Luke Turner discusses the first of two formations he thinks Rowett will be considering…
The Second City derby is just days away and Gary Rowett has a decision to make regarding what system to play against our local rivals.
The obvious choice of formation would be between 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1/4-4-2 (however you want to look at it). Those latter three formations just depend on whether someone like Che Adams plays a bit deeper or closer to the central striker.
Playing three midfielders in a 4-3-3 would give us that solidity in midfield and, hopefully, allow us to win that battle in the middle and gain more control.
That would mean a trio of Stephen Gleeson, Maikel Kieftenbeld and David Davis with Gleeson being the one to sit in front of the back four.
I think it’s important that we have that mixture of Kieftenbeld and Davis who can cover ground and win the ball whilst having Gleeson there to tidy up and take advantage of his passing range.
Villa have players with the ability to pass around us so it’s also vital that we can match that and play a bit ourselves with Gleeson at the base of a midfield trio.
However, what you could say about this formation is that it leaves the striker very isolated. We saw at Burton on Friday that Lukas Jutkiewicz barely had any support and therefore struggled to have any real impact.
If we are to sacrifice playing someone next to the striker then it’s crucial that we have runners around him that are available as support and, as a result, become more effective.
On the defensive side of things, 4-3-3 gives us more chance of blocking up space and giving Villa little room to play in.
The thing I’d we worried about is the flexibility of the formation. If we wanted to go a bit more attacking then we are relying on Davis to play a little more advanced.
We all know that this isn’t his strong point so this leads nicely onto opting for a more attacking formation which I will cover in another article tomorrow so stay tuned for that.