Hi folks,
Just took over at Dunfermline after a successful season at Shamrock Rovers. The Irish league is pretty weak and I was able to win a cup and the league with relatively small investment after my main contenders fell off.
Working at Dunfermline is a different proposition. They survived relegation from the Scottish Championship on goal difference and had a very flaky squad which I've overhauled and upgraded.
We've had a schizophrenic start to the season, I was 2-0 down within 12 minutes in my first game away to newly promoted Livingston before I brought off an attacking midfielder for a DM and switched from 4-4-2 to 3-4-3 and we ended up scoring 10 goals on the bounce to win 10-2. Bizarre. Next game at home we played decently with the 3-4-3 tactic, taking a 1-0 lead before I got greedy and left us open on the counter while trying to kill the game so we got pegged back to 1-1.
This was just to give you some flavour!
Basically - I'm confident in my 3-4-3 in games I should win, but my tried and tested solid 4-4-2 that did the job in Ireland didn't work well in pre-season and led to a disastrous 10 minutes in the first game of the season, so I'm looking for advice on how to set up to be 'hard to beat' and nick a goal away from home.
Previously my 4-4-2 was full backs on defend, two wide midfielders on support, a centre mid on defensive and another on automatic, a target man on support and a poacher. This worked really well in Ireland, I was hard to beat away from home and got some good results with my team set to slightly deeper, high pressing and direct passing.
TL;DR hook me up with a counter attacking 4-4-2!
Just took over at Dunfermline after a successful season at Shamrock Rovers. The Irish league is pretty weak and I was able to win a cup and the league with relatively small investment after my main contenders fell off.
Working at Dunfermline is a different proposition. They survived relegation from the Scottish Championship on goal difference and had a very flaky squad which I've overhauled and upgraded.
We've had a schizophrenic start to the season, I was 2-0 down within 12 minutes in my first game away to newly promoted Livingston before I brought off an attacking midfielder for a DM and switched from 4-4-2 to 3-4-3 and we ended up scoring 10 goals on the bounce to win 10-2. Bizarre. Next game at home we played decently with the 3-4-3 tactic, taking a 1-0 lead before I got greedy and left us open on the counter while trying to kill the game so we got pegged back to 1-1.
This was just to give you some flavour!
Basically - I'm confident in my 3-4-3 in games I should win, but my tried and tested solid 4-4-2 that did the job in Ireland didn't work well in pre-season and led to a disastrous 10 minutes in the first game of the season, so I'm looking for advice on how to set up to be 'hard to beat' and nick a goal away from home.
Previously my 4-4-2 was full backs on defend, two wide midfielders on support, a centre mid on defensive and another on automatic, a target man on support and a poacher. This worked really well in Ireland, I was hard to beat away from home and got some good results with my team set to slightly deeper, high pressing and direct passing.
TL;DR hook me up with a counter attacking 4-4-2!