I don’t know too much about BTA from his WBA days but I agree with these assessments based on his time with us. In his and Simms’ defence, they formed a good partnership with a lot of goals in the Jan-Feb run where we played 5-3-2.
For me, given that all of our strikers have struggled in a 4-2-3-1 (including Wright), there’s clearly something tactical going on there.
We need more out wide in terms of goal contributions but even in our build up play, we often pass back rather than taking opposition fullbacks and it’s always going to hard for strikers if they’re surrounded by 2-4 players in the box when everyone is set.
Agree with this. I only managed to catch the second half of the Bristol Rovers game, but i noticed 3 occasions when we had to chance to pick a pass forward and they weren't executed. Twice Simms made good runs and once from Raphael, the ball to Raphael was played behind him which meant he had to check back, and the other two, we chose to turn and pass backwards. When Grimes eventually did try and break those lines, we score.
It's something that happened far too often last season. You're right in that all of our strikers have struggled with this way of play. They all are the type that prefer to be running on to a ball rather than coming deep, i don't think any of them are suited to the role with their backs to play.
This is why i think Torp is vital to the way we play, for me the starting midfield (from the current options) had to be Grimes, Rudoni and Torp. Of course there are games that aren't going to suit that, but he has that ability to pick those passes. We saw that Grimes is also capable of it when he comes forward a bit more.
We definitely need some competition for Tats, we need that extra contribution from our wingers.
If it is a tactical problem and they need to ship out one striker to bring in someone like Bertaccini, who can play multiple roles across the front then so be it, i'm sure it's something they'll have noticed and are hopefully addressing as we speak.