The defeat to Arsenal at the weekend continues to dominate the headlines today and after a lacklustre display, Tim Sherwood found himself having to defend his tactics and his formation. Reports point to the opposition exploiting our 4-4-2 but when questioned on the subject, the Head Coach claimed we were far less rigid than some were suggesting.
“I didn’t see us playing 4-4-2,” Sherwood said.
“We just had 11 numbers on the field and tried to rotate and fill up every area of the field. I don’t know what you are saying about 4-4-2.
“We played with two recognised strikers, but Adebayor dropped deep into that area and picked up the ball.
“Our wide players funnelled in. I don’t think we were ever two players in midfield. When the ball was on the right, Christian Eriksen tucked across into the middle.”
Tim went on to defend 4-4-2 as a concept, citing Manchester United’s success as a reason for persevering with it and most, if not all of us were calling for a more attacking formation under AVB. At home against sides such as Stoke it’s clearly a logical move but are there occasions when the new head coach should be a little more conservative?
To be fair to Sherwood the injuries have prevented us from playing anything else. Chadli is the only fit attacker on the bench and I don’t blame Sherwood for sticking with a winning team.
Once Lamela, Paulinho, Townsend, etc are available again, we may see him become more flexible. Against most of the weaker teams playing two strikers will be OK but there will be times when a natural third midfielder is required. Ade can drop deep and link-up play but he’s never going to be an engine-room player like Sandro, Capoue etc.
We need to go on window to complate final finishing attachment for squad and we devolup on 4-2-3-1 & 4-4-2 but better on 4-2-3-1 flexible attaking formation 6 singing need to strong squad 1.l. Bains 2.joelon lescott 3.kevin strootman 4.ezequlim lavezzi 5.javier hernandez 6. Mata
We line up 4-2-3-1 counter attaking formation after january LLORIS WALKER DAWSON LESCOTT L.BAINS PAULINHO STROOTMAN LAMELA (TOWNSED) ERIKSON (MATA) LAVEZZI SOLDADO (HERNANDEZ)
1.Kevin Strootman is ideal peace of midfield to partner with paulinho to resolve long term spures midfield problem(moussa demblele) 2.lavezzi is winger but he will moer attaking or behind the striker 3.hernandez (flexible on box) 4.mata (cam and lw ) 5.l. Bains (box to box attaking & defensive and moer creating chances any other player) 6.lescott (position defender main on central position)
It’s not 4-4-2. Check out the average position maps on Whoscored.com. It’s 4-4-1-1, with Soldado dropping into midfield to make up a three. Problem on Saturday was that our two centre-backs kept dropping too deep as they were too worried about Walcott running in behind. Either needed better/more assured play from Dawson and Chriches to push up but with good judgement, or a defensive midfielder. Capoue should have been used, with Bentaleb coming on later. I’ve no worries about the tactics, just the personnel used. But with six games in 17 days maybe Sherwood thought it best to use some fresh legs, something that would make sense to me.
Are you seriously suggesting we buy another half a dozen players? There’s enough quality in our squad to be competitive. We just need someone who knows how to manage it. I look at other squads above us including Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton and they have similar grade players, just their managers now what to do with them.
You spent 100 million on that!!!!
Akshayaalase still talking the same mind boggling shit I see.doesn’t matter how many times you post your football manager team mate,it ain’t gonna happen.
Keep the faith we have a number of key players out or are coming back , the main goal is to try and get into the top 4 this season.
And yes this squad is good enough to it and have a good run in the europa league aswell
Coys!!
Just glad to see the back of avb and his boring tactics would get lescott in good solid defender and another striker berbertov would do for 18 months think we can get 4th place ahead of man utd.
442 against teams that come to defend or a United team with no real midfield is good. Especially with an energised Adebayor dropping deep to lend numbers. Against an Arsenal team whose strength lies in passing the ball around in the centre? Suicide.
When will we get a manager with more than one trick up his sleeve?