Sousa ponders tactical switch in search for winning formula
Thursday, September 30, 2010, 09:30
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Under-pressure Leicester City boss Paulo Sousa looks likely to abandon the 4-3-3 system as he attempts to end the damaging losing streak which is jeopardising his future at the Walkers Stadium.
City's 4-3 defeat at Norwich on Tuesday night was their sixth defeat in nine games and leaves them propping up the Championship.
Now Sousa, who is also being linked with a move to Greek club AEK Athens, knows that he has to come up with a winning formula against Scunthorpe on Saturday to avoid incurring the further wrath of an increasingly impatient Blue Army.
City worked their way back into the Championship contest at Carrow Road by reverting to 4-4-2, before striker Matty Fryatt's dismissal checked the comeback.
Sousa said: "Every time we change to 4-4-2 with two strikers down the middle, it has been a change in a positive way and we will explore that more, and probably, from the beginning."
With Fryatt expected to serve a three-match ban for violent conduct, Martyn Waghorn looks favourite to partner Steve Howard in attack against the Iron.
However, Sousa knows his major concerns revolve around a back-line which has conceded 22 goals in nine league games.
And he said it is vital for the team to put up a rigorous case for their defence in Saturday's clash at the Walkers Stadium.
He said: "We keep working on that, but to change it we need two or three games with a clean sheet to encourage our players and to avoid the decisions we are making at times. It is something we want to change and something we work on every day to change, but it is not easy.
"Confidence comes with wins and with clean sheets, especially for defenders and goalkeepers. It is something we want but we have the quality and want to push up front sometimes and that means we are exposed."
Sousa has also admitted his frustration at being unable to strengthen a defence which is now having to cope with the additional loss of Miguel Vitor, who is also serving a ban for his dismissal in last week's heavy defeat at Portsmouth.
Sousa had a bid for Swansea defender Ashley Williams turned down in late August, while a mid-September move to bring in Kamil Zayatte on a loan deal from Hull, with a view to a permanent deal, foundered in its final stages.
There were suggestions that Zayatte had problems with his medical, but Hull boss and former City chief Nigel Pearson said the reason the deal fell through was "administrative, technical and financial in relation to emergency loan regulations."
The City boss said the search for new recruits is continuing, but added: "It is something we wanted to do from the beginning, but the market has not been good for us.
"When we come close to concluding deals with certain players we always have an issue and it doesn't allow us to settle the deal. We keep going because we want to add more quality."
The Portuguese sports newspaper, A Bola, claims that Sousa is a target for AEK Athens, whose head coach Dujan Bajevic resigned earlier this week.
http://www.thebluearmy.co.uk/news/S...g-formula/article-2704120-detail/article.html
4-4-2 it is then!
