A diamond back four?

Leko/DJ and Purrington are definitely wing backs but attacking ones with plenty of freedom to get forward. It's not something I saw anyone predict but so far it's given us a much more balanced team than we saw under Adkins this season.

Where Purrington lacks pace and skill he makes up for it with his energy. You wouldn't see Gunter or Matthews get up, down and into the box like he does. He's had at least three chances to score in two games and you could say he should have scored all of them. As ridiculous as it might sound he could score quite a few over a season getting himself into those positions and we keep creating chances.

Leko/DJ on the right gives us a naturally attacking player with that ability to take defenders on. It helps to stop the formation from becoming too defensive, as we saw when Adkins played a similar formation but with Gunter at RWB.

The three at the back aren't quite Chris Wilder's overlapping CBs but they do move wide and occasionally go forward with or without the ball, helping us keep possession. I think Gunter got forward enough to even put a cross in at one point.

It'll be interesting to see what way it goes - does it get exploited, do we continue as we are or will we get more adventurous and eventually see the wider two support the attack even more.

With a mobile and energetic DM in Dobson there's cover for the WBs and wider CBs. Ahead of them all you've got three more mobile and energetic players in Gilbey, Lee and Washington plus Stockley, a proper target man and at this level a goalscorer. Pressing higher up the pitch and more aggressively has made such a difference, with this 11 we have the players to do that.

Like Bowyer's diamond it needs the right players to offer width going forward and to support out wide defensively. We've got that right in the last two games, if we can keep the intensity up we could go on a good run.

If you consider a formation your defensive shape then I'd put it down as the below. In attack there's a lot of movement with players drifting wide or pushing forward.

                  CM

    Gunter Pearce Famewo

Leko       Dobson       Purrington

        Gilbey       Lee

     Stockley  Washington

Southbank said:

The key change is the personnel rather than the system, although I like the flexibility of the system. With Lee and Gilbey in midfield we have 2 energetic ball carriers who find space to operate in and who can get forward fast. With Dobson we have an energetic midfielder who can protect the back 3/4.
I may be wrong but I don't think those 3 players had been in the same 11 until Sunderland?

Add the fact of having 2 strikers and with the movement of Lee and Gilbey we also have more players in their penalty area when we attack.

If any of those 3 get injured we may struggle again.

Any of them getting injured would no doubt weaken us, but I'm sure we wouldn't revert to the way we were playing under Adkins.

Jackson has improved every aspect of our game. I'd see Clare coming in who although isn't as good would still give us energy and is capable of pressing, finding space, getting in the box and tracking back.

Hopefully JFC continues his progress comes back the player he was to strengthen us further.

January will be interesting, we'll need to move players on before we can bring any outfield players in (unless they're u21). Arter, Kirk and CBT are possibilities. Watson, Gunter and Matthews seems less likely as they're probably not going to attract much interest.