The problem is that every time we play a good team we'll play 4-3-3 and it's not a good thing to be switching your formation like that, the top teams play their main formation all of the time and it becomes fluid due to that, suddenly changing your main system for tough games means you lose that cohesiveness and understanding.
Antoine Griezmann
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Like Juventus did against Monaco? or Spurs against Chelsea?
Every team have more than one formation they employ depending on the opposition and available players. It is standard in the modern game.
You usually play your base formation in >80% of your games and the remaining would like depend on the specifics.
Juve have only started to mix their formations up this season as Allegri never really wanted the 3-5-2 but it was what he had to go with initially. Real, Atleti, Monaco, the other 3 teams in the semis play their system in every game, same as Barcelona and PSG. Spurs change for the Chelsea game became their new formation, so it wasn't a one game only deal, City and Liverpool don't have a fallback coward formation either, most true elite teams don't, it's a small team thing where you have your formation designed to win games and then your formation designed to get a draw against the top 6.
Finely functioning midfield will ease things up for other formations, which isn't the case as of this moment.
Ok, going with estimating hypothesis you should add 10-15 goals from Dzeko playing mostly as a substitute striker (guy knows PL), 5-10 from Mata (he's so reliable statistically), also those 5+ from the unnamed new winger and Lingard. I'll point out that if either of these 2 new strikers clicks he could toss in a premium to our numbers. So in a magical way we get over the line with more than 75 goals when this season hasn't even ended.
If other personnel isn't tailor made for this 4-4-1-1 (vide Leicester as an example) then we'll be susceptible to lots of unwanted results similarly to this season. And Pogba will be forced to act as a poor man's Pirlo.
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I guess it's part of SAF's legacy leaving mark on mentality of the fanbase.
Ok, going with estimating hypothesis you should add 10-15 goals from Dzeko playing mostly as a substitute striker (guy knows PL), 5-10 from Mata (he's so reliable statistically), also those 5+ from the unnamed new winger and Lingard. I'll point out that if either of these 2 new strikers clicks he could toss in a premium to our numbers. So in a magical way we get over the line with more than 75 goals when this season hasn't even ended.
It doesn't really work that way - If Dzeko is scoring 15 goals then your main striker (Belotti) isn't going to be getting the minutes to score 20 as that's 35 goals from your striker over 3420 PL minutes which is your centre forward scoring in almost every game which is unheard of.
Again 5-10 from Mata means he's playing almost every game, meaning you're losing the majority of scoring contribution from Mkhitaryan or Rashford.
Most teams who play 4-3-3 either need 3 players who averages a goal every 180 minutes from all 3 forward players or a player who averages those kind of numbers from midfield (such as Lampard).
We have literally no player capable of scoring at that level in our current squad, so unless we're buying 3 new forwards and giving them a season to bed in that would be a crazy idea.
If other personnel isn't tailor made for this 4-4-1-1 (vide Leicester as an example) then we'll be susceptible to lots of unwanted results similarly to this season. And Pogba will be forced to act as a poor man's Pirlo.
I believe Mourinho wants to return to his favoured 4-2-3-1. He sees Pogba and someone like Fabinho as more than enough to control the midfield against the majority of teams, particularly at home.
That leaves a perfect spot in the team for a 20 goal a season number 10 ala Griezmann.I believe he'll have Herrera rotating in often and will play all 3 of them in the tightest games, moving Griezmann into a wider role, or as the central of a 3.
This makes perfect sense to me. Pogba won't be acting as a poor man's Pirlo, he'll be acting as a creative box to box midfielder with a more defensive player next to him. We've seen Yaya Toure do it numerous times in the past.
This thread is a bit crazy. Dozens of pages discussing whether Griezmann can fit into our system. What system? We're fecking dogshit going forward. We're playing Fellaini and Jesse Lingard but lets not sign Griezmann because he's the only world class player in history who can only perform in one specific formation and position.
If Jose wants to sign him, and I'm not sure we even know that yet, then it's safe to say he knows what to do with him - I reckon!
If Jose wants to sign him, and I'm not sure we even know that yet, then it's safe to say he knows what to do with him - I reckon!
