers to make that system really work.

Until we have them, we may have to return to a more orthodox shape.

Q Do you now regret going with the 4-3-3 tactics in the clash with the Bairns?

A No, not in the slightest. I feel very strongly that, as a new manager in only my fourth league game, I’m quite entitled to be playing about with the systems we use.

It’s my job to experiment and try different players and different systems to see what is going to be the best for the club.

If something works then fine, I will stick with it.

But if it doesn’t, then it will be back to the drawing board until we find a way of playing that gets the very best out of the players we have at the moment.

I’m not going to apologise for that.

We played 4-3-3 at Falkirk because we had worked hard on it in training and I was sure the players were ready to take that into a game.

The main object was to try to get players down the sides of the Falkirk team and get our forwards spinning in behind their back four.

It didn’t work because we tried to do it off balls straight from the back.

We missed out a whole phase of play, the midfield, so there was little chance of the 4-3-3 being effective.

The system also worked better when I was at Motherwell because when we lost the ball we defended with 10 players.

When we were on the back foot at Falkirk we defended with only eight.

The front three became too detached, which was not the way we worked on things, or spoke about, in training.

It meant we were left very exposed in wide areas – particularly in the first half. The three forwards were so far up front Falkirk found it to easy to cause us problems with diagonal balls.

Why then, if for 90 minutes against Falkirk when we are humping it forward all the time MM doesn't say something?? Surely the players know that their playing 4-3-3 and MM knows you need to pass for it to work so where the communication between manager and players?? Smells like shite to me

So basically he wants the forwards to get in behind the defence, most likely the wide strikers are hitting the touchline to cross, and then he wants them to be able to rattle all the way back down the pitch in the style of Usain Bolt to cover the flanks?  Not going to work in a million years. 

So basically he wants the forwards to get in behind the defence, most likely the wide strikers are hitting the touchline to cross, and then he wants them to be able to rattle all the way back down the pitch in the style of Usain Bolt to cover the flanks?  Not going to work in a million years. 

 

One thing I always noticed when he was at Motherwell was the tracking back of the wide strikers.

 

Getting Bebo and Aluko to do that may be a problem though with their attitudes.

 

One thing I noticed at Falkirk was that all 3 stikers were switching positions all the time and this was causing us more problems than Falkirk. We cant really do that with Lee Miller incolved as he's not mobile enough. We need to either get the two wide players to stay wide or drop Miller.

One thing I always noticed when he was at Motherwell was the tracking back of the wide strikers.

 

Getting Bebo and Aluko to do that may be a problem though with their attitudes.

 

One thing I noticed at Falkirk was that all 3 stikers were switching positions all the time and this was causing us more problems than Falkirk. We cant really do that with Lee Miller incolved as he's not mobile enough. We need to either get the two wide players to stay wide or drop Miller.

 

That was a very odd situation, Miller more often than not found himself out wide where he's basically (more) useless.

One thing I always noticed when he was at Motherwell was the tracking back of the wide strikers.

 

Getting Bebo and Aluko to do that may be a problem though with their attitudes.

 

I believe we're trying to get Aluko to track back from Nigeria at the moment.

So basically he wants the forwards to get in behind the defence, most likely the wide strikers are hitting the touchline to cross, and then he wants them to be able to rattle all the way back down the pitch in the style of Usain Bolt to cover the flanks?  Not going to work in a million years. 

 

I don't think he's asking much tbh. When we are in posession of the ball we are set up as a 4-3-3, the minute we lose posession we revert to a 4-5-1. Nae rocket science and I see no reason why it can't work.

 

Give MM time, we're only 4 games in and a fair few folk seem to be sharpening the knives already. It really is pathetic.

 

I don't think he's asking much tbh. When we are in posession of the ball we are set up as a 4-3-3, the minute we lose posession we revert to a 4-5-1. Nae rocket science and I see no reason why it can't work.

 

Give MM time, we're only 4 games in and a fair few folk seem to be sharpening the knives already. It really is pathetic.

 

Don't ruin his fun, ally.

 

I don't think he's asking much tbh. When we are in posession of the ball we are set up as a 4-3-3, the minute we lose posession we revert to a 4-5-1. Nae rocket science and I see no reason why it can't work.

 

Give MM time, we're only 4 games in and a fair few folk seem to be sharpening the knives already. It really is pathetic.

 

I'm not sharpening the knives at all, I just find the man extremely frustrating.

They were already sharp enough, eh?

 

 

Straight to the point there

I'm not sharpening the knives at all

 

They were already sharp enough, eh?

 

They were already sharp enough, eh?

 

Whatever you like Bobby. 

Really?

Really?

 

Absolutely.

Excellent. have a day off then, eh?

Excellent. have a day off then, eh?

 

I'm off for the next two weeks, quite enjoyable actually 

3/10.

 

Would not read again.

I'm off for the next two weeks, quite enjoyable actually 

 

Good, hope it gives you plenty of time to think about what you've done.

Just out if interest, perhaps the guys who were at the game can help here, but where did it look like Fyvie was meant to be playing on Monday?  I ask as MM says he sees him as a playmaker, which on admittedly limited viewing so far I would agree with, but he seemed to be more in a holding role at times on Monday.  Obviously it may have been hard to tell as none of the other players seemingly wanted, or were able to include our middle three in anything much but I remember thinking his deployment seemed a bit strange

 

From where I was sitting it looked as though Kerr was in the middle of the midfield three with Fyvie and MacDonald playing either side of him.

From where I was sitting it looked as though Kerr was in the middle of the midfield three with Fyvie and MacDonald playing either side of him.

 

Looked like that. Also looked like not one of the three could play in the system either.

They didn't show enough energy or bite as a unit. That's down to motivation rather than formation IMHO.

He's like a wee ginger Riquelme.

Just out if interest, perhaps the guys who were at the game can help here, but where did it look like Fyvie was meant to be playing on Monday?  I ask as MM says he sees him as a playmaker, which on admittedly limited viewing so far I would agree with, but he seemed to be more in a holding role at times on Monday.  Obviously it may have been hard to tell as none of the other players seemingly wanted, or were able to include our middle three in anything much but I remember thinking his deployment seemed a bit strange

 

Fyvie was mostly playing wide, but not very. Seemed like he was there just to pick the ball up and play the simple ball to a red shirt, which is really all he should be asked to do at 16. The boy can fair pick a pass at times though.

They didn't show enough energy or bite as a unit. That's down to motivation rather than formation IMHO.

 

Think ability (lack of it in most cases) has something to do with it as well.

How many times do I have to repeat myself.

Aberdeen are and always will be a 4-4-2 team, the players are too thick to adapt to anything else.