4-4-2 ? 4-5-1 ? It was 4-2-3-1 wot beat the Gooners....

arnie sidebottom

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According to Joe Lovejoy in the Sundays.

"Shorn of a who's who of players - David Beckham, Roy Keane, Rio Ferdinand, Laurent Blanc,Nicky Butt - Ferguson devised a cunning plan which combined kaleidoscopic attack with resolute defence.

His formation was a fluid 4-2-3-1, which featured Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, just behind Ruud van Nistelrooy - a new and unexpected deployment which clearly fazed Arsenal's zonal marking.

The decisive influences, however, were Juan Sebastian Veron and Phil Neville, who dominated midfield....."

Do you think we'll see the same again on Wednesday ? It has to be said, every player seemed to know their role on Saturday.
 
It was passion and commitment wot beat the Gooners.
 
SAF beat Wenger by utilising better tactics on the day, the way our players esp Neville did not allow Arsenal time to play football was awesome. We dominated midfield which is where Arsenal play their better football. Thats how we won the game.
 
Originally posted by 2Bullish:
<strong>SAF beat Wenger by utilising better tactics on the day, the way our players esp Neville did not allow Arsenal time to play football was awesome. We dominated midfield which is where Arsenal play their better football. Thats how we won the game.</strong><hr></blockquote>

According to Adams - if you read his article - Arsenal lost the game because their midfield on the day was not composed enough.

It comprised of Viera, Silva, Pires and Ljungberg. And according to Adams, Arsenal can't play away from home like that because there's not enough defending midfielders included, both Pires and Ljungberg are attacking minded and so left Arsenal exposed to control of the midfield.

So yes, you're right, we took control of the midfield where they play their best football. I think it was a tactical error on Arsene's part and our sheer commitment that got us the win.
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Almost every news source came up with a different formation. It was certainly a lone striker, with Scholes between midfield and attack, Veron and Phil pretty level with each other, but to say that Ole and Giggs were pushed up is silly, they were just wingers and actually spent a lot of time defending, so I'd say it was 4-4-1-1.

The key to the result was defending by everyone on the pitch - Ruud and Scholes were clattering and harrying the defenders making them pass poorly, Phil was chopping down Vieira and Gilberto with Veron and Scholes helping out to press whoever had the ball, those 3 worked together to hound them and succeeded in breaking up Arsenal's play entirely - 3 CM's against 2. And this was before they reached our defence which had young, strong and pacy centre backs where memorably early in the first half Brown forced Henry right out to the sideline to a huge roar. O'Shea snuffed out Ljungberg, and there only threatening player was Pires, but he barely got the ball. The United that won throughout the 90's were a team that continually pressed for the ball, it was as much a trademark as was our fast one touch football - hunger, aggression and pressing won us the battle.

Our two goals owed largely to Ruud and Scholes, who remind me of Hughes and Cantona in that Hughes was the best chester of a ball I've ever seen, big and strong enough to keep the defender behind him, holds the ball up and plays in the oncoming deeper forward, someone who's capable of a magic final ball or scoring themselves. Alex is trying to repeat this recipe. It worked against Arsenal, but I'd still prefer Scholes in midfield and someone like Ronaldinho as the link striker, but until that happens, Scholes is the best suited to it that we have - though Forlan has shown signs that he could grow into that too.
 
yeah agreed, v interesting post this...don't agree that we dominated midfield so much as destroyed their ability to...dealing with it there gave our back line the perfect foil to produce a near perfect performance...cannot over state the immense nature of this performance against one of the best Arsenal teams ever...no wonder Wenger is talking crap post match...he was tactically left on the bench by SAF <img src="graemlins/smirk.gif" border="0" alt="[Smirk]" />
 
The fluidity was the key in attack along with a total commitment to defend as a team when we didn't have the ball. Vierra didn't know what had hit him & Gilberto must have thought he was in a war zone. Starved of supply, Henry and co looked neutered apart from Henry's one on one which Barthez won & Pirez's magical chip/volley which TV reveals Barthez also saved.
 
Well...whatever it was...and apart from the team commitment, which spoke for itself :

- We saw Veron and Scholes accommodated in the same team without having to compromise their natural 'strengths'.

- We kept a clean sheet.

- We scored twice.

- It proved that we can adopt successfully variations on 4-4-2 and out-manoevre an opposition game plan.
 
The players we used gave us a lot of options. And I believe that the key to our victory was closing Vieira down. He's the key to a great Arsenal, offensive and defensive. On Saturday he did nothing thanks to the effort from Phizza and also both Veron and Scholes.

We had more players at midfield and that counted for much. And our side backs won their match against Pires and Ljungberg easy and that meant Ole and Giggs could concentrate on the offensive work.

And still, had Arsenal been the better team we could have changed our formation easy. We have the players to play 3, 4 or 5 midfielders. For the opposition manager to not now who and how we'll play will be a major headache. And it's clear that we have come a long way from a simple 4-4-2 with the main threat down the wings.

