I said it at the time, Taylor Allen, as good as he was for us, had a tailor made system for him here, two out and out centre half’s, that allowed him to both cover and advance at will. So far he has been played as a conventional left back and in a two which is never his game, because he wasn’t really a centre half.
It does show that you need to find systems and more importantly roles for players that suit them.
I don’t think the system / Sadler cares much for players who are good on the ball unfortunately.
I doubt Craig Shakespeare would even make the bench .
Yet we still talk about him 40 years on .
Do you think we will talk about Lakin or Jellis in 40 years ? Me neither .
“Brandon … Comley?”
Should Mat Sadler get some credit for this?! I think so. People are all too ready to criticise him when he gets things wrong, but his use of players early last season was pretty good.
Minnie Preece, arguably the best midfielder we have produced over the last 40 years, would have been dismissed for being too small!!
He was obviously way ahead of his time, or perhaps as tactics/ formations change older styles come back as a way of defeating the new. A bit like a rock, paper, scissors format.
So you recognise that we are ahead of the curve or at the cutting edge of tactical development, which seems to be missed by some of the posters on here?
Absolutely! Flynn was way ahead of his time 
Where Taylor Allen is concerned certainly.
Unfortunately he is no longer here, and now we have a Winger shoved up top, two poor CDMs, no really convincing LCB and two woefully out of form centre mids.
We were doing those kick offs when Kenny Mower played for us. Way ahead.
As we can see from his performance at Cheltenham! 
Yeah the article is complete bollocks it’s been a thing for years it’s not “a new rugby style kick off”
I think we could do with some pace in the team, I’d be tempted to go 4-4-2 or maybe 4-2-3-1 if we needed some coverage for the back 4. I know we’re not going to shift from our current formation but maybe something like this
| Roberts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barrett | Flint | Burke | Harper | |
| Comley | Lakin | |||
| Adomah | Maher/Jellis | Clarke | ||
| Pressley |
or if you’re planning on getting balls in the box
| Roberts | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barrett | Flint | Burke | Harper | |
| Adomah | Lakin | Jellis | Clarke | |
| Gordon | Pressley |
I don’t know, just trying to think of a way to get some more crosses in or pace in the midfield. Maybe Weir gets in somewhere too
For a short period, before the KO rule was changed we had a kick-off where Buckley played a ball directly out to the wing, I think to Bernie Wright and off the game went.
I am surprised teams don’t occasionally shoot from the kick-off, just touching it sideways and having a go. There was a time when extra time stopped at the first goal and I think Keates tried a shot from the kick-off. Didn’t go in though.
you could in theory play two holding midfielders and push the wing backs higher up. We always play with just the one.
It’s just because it’s “new” in the Prem, this year anyway, now that some teams have stopped chasing the Barcelona/Guardiola max possession and pass the opposition to death style.
That used to be a tactic in our subbuteo games in the early 70’s, was named after our neighbour who first tried it. Blast the ball from the kick off, clips a defender on the way in, goal. The “Melviniho”.
Wasn’t that termed the “Comsella” or some such?
True. It could work though, but i suspect it would just end up with us being even more defensive as it would require us holding onto more than 3 passes
You don’t need two holders to do that anyway, mate.
If one wing back goes up, the other one could just hold, or someone drops in to cover. It’s really not that difficult. Remember, we have 3 centre backs anyway.
Eh. Man City themselves scored a goal in the FA Cup final two years ago from exactly this type of kick off so I’d still contest the word “new”.