THERE is a lot said about formations.

If you play well it's the right formation, if you play badly people can blame it on the formation.

I think if the players play well it doesn't matter too much what formation you play.

As a manager, you can only win when the result is right.

I have been criticised for playing 5-3-2 and it being a defensive formation but that formation was always meant to be 3-5-2.

Our formation has been 3-4-3 for the last two games and when we have got Mark Danks playing in the hole behind Craig Wilding and Abderrahman Traore it's then 3-4-1-2.

We can change it with the personnel we have got on the pitch. You have got to be ready to change and we did that at Romulus and it worked.

We kept the same system against Harrogate and it didn't work. We had 70 per cent of the game and it was only because of the slow start that we lost.

If Steve McClaren switches to a 3-5-2 and England get a draw or a win in Croatia tonight it's the right decision but if he keeps it the same as Saturday against Macedonia - 4-4-2 - and they get beat people say he should have changed the formation.

What you have to do is look at your squad at the start of the season and see how you want to play and you adjust the formation to the players that you have in the squad.

It's a matter of finding the right formation for the players in the team. If you haven't got two wingers then you will struggle to play 4-4-2 and will end up like England and playing people out of position to keep a system.

I am paid to take these decisions and hopefully make more right ones than wrong ones but should you change the way that you play because of one result?

We are just looking for a little bit of consistency. Our performances have been up and down and we haven't really got that level of consistency and we haven't changed the system too much.

We started slowly against Blyth, Nuneaton and Harro-gate and found ourselves 2-0 down. But all three teams will be in contention at the end of the season.

We just need to start better like we were doing last season. We were really going at teams and getting them on the back foot.

I don't go on message boards. It's the worst thing you can do as a manager or player. There's about 1,000 people at our home games and everyone's got an opinion.

If you picked 200 people out of the crowd you would probably end up with 150 different teams and formations.

You know as a manager that you have got to do your job to the best of your ability and the right decisions and make your own decisions.

Fans are always going to have an opinion and they are entitled to it - that's part of being a fan.