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David Unsworth | Getty Images
PNE have dropped down the Championship table after one win in 10 games
Former Preston North End caretaker David Unsworth would like to see a formation change at Deepdale.
However, the Everton icon does not believe that is the key factor behind the Lilywhites’ slide down the Championship table. After sitting fourth in early January, North End now occupy 13th spot heading into the midweek round of fixtures.
Paul Heckingbottom’s side have won one of their last 10 games, drawing three and losing six. In conceding 90+ minute goals at Blackburn, Ipswich and Swansea, they threw away five points.
For Unsworth, the loss of two players in early January - one through recall and another through injury - has represented a crushing blow to Preston’s season. That said, he does not view the current system as a particularly progressive one.
"Quite simply, when you lose your best two players - the goalkeeper Daniel Iversen and Harrison Armstrong - and you can't replace them like for like, the dynamic of the team changes," Unsworth told BBC Lancashire on Monday. "That is a mitigating factor as to why Preston have fallen off. For me, there is no other reason.
“I don't particularly like three at the back. How many teams are successful with that? Coaches and managers will say it's not the formation; no it's not, it's all about the players. But for me, I don't like it. There are too many grey areas in that system. All the successful Championship and Premier League teams now, they play a back four.
“When you play a back four, you have got to be really good 1v1 defending. You have got to be dominant. Those positions are getting harder and harder to fill every season, for teams like Preston. So, I understand why teams like Preston go with a three at the back. It is easier to fill those areas.
“You then try and concentrate certain areas with real quality. So, they have got an abundance of talent up front. I still don't particularly know who the best two are. These are little one percenters, for me.
“The biggest thing for Preston is that they've lost the best goalkeeper in the league and they have lost, arguably, the best midfielder in the league. They both came at the same time and since then, you look at the results. There is no coincidence that those two players come out of the team and results have been poor."
Heckingbottom on the system
Speaking last week, the PNE boss said: “If we wanted to play 4-3-3 the same way as a Man City, or pick any team - wingers high and wide, top 1v1 moments, we've got to go and recruit them. That then changes the dynamic of the players in the middle of the pitch and the role of the nine as well. So, it would’ve been hugely expensive.”
He added: “We tried it last year. We only managed to get Josh (Bowler) in but we had Jeppe (Okkels) so we thought about going lopsided on one side and we did quite well, but I thought we were better defensively than offensively when we played that way. I felt we were trying to roll into a shape that players would naturally play in anyway.
“Now again, that's different if your wide players were producing goals and assists and you play that way to keep them in the team - and that's your most effective way of winning games. But we always seemed to, after one or two glimpses of, ‘Oh yeah, we'll go that way’, roll back into getting our best results and performances in a different shape.”
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