The world of football has seen plenty of tactical innovations over the years, from the favoured pre-war line up of 2-3-5, to 4-4-2, to the current en vogue formation of 4-5-1, via wing backs, sweepers, and plenty more besides.
But I doubt any of the globes most creative soccer thinkers have come up with a formation as bizarre as that employed by the Brabinator in last nights game. We were tokenly playing 4-3-3, but it more resembled a lop-sided 4-4-2 set up, with Willmott roaming down the right flank and, er, no one patrolling the left.
It's hard to know where to begin with the difficiencies of this line up, and I don't quite comprehend what the Brabinator was thinking. It was obvious we were going to get over run in midfield (it was virtually four against two, with Willmott doing no defensive work of note), and up front he chose an unbalanced combination of strikers; with Rendell leading the line we needed one of the others to drop deep and the the third to stretch the defence. As it was, both Crow and Beesley were wanting to occupy the same space, and the team was crying out for some of Holroyd's pace, which wasn't injected until all was lost.
But it would be wrong to direct all the blame at the manager when none of the players covered themselves in glory either. Potter looked as though he could've done better on both goals, the defence were sluggish and gave their opponents far too much space, midfield was weak and up front the three strikers seemed to keep getting in others way.
United weren't actually playing too badly until an unimpressive yet hard working Wrexham outfit took the lead. Marc Williams, who was by far and away the best player on the pitch in the first half (he faded a bit in the second), played the ball into Jon Brown, whose low shot clipped the heels of Tonkin and flew into the far corner, with Potter a mere spectator.
Rendell scuffed a shot wide from close range, but other than that chances were few and far between at either end, although Wrexham could have had a penalty when the otherwise annonymous Jefferson Louis appeared to be clipped in the box by Hatswell. Louis, who always seems to score against us, had the last laugh though, when he netted the second. Tonkin and Hatswell both failed to clear their lines with headers, and a scuffed shot from the edge of the box came through a sea of legs to Louis, who turned it in from close range. Game over.
When the U's finally did fashion a clear opportunity it went begging. Holroyd chipped a cross over to fellow sub Jardim who, with the goal gaping, headed disappointingly over the bar. Why is it that we save our worst misses for live televised games?
So all in all a complete shambles. The Brabinator has spent the last few weeks complaining that he doesn't have any players, but when he does have a full(ish) squad to choose from it seems he can't be relied upon to select the right team. Of course he's a young manager, and as such can be forgiven for making mistakes, but he needs to show he's learning from them as well.
Man of the Match: Er, I'll come back to you on that one...
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