First team

McDermott must stick with 4-4-2 to stand a chance

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This season Leeds have gone through many formations, 4-3-1-2, 5-3-2, 3-4-3 and now 4-4-2. The formation that we started the season with due to lack of options, otherwise known as the diamond formation, made us solid enough but we really lacked upfront. What can you expect when playing Noel Hunt and Luke Varney together? Before the Birmingham at home game we played 11 games in the championship, never scoring more than 2 goals in each. It was never the set-up or team that would win us promotion, Brian knew that. So like all good managers, he made a change, bringing in the 5-3-2 formation.
We had just been beaten comprehensively away at Derby and there was an international break, well timed. Brian utilised wing backs in Sam Byram and Stephen Warnock to give us that much needed width. It worked a treat, we battered Birmingham 4-0. Back to the present, we’ve had an even worse run. No wins in 7, 6 of them losses. The 5-3-2 formation had run out of steam, McDermott even tried 3-4-3 against Rochdale and Sheffield Wednesday, conceding 8 goals and scoring 0 in the process. It came as no surprise that some Leeds fans were starting to question him. The popular line of “back to basics” was echoed around LS11 and finally it happened, we played 4-4-2 against Leicester in a much improved display, still resulting in a loss.
No successful teams change their formation 5 times a season and we cannot do this. Brian got promoted by playing 4-4-2 at Reading and I think it can work here. I’ve not given up yet, if we sign a decent number 9 to go with Ross I think we’ll still have a slight chance. It must have an effect on the players, changing the formation so often. Just like changing the defence with 5 minutes of a game left, it shouldn’t happen unless forced upon you. 4-4-2 is the formation that could get us promoted, no doubt about it. The only difference from the team that played v Leicester would be Murphy instead of Brown for creativity and Zaliukas for Lees, who has looked poor for a while and only escapes criticism due being an academy graduate. If we’re to be successful we also need Kebe and Stewart to improve, it’s clear Kebe isn’t match fit but there’s good signs there. Stewart on the other hand has hardly touched the ball in either game, hopefully we see a vast improvement. Most of all though we just need a bit of luck, had Ross head not been triangle-shaped yesterday (ironic eh Ross?)

and had he not missed that one on one, we’d have won. Hopefully now we will go on a 10 game winning streak and sign Luciano Becchio on deadline day, we can dream, right?

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