31 Oct 2026 21:23:29
Our two-man midfield is becoming painfully predictable.
While it works perfectly fine against teams like Celtic who keep a tight distance between their defence and attack, it completely falls apart the moment an opponent decides to stretch the pitch.
When teams bypass the press and play long, our two central midfielders are left totally isolated. Both can't drop back to protect the back line so we're left exposed to second balls and they are never close enough to link with the forward line.
As a result we lose control of game and we end up hoofing it long ourselves, which plays directly into the opposition's hands.
Our goal today was the result of a counter attack, at a moment in time where Aberdeen's defence had pushed up the park. If it wasn't for that, I'm not sure had a goal in us.
I really like the squad we're building, but we desperately need to see something a little different.
Couldn't agree more EHL and we say that Celtic are predictable and teams have sussed out how to play against them.
We are in danger of falling into the same trap.
The gaffer has to switch it up a bit.
Do we actually have the players to play a 3 in there?
Looks to me we have decided as a club to play the 442 system and have recruited for that or 4231.
I like 433 because there is more balance in it but you need numbers from midfield to make up for the attacker missing up front. Take away the front two's goal right now and we have nothing imo.
I am really interested in seeing how the current formation does over a season. Since Jablonec its been really effective but understand there are question marks over it because its not been used to win a league in SPL for a couple of decades.
EHL - excellent post and what formation do we adopt to make us less predictable to play against?
Still good to be in the Final.
Getting through and another clean sheet, nobody will remember this game if we win some silverware. We are still unbeaten in what now!
Would suggest that against Celtic it was more of a 3-5-1-1.
Penrice becoming the 3rd central midfielder (with Naderi more of the no. 10).
Does Derek need a tactics man in to help his team?
Billy Reid would do that job for me?
Totally agree ehl. Absolutely over the moon we are in a final, but that was horrible to watch again. Like against Hearts many will say we had an off day today, but how many times are we going to have an off day this season? Apart from bounani we were dreadful up top, if it wasn't for poor finishing from dons, we'd have been in trouble.
If we keep playing like that, the wheels will fall off soon enough, Aberdeen had so many players injured, these performances are worrying, it wasn't so much the dropped points at hearts, it was the manner of it. We won't keep getting away with it.
IM over the moon with the tight win against one of our biggest rivals. Hard fought and well deserved, we had many more chances and our defence limited them to maybe 2 or 3 the entire game. Great striker paly from Naderi to get us over the line.
Aberdeen had 2 shots on target, 5 off, we had 5 on target 12 off, 74% possession, double the corners Aberdeen had, Rangers didn't deserve to lose that game, Aberdeen were up for that game like normal, a semi final and reached the final, happy with that, let's win the remaining league game before the international break, we were playing better before the last one.
Well deserved and should have been more - a few players not at their best right now - great to be in the final 🇬🇧.
My star i agree with you Aberdeen didn't do anything in the game we didn't deserve to loose and which we didn't into the final and hopefully we lift the trophy next month.
To be fair if not for some bad finishing , last ditch blocks and not much luck in front of goal we could of scored 5 or 6 goals in second half , two man midfield will cause us problems in games and DM must see it as welll but think not seeing where goal coming from is way off.
EHL -For me the big isssue is when our defence has the ball trying to bring it out. The wingers are staying high and often (actually nearly all the time) one of the midfielders drop deep to offer a pass leaving one midfielder in there. Which forces us to either go long or like in the second have put a low pass straight from the defence to the strikers (normally Kelsy).
For me it's not the formation but the tactics. In this scenario I would like to see a box with the wingers coming centrally, either deeper than the strikers, coming centrally into midfield to provide passing and link up options.
Or let the strikers come a bit deeper and let the wingers go beyond for flick ons etc.
And regarding flick ons, it's becoming too predictable, we can't be trying it all the time with limited success. We need the strikers to try and hold the ball better to slow the whole team up the park at times.
Well, this old man is delighted to be on the final, my opinion is we just need to instil some composure when we get the chances we made yesterday. The one area that really annoys me is the slow passing in the defensive area, get it forward quicker and who knows we may just get the additional goals we all crave.
Part of the dilemma is our Strikers are at best in a partnership so we lose a man in midfield. So do we drop a striker when they seem to be linking up well to strengthen midfield but end up with no weaker up top? Strange also were suddenly so short of CMs that we have to play a LB there when we had an abundance of different CMs before.
I know we've been trying to adapt Dragos style apparently but is a natural LB really a better option than him?
Ziko's I disagree, I really don't think it's the wide players that are the issue.
The 3 pieces of the puzzle that are lacking for me is RB, CM and CF.
We need a rb that can mirror what Penrice and Rommens can do. Unfortunately Sterling can't, which leaves us really lopsided and gives the opposition an out ball.
In CM we need a powerful runner who is capable of breaking the lines. Unfortunately that's neither Neil or Raskin, who are both very similar in that they want to be on the ball and they want dictate play.
And upfront we need someone who is comfortable to drop in to the midfield occasionally to make up a 3, someone who can take the ball in on the halfway line and bring others in to play. Unfortunately the 2 we have who can do this are injured.
Either that or just go to 433, which would be my preference.
01 Nov 2026 09:55:13
Neither of our strikers, who are scoring and assisting regularly, can play a line striker role. So our options are:
- Play 4-3-3 with only one of them and remove our current goal threat (see first half against Dundee).
- Play 4-2-1-2 and drop the wingers, so Bouanani and Gassama don't play. Kim squeezes into 10 where he hasn't been effective (better off the left IMO).
- play 3-5-2 which means none of the wingers or Kim can play (they aren't wing backs)
- play 3-4-3 which is a combination of all the above problems.
Maybe the manager has looked at all his options and decided this is the one with the trade offs he's willing to accept, because whatever system we go with is always going to have trade offs.
01 Nov 2026 10:00:26
You make a lot of sense EHL and its an informed argument, however I feel with a bit more pace of passing , we'd have found more space in the attacking areas quicker. Which in. Turn would have isolated their full backs more often. Also, I feel like the counter attack for us is a valid option against any team, we break quickly usually, just the final pass needs to be better sometimes