4-3-3

Two up top for me at our level.

1 user thanked author for this post.

cassidystash

Horses for courses; worked well pre season but yesterday we should have changed early.

Think we need to look at training on 4g more too, the ball ran horribly on the pitch yesterday and we didn’t look comfortable.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Sharp_Shooter24

The plastic pitch quite possibly did play a part in the performance ..Russ Wilcox mentioned several times during commentary how much of an advantage it was for Tamworth ..heard a few comments that we looked very uncomfortable getting used to it, thats not taking away from the fact that Tamworth were the better side in other areas not only due to the surface that they are obviously used to playing on both on match days and more than likely training.

That was only 3g. FIFA 2* rated!

I think anither 4 or 5 NLN teams have plastic pitches.

As NI alludes to there are different levels of pitch around depending on age and costs. The one at Ilkeston is 4g and I was told only Liverpool and England (St George’s Park) have pitches of the same standard. Albeit on a dry day that one seemed to play very much like a good grass pitch – no bubbles or uneven bounces. The one at Tamworth is 3g and looks fairly old. You could visibly see the black patches of the base layer where the “grass” has worn away. Hence the bubbles and dodgy bounces. Didn’t look any different to the dodgy ones around when I played 40 years ago.

This quality of pitch has always favoured the home team. Remember the likes of Luton and QPR having great home records whilst having away records nearly as bad as ours in recent seasons.

Tactically Tamworth were lightning quick to challenge our midfield every time they received the ball. The first challenge was always a nudge rather than a tackle. Hence our midfield never got the ball under control enough to get passes going.

The ref gave us free kick for most of these nudges in the first 15 minutes but then decided to let them go. Too busy playing with his cards probably.

Bottesford? Did Hilton not rate it for us to train on? he wants the best and I get that but if your playing on lower grade plastic surely train on them.