Paul Jewell has revealed that his long-term plan is to play the 4-4-2 formation with Town that he has favoured at his previous clubs. Since taking over at Portman Road last month, the former Bradford, Sheffield Wednesday, Wigan and Derby boss has set his side out in a 4-3-3 for all but fleeting spells of a couple of games.
Jewell said: "Our long-term aim will be to try and play 4-4-2 if possible, but I’m not against changing the system and I think at the moment I think with the personnel we’ve got it suits us to play 4-3-3 with the three midfield players in the centre trying to get on the ball.
"That didn’t really happen at Barnsley but you could see the conditions weren’t conducive to that. But traditionally I play with two wide players and two strikers and try and like to get crosses into the box, and that’s what we’ll try and do. But it depends on the personnel you’ve got and at the moment it suits us to play this way.”
The Town boss was disappointed to concede the late equaliser at Barnsley on Saturday but overall was happy enough with the draw: "Any point you get away from home is good, as long as you win your home games. It felt like a defeat because it was so late and we’d lost two points.
"But the bigger pictures is that I’ve been here five games now and we’ve got 10 points and if you offered me 92 points next season, I’d take that.
"It’s not a bad return and the beauty is that I know that we can get better and will get better with time.
"We’re going to have setbacks on the way. I said when I first came here that it’s a bit of a long-term project this, but to lose two points so late is a kick in the teeth.
"However, we all have to come back from setbacks and we’ve got another game to look forward to now.”
Jewell is likely to stick with the 4-3-3 formation at Doncaster tonight with Colin Healy replacing the injured David Norris in the centre of midfield and Jason Scotland perhaps coming into the lone striker's role.
Meanwhile, Town legend John Wark is the subject of today's featured article on Wikipedia.