Mark Hughes has a decision or two to make ahead of the trip to Everton on Saturday both in terms of formation and personnel.
Most would agree that for 55 minutes on Sunday against Burnley Saints struggled to get to grips with playing three at the back, but was that due to the players that Mark Hughes had selected, their inexperience in playing the formation or was it just a bad choice tactically.
Certainly Burnley swept through us on to many occasions and had more chances in the first 20 minutes than they had created in two games against us last season.
With regard to the back three I do think that is was a combination of the wrong personnel as well as the fact that the three players at the back had never played together before in this formation.
Jack Stephens struggled to work out where he was meant to be positionally and seemed unable to cope with the pace and he was not helped by Cedric who in his first game of any sort for 6 weeks was having similar problems, certainly Sean Dyche seemed to have targeted this as a weak link and had his team try to exploit it.
So if Hughes employs it again at Everton then he needs to consider who should be the 3rd man alongside Vestergaard and Hoedt , Stephens was played on Saturday due to the fact he can get the ball down and play, against Burnley that would have been assumed to have been the better option than a defensive right sided player but at Everton it will be different and Jan Bednarek might be better used.
But many would suggest that reverting to a back four might be the better option, trips to Goodison Park are not the happiest days on the road for Saints teams, we haven't won there since November 1997 and prior to that our 1-0 win in April 1992 was our only other win since we won 3-0 on the final day of the 1973/74 season a result that was not enough to keep us up.
So caution might be better for Hughes as he attempts to become only the 5th manager in Saints history to win a game at Goodison Park.
A back four of Cedric, Hoedt, Vestergaard and Bertrand would know their jobs a lot better and perhaps the formation would also allow us to put in personnel further up the field to try and win the game.
But I do feel that Hughes like last season has to concentrate on getting his side tight at the back , well drilled in midfield and then build going forward.
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