Not the system that loses you games

17/08/21: PG - “Unfortunately, when players aren’t playing well enough it’s the system that gets the blame or whatever.

When your team suffers a convincing defeat Peter Grant understands how formation will always be questioned. Under the new manager Dunfermline have shaped up 3-4-3 this season but had to revert to 4-4-2 for the second half against Rangers. He explained his thoughts on the subject:-

“When you win the first few games everybody thinks it’s brilliant and when you lose a couple of games everybody thinks it’s rubbish. That’s football.

“It’s like a goal-scorer who doesn’t score goals, people think he’s rubbish. His movement’s brilliant but he doesn’t get the service. I understand people’s questions, that’s football and people will always have opinions.”

For the five Premier Sports Cup matches and two cinch Championship matches the three at the back have primarily been Aaron Comrie, Paul Watson and on loan Dundee United man, Ross Graham. Kyle Macdonald and Josh Edwards have been deployed as wing backs and Peter claimed:-

“If it’s a back three or a back four - and if it’s a back four it’s always a back three anyway because you’re telling your full-back to run forward and the opposite one to tuck round - formations don’t lose you games of football. The way we play loses you games of football.

“Supporters will always look for something, and that’s not me being critical. I understand that, I do it myself when I watch games on the television and say I would have done this or that. But it’s easy in the stand.

“A couple of weeks ago it was brilliant and everyone was singing and dancing, and I had to put the brakes on and say, ‘no, we’ve got a million miles to go yet’. That’s never changed, I’ve never fluctuated away from that at any time. I said we had a million miles to go and a lot of improvement still to come.

“Unfortunately, when players aren’t playing well enough it’s the system that gets the blame or whatever. The same possibilities are there for us, no matter the system, because I’ve tried to build a group that can play in different systems and I think that’s important but I’m not going to chop and change all the time.

“I’m not trying to complicate it for the players, they know what’s expected of them, but you have to be positive. It doesn’t matter the system if you don’t pass the ball to each other. The bottom line is you’ve got to be confident in possession.

“If you watch any game on the television, just tell me what any team’s system is. If you could tell me what system Man United played on Saturday that would be interesting, because nobody can work that one out.

“People will always question you and I can understand that, 100 per cent, when you’re not winning games of football. But if you start winning games everyone thinks it’s great.

“With the Steven Gerrard situation, all of a sudden they were rubbish and two weeks prior to that he was the best thing since sliced bread. That’s football, that’s the nature of the beast.

“We have to start winning matches and that’s what we’re trying to do, and we know we’ve got the players who are more than capable of winning matches. Everybody realises that but no matter what system you play, I’ve got the personnel able to handle any of the systems we can try to play. It’s not the system that loses us the games, it’s our performance that loses us the games.

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