Pellegrino Needs To Get Back To Basics Against Crystal Palace ! Wednesday, 13th Sep 2017 09:09 The sacking of Frank De Boer who could well have been manager of Saints this season is a lesson to be learn't for Saints as they head to South London on Saturday. Frank De Boer's downfall at Crystal Palace was that he tried to do too much too soon, although four games is hardly enough of a chance to give a manager whom you have employed to bring about a radical change the lesson is there to be learn't for Saints. Palace have brought in Roy Hodgson and for the Eagles it is now going to be back to basics, get in a manager who knows the division and who will get the players playing in a way that they know. This is what De Boer should have done, he should have set up the Palace side in a way familiar to them and then evolved their playing style rather than try to change it completely. Mauricio Pellegrino is far from doing that and Saints are far from having the start that Palace have had, but our new manager needs to take a look at his own side and consider how best to set it up. In truth it is not far different from last season, but we all know what the problem was then, too much chopping and changing upset the rythym of a side that was and still is pretty decent. The Argentinian coach needs to decide what his best side is and stick with it, at the moment he doesn't seem to have decided that and hence we have looked lopsided and disjointed in most of the games especially going forward. On Saturday against Watford he changed things and put out a side to attack but the reality was that just puttng in attcking players did not solve the problem, you have to play them in a way that suits their style. As a goalscorer Manolo Gabbiadini has two main strengths, you either feed him through the channels, as was shown by his goal against West Ham, but has rarely been done before or since, or he is a poacher in the box, a style of play that involves two wide men putting crosses into the box, or being overlapped by two ull backs doing the same is never going to produce the goods. Gabbiadini needs someone who can get the ball around the half way line and create an opening for him. A latter day Steve Williams would be ideal, just about the only candidate we have for that role is James Ward Prowse but he has rarely shown this on a regular basis, that is not to say that is his fault, too often he is played out wide. So for Crystal Palace on Saturday Mauricio Pellegrino has to put out a side that plays to its own strengths rather than to it's weaknesses. Inherently there is nothing wrong that cant be put right, we just need to stop experimenting play to our own strengths and get it right. That means for the moment at least a strong back four, two solid holding midfielders with someone creative in front of them and then two wide men who can offer pace and guile. For me that means Romeu and Lemina in the centre and I would play Ward Prowse in front of them, stick with Redmond and Tadic wide and Gabbiadini up front, tell the midfielders what you want from them and that is through balls for the Italian striker. If we are just going to try and get it wide and cross it into the box Gabbiadini is not big enough and is often too isolated to make much impression, he needs the ball played into his feet. If we get back to these basics which is not far removed as to how we played under both Pochettino and Koeman then we can get results under our belt and then start to consider what we can do tactically from game to game, but the first task is to get the confidence flowing. Both Pochettino & Koeman knew what their best formation was and in the main stuck with it, confident that it would come good and get more results than it would lose, that is what Pellegrino must now do, get some momentum in the team. Last season momentum was in short supply we rarely won two gaes in a row in the League and never three, that cannot happen again, we need a good run of wins to propel us up the table. In truth in the four games we have played so far none of the sies have been better than us, even Watford were nothing more than efficient who relied on two wonder strikes to get the points, but they knew their task and stuck with it and we didn't seem to know what formation we were playing. So time to stop the experimenting, play what we know get the results going and then we can start the evolution of our own ! Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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