If only...

[eltorrro]

...we had a midfielder like Luton's McCormack. He completely bossed the midfield, walked/passed the ball out with aplomb - was the absolute difference between the two teams. To me he was MoM.

I wonder if Mr J ever reads any posts by us supporters? Always amazes me how we all can identify the problems but he doesn't seem to react to them. Strange.

[Selsey Bill]

...we had a midfielder like Luton's McCormack. He completely bossed the midfield, walked/passed the ball out with aplomb - was the absolute difference between the two teams. To me he was MoM.

I wonder if Mr J ever reads any posts by us supporters? Always amazes me how we all can identify the problems but he doesn't seem to react to them. Strange.

I agree 100% - I thought the whole of their midfield were better than ours. Walkes and Haunstrup in particular looked like they were lost.

[Pompey Penguin]

I was going to address this issue in a belated BFTG, but it probably sits better here as I have nothing to add on the defence or attack.

The whole Pompey team suffered from an inability to pass or tackle, but the midfield was the heart of the problem. Walkes looked lost, Naylor didn't do much, Lowe isn't a traditional RMF player any more than Haunstrup is a LMF (although I suspect the latter is just a placeholder for Dion Donohue, who can at least cross the ball and hasn't really had a run in that position for Pompey).

Luton play a diamond four in MF, which meant that Walkes and Naylor were outnumbered and pushed back by the more forward three and no-one was dealing with McCormack and any half decent holding player would look good given that much space (M. Doyle would have destroyed us!). Theoretically, this should have enabled our FB/wide MF pairings to exploit the space on Luton's flanks, but neither of those pairs were able to do anything constructive. As above, these are not ideal positions for Lowe or Haunstrup and it probably wasn't the best weather for FBs to be burning up and down.

I am not a fan of 4-4-2, but no system will work if you are trying to shoehorn players into the wrong positions for them to succeed. I think this is a team crying out to play 3-4-3 or 4-3-3, either of which would be better than 4-4-2 which just looks defensive and negative.

[Earl Grey]

I was going to address this issue in a belated BFTG, but it probably sits better here as I have nothing to add on the defence or attack.

The whole Pompey team suffered from an inability to pass or tackle, but the midfield was the heart of the problem. Walkes looked lost, Naylor didn't do much, Lowe isn't a traditional RMF player any more than Haunstrup is a LMF (although I suspect the latter is just a placeholder for Dion Donohue, who can at least cross the ball and hasn't really had a run in that position for Pompey).

Luton play a diamond four in MF, which meant that Walkes and Naylor were outnumbered and pushed back by the more forward three and no-one was dealing with McCormack and any half decent holding player would look good given that much space (M. Doyle would have destroyed us!). Theoretically, this should have enabled our FB/wide MF pairings to exploit the space on Luton's flanks, but neither of those pairs were able to do anything constructive. As above, these are not ideal positions for Lowe or Haunstrup and it probably wasn't the best weather for FBs to be burning up and down.

I am not a fan of 4-4-2, but no system will work if you are trying to shoehorn players into the wrong positions for them to succeed. I think this is a team crying out to play 3-4-3 or 4-3-3, either of which would be better than 4-4-2 which just looks defensive and negative.

In Haunstrup's defence, he did seem to get himself in the way of the Luton defenders for our goal and I don't think he was as lost as Walkes who imo isn't good enough to displace any other Pompey player in any position you care to choose. He may improve but at the moment he's work in progress.

I thought Naylor and Brown looked a bit shell-shocked and could've both contributed more. I'm hoping they're going to get better....a lot better!

But it's worrying that Close looked so superior to any other Pompey midfielder. Maybe go back to Rose and Close which last season started looking really good.

[Jack_Tinn]

I was going to address this issue in a belated BFTG, but it probably sits better here as I have nothing to add on the defence or attack.

The whole Pompey team suffered from an inability to pass or tackle, but the midfield was the heart of the problem. Walkes looked lost, Naylor didn't do much, Lowe isn't a traditional RMF player any more than Haunstrup is a LMF (although I suspect the latter is just a placeholder for Dion Donohue, who can at least cross the ball and hasn't really had a run in that position for Pompey).

Luton play a diamond four in MF, which meant that Walkes and Naylor were outnumbered and pushed back by the more forward three and no-one was dealing with McCormack and any half decent holding player would look good given that much space (M. Doyle would have destroyed us!). Theoretically, this should have enabled our FB/wide MF pairings to exploit the space on Luton's flanks, but neither of those pairs were able to do anything constructive. As above, these are not ideal positions for Lowe or Haunstrup and it probably wasn't the best weather for FBs to be burning up and down.

I am not a fan of 4-4-2, but no system will work if you are trying to shoehorn players into the wrong positions for them to succeed. I think this is a team crying out to play 3-4-3 or 4-3-3, either of which would be better than 4-4-2 which just looks defensive and negative.

I am really surprised that KJ has decided to play 4-4-2. Curtis was apparently signed to play the left of three attackers in a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 (or so we were told) and is now operating through the middle with Pittman (neither of whom I can recall scoring in pre-season btw). What's more, Haustrupp is playing left mid to accommodate the desire for 4-4-2) and that does not make a ton of sense to me either!

Given Luton were dominating midfield on Saturday - and we were 1-0 up when this was happening - I could have completely understood KJ changing to a 4-2-3-1 formation and taken off Haustrupp, pushed Curtis left, Lowe right and brought on Close to play in front of Naylor and Walkes in central mid and to negate Luton's midfield diamond.

If he wanted to get really creative he could have brought Burgess on and replicated England by pushing Thompson and one of Brown or Haustrupp as wing backs to exploit the space out wide and give Naylor and Walkes an outlet to build the play from.

I'm interested to see how KJ approaches the midfield for the Blackpool game. I'm hoping we don't try and play 4-4-2 away from home too often