And, of course, it's very good to know that our defence, including goalkeeper, will perform - both as a unit and as individuals. No matter who the players are.
 
we clearly needed to evolve our tactical options and variations from the time we did everything through flyers down the wings, just that until recently the players didnt look confortable with it. this is why saf has CQ eh? to try to develop variations on 4-4-2 to give us more options.
it used to be that we would just play our normal flowing easy football and allow the other team to play, we'd come unstuck against tactical nowse and teams who actively loked at our game and went to stop us playing.
after all the shit weve been getting for relatively "negative football" i.e. combatting an opponents strengths and stopping them from dominating key areas; i'm overjoyed we at last seem to have the coaching skills and tactical orientation to do the same to others; if we are to win the CL once again ladies we are going to have to be able to stop sides using their creative outlets not just hope to scorch them with our own attacking play <img src="graemlins/smirk.gif" border="0" alt="[Smirk]" />
we're not unstoppable but neither is anyone else and i have far greater confidence as long as the players look capable of this.
 
Fact is: Arse only have one way of playing, 442, score 1-2 goals and then counter attack, bit like us a few years back.

The thing with Liverpool is they tried to attack this season, and Hyppia and co, got found out, Liverpool can either play longball an defend with two rows of four, or play attacking football and get caught out.

But we realised that after 99 that we had to change the way we play, so now we have a few ways of playing: 4411, 442 and variations of 451, that has made us more succesfull in europe over the last few years.

Arsenal and Liverpool do not like chasing leads, maybe they have a come back or two, but most of the time they can't handle it and the foriegners crack under pressure.

With United we are known for our come-backs, FC Basle was our latest example. Tottenham last year is another example.

face the truth and don't try the brave face mlarkey with us u Gonners and Thieving scousers!!!!!
 
all the numbers matter for nothing on the field, so long as the 11 players have the determination and will to make it work out.

we can be playing 442 or watever on the drawing board but we'll still lose if the players can't be bothered.
 
Originally posted by phunky:
<strong>we can be playing 442 or watever on the drawing board but we'll still lose if the players can't be bothered.</strong><hr></blockquote>

precisely but United players always sweat blood for the cause dont they? <img src="graemlins/smirk.gif" border="0" alt="[Smirk]" />
its whats helped us truly mark ourselves beyond the standards of other sides, hopefully we now have it " back for good" , as top pop artiste and performer Gary Barlow says (in private as he has no friends to speak of) (i.e. he has friends but theyre too ashamed so wont speak of it)
ah, so the answer ah, is yes, unless anyone else disagrees with me in that case i dont think so either, er " probably" then. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
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Having watched the game on Saturday, it seems clear to me that we played our European formation against Arse - saturate midfield, not allowing the opposition the time and space to build up a rhythm, and Scholes (and Giggs and Ole) supporting RVN whenever he manages to get hold of the ball. I think Sir Alex has seen that formation used, successfully, against us in europe so many times in recent years, it's no wonder that he has learnt to use it too.

Wenger and their players clearly don't have enough experience in dealing with such formation, hence struggled against us.

I won't be surprised to see exactly the same tactics used against Deportivo on Wednesday.
 
But as they say, horses for courses, it would be silly to play that formation against average premier league sides. I'd still like to see 4-4-2 being brought back for the other games.
 
this 4-2-3-1 could definitely be the influence of Carlos Quiroz finally coming through.

This is the exact formation the Portuguese national team uses, with 2 defensive mids like Petit and Vidigal protecting the back four, and then Figo, Rui Costa and Jao Pinto/Sergio Conceicao playing behind a lone striker(Nuno Gomes or Pauleta).
 
:confused:

Esentially, it was the same formation as usual. The difference being OGS, who has the ability to beat defenders, unlike David Beckham. This gave us to out and out wingers in OGS and Giggs. Scholes played his usual game of coming from the midfield to either make or take opportunities. Other than that Veron played a great game as well as Phil. Add the best CB in England Wes Brown and a great work rate to the equation and there you have it. Three points.
 
Originally posted by darko:
<strong> :confused:

Esentially, it was the same formation as usual. The difference being OGS, who has the ability to beat defenders, unlike David Beckham. </strong><hr></blockquote>

I agree. OGS worked really hard and contributed a lot defensively. If you noticed both of our goals started from his interception of an Arsenal ball.
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Originally posted by mu11:
<strong>

I agree. OGS worked really hard and contributed a lot defensively. If you noticed both of our goals started from his interception of an Arsenal ball.</strong><hr></blockquote>


Yes, I have to hold up my hands and admit I never thought Ole could do it consistently over 90 minutes. :D
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Originally posted by arnie sidebottom:
<strong>- It proved that we can adopt successfully variations on 4-4-2 and out-manoevre an opposition game plan.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Which we couldn't do before.

It is painful to see teams having just one gameplan and failing when they get caught (e.g. SGE's belief that, somehow, England would turn the game around against Brazil and insisting on the same rigid plan).

We had that problem at times and that's why SAF came up with the whole 4-5-1 story.

From the last few games, it looks like our players are finally getting the movement and versatility needed to handle a game in such a way that no one seems to agree what formation it was.

That's the whole point isn't it? You can't prepare to control a rival who keeps changing the gameplan at will.

SAF is a fecking genius :D
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