Should Owen Coyle look to change his formation against Brentford on Saturday to spark a change in Rovers’ fortunes?

Kelvin Wilkins

OWEN Coyle appears very limited as a manager and relies more on charisma than tactical awareness.

He plays without a system and his formations are consistently traditional. His substitutions are like for like and his defence is disorganised.

The team needs some fresh impetus, be that in playing personnel or a new formation, and we must play to the strength of our squad.

Our strikers and wingers are our greatest asset, with weakness at full-back. Therefore I’d look to play a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 formation with Charlie Mulgrew in a central midfield position where he can dictate and influence the game. I’m just not confident Coyle has the football intelligence to divert from the standard 4-4-2 formation.

Paul Yates

IT’s time something happened to shake up the team, but options are limited because of injuries and lack of quality in the squad.

I still believe in 4-4-2 but Rovers’ problems are not to do with formations as Mr Coyle seems unable to consistently get the best out of his players.

Let’s end all the hot air about what the team could achieve and get the players to do their talking on the pitch. The long-suffering fans deserve some light at the end of a very dark tunnel because they do care.

Sam Jones

Rovers have long struggled to connect the midfield and attack. There has been a chronic shortage of players that can provide a bridge between the two.

Even when there was a ready made candidate in Tom Cairney, then manager Gary Bowyer played him out on the right all too often and also consigned Ruben Rochina to the bench.

Bowyer’s justification was probably that playing two strikers and an attacking midfielder left too many gaps in midfield. The argument may be a fair one, but right now Rovers are lacking that creativity going forward.

It may be worth trying a new formation. This would take plenty of training practice to implement on the pitch, but the international break has given Rovers that opportunity. 

A 3-5-2 formation would offer greater flexibility. The three centre halves, including Charlie Mulgrew and Darragh Lenihan, would have protection from the midfield of Corry Evans and Danny Guthrie, who can sit deeper when needed.

The wingers can also provide further stability, with tireless runner Craig Conway on the left and sometime full-back Ben Marshall on the right.

This brings Jack Byrne into the starting lineup as an attacking midfielder, behind strikers Marvin Emnes and Sam Gallagher.

However, with Tommie Hoban injured and Gordon Greer suspended, it would be difficult formation to play at this present moment.

That is unless Coyle is ready to plunge youngster Scott Wharton back into the first team, or if Wes Brown is ever fit enough to play. In reality, it is very likely that we will see the same 4-4-2 formation on Saturday. 

Cameron Deacon

Well, something definitely needs to change. End of. Over the last two weeks we have been bombarded with quotes from the manager.

Talking about how we need to keep clean sheets and talking about how we need to score more goals.

I believe that these statements of change mean that Coyle is going to change something, but the problem is that Coyle is in a bad place at the moment.

With more protests imminent and dislike of Coyle growing there is nothing that he can get right at the moment. If he changes the formation and Blackburn win, he will receive no praise, yet is he changes formation and Blackburn lose all blame comes to him.

And if they don’t change formation then he becomes a “scared” and “clueless” manager. Whatever happens Coyle won’t be gaining support anytime soon.

But if I did have any advice about the formations, keep the two up front, please never change that.

The midfield need to learn to become more involved with the game especially defensively when a ball gets passed them they freeze and become inactive. Watching teams towards the top of the table they can’t be doing that they have to stay active.

If that means committing 1 or 2 midfielders to defensive midfield duties then do it because that will be how we stop the flow of goals coming in.

Then if this happens don’t be scared to push wing backs forward. We saw that this can be effective against teams like Wolves. But yes I do think formation needs to change.