Through the seasons before us..

Smoulds has spoken today of the rather obvious notion of playing Nathan Tyson as a flying winger more often after seeing him tear apart hapless Charlton at the weekend.  The prospect excites me, because he was bloody good in that position, and it would suggest continuing with a 4-4-2 formation – which gives us the width we’ve been crying out for for several games now, in my opinion.

Much criticism has been levelled at our central midfield, and not without some just cause, but the lack of width we’ve had at times has given them very few outlets.  Tyson showed his willingness and natural fitness at the weekend, it enabled him not only the charge forwards from deep, but also to get back and do more than his fair share of defensive work – which is certainly something we see too little of from Kris Commons when played in that position.

Smoulds said:

“Playing Nathan on the left is a wonderful option for us.  He presents a different threat to the way Kris plays and we had the full effect of that against Charlton.

“Teams will now have seen Nathan play in that position but it gives us another variable to an already potent attacking force.”

It makes sense – I can imagine that Tys will end up with the double-marking that often happens to Commons, and sometimes even Trigger – this frees up space in midfield and gives us more options, and with Tys I feel there is more chance of him creating something against double-marking, certainly more so than Trig on the other wing, bless him.  Hopefully it will not only give our central midfield more outlets and space, it will give the side more balance too – and crucially it will give the left back more support because of Nathan’s phenominal workrate.

There’s a flipside, of course, we lose his impact upfront, but we rarely manage to play the killer throughball to him anyway, and Agogo has pace enough to play in that role upfront – and the sight of Tyson running with the ball from a deeper position is a tantalising prospect, and one I’d love to see more often!

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