Juventus play 4-2-3-1 in majority of their games this season, but against Monaco (and likely to deny them space in midfield) they switch to 3-5-2/3-4-3. Today monaco responded with a back 3 just to counter Juventus. Spurs have played with a back 4 against the weaker teams e.g. against watford they played 4-2-3-1.
Its simple really - if you feel your current formation or tactics are not suitable to get the desired result (win or draw), then not changing is just being stupid. I would rather the manager changes the formation than being rigid and losing the game.
Monaco weren't really playing a back 3 today, the set up simply had Mendy playing as practically a winger and Raggi as LB in a 4-4-2, the dynamic of the team and the attacking intent was as it always is with them, when we change it goes from trying to win to trying not to lose.
The simple thing is if your system change means you are no longer actually proactively approaching the match there's a problem with your team or the managers belief in his team. However I go back to the main point, elite teams do not change their formation every time they face a tough side, and whatever change they make does not compromise the teams ethos. This 4-2-3-1 to 4-3-3 crap for us means we are juggling our best CM out of position half the time and using a lazy #10 who then gets shoved out wide for every big game where their effectiveness is neutered.
Yep, it's crazy to me that people have major concerns about the fit here. For whatever reason, people have convinced themselves here that Griezmann can only play as a second striker. Even though, before going to Atletico Madrid, Griezmann was a left winger and still scoring goals. His last season with Real Sociedad, he had 16 goals in La Liga (about the same as his La Liga total this season) and 20 total for the season. And Griezmann has improved since that last season at Real Sociedad. IMO, if Griezmann wasn't playing for a team as defensive as Atletico, he would definitely average ~40 goals a season in all competitions.
I think that Griezmann is one of the most versatile world class attacking players out there. And IMO, it doesn't matter whether we play him on the wings or as a #10 or up front as a lone striker, he'll get us goals regardless.
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Against Atletico last week, Real Madrid played 4-4-2 with Isco dropping into the midfield to compensate for Atletico's numerical advantage.
Whether you change you formation (or not) is more of a manager preference than the quality of the team. Some mangaers like Mourinho and Allegri, will adapt to the sitiuation they face, while others like Wenger are ready to die by their principles (and often did).
At the end of the game, sticking to a formation does not make your team any more or less elite (e.g. Arsenal), rather it is the results that show who is truly elite. Nobody remembers which formation was used but history will remember who won the game. Juventus changed their formation against Monaco and are going to the CL finals. Thus they are the elite team
Every time I open this thread I hope there is some actual news on something yet nothing for about 676 pages.
You're really clutching at straws with the Isco choice, for starters had Bale been fit he wouldn't have played, but Zidane's use of him was to give him a free role and he roamed all over picking up holes in that Atleti midfield that was too flat. It was a proactive, attacking choice. When we do it it's "oh shit, it's Liverpool/City/Chelsea, let's chuck the attackers out and get the talentless workhorses like Young and Fellaini in to make sure we don't get whooped!"....That's small time.
However we are going away from the central point, when you see slight tweaks in teams it's simply to enforce the teams attacking potency and to exploit an oppositions weakeness, not to simply stop the team playing because we are afraid that they are too good for us. The bigger point though is what you are proposing for us will make Pogba less than he should be in the lesser games and then kill us as an attacking threat in the bigger games because suddenly you've got a slow #10 playing in a wide role, we'd be better gelling the team as a 4-3-3 that can swat the smaller teams with 2 dynamic wide forwards flanking a striker, and control the bigger games with our 3 man midfield.
No, just people arguing about where he can/can not play
Link me to the whoscored info which says he's started in that formation 4 times please. I was talking about league goals not including domestic cup ones.
But Pogba has had plenty of good games in a 2 man midfield. I would rather see him become a Schweinsteiger/Yaya, dictating from deep while scoring 5-10 goals a season. He has made progress this season adapting to a not so familiar position. Understand your concern though.
I am not clutching at straws as your original claim was that:
Your claim was simply that changing formation was bad for a team and top teams dont do that. I simply provided examples of teams that have been successful despite changing formations against specific opponents. There are even more examples of teams changing formation within the game, depending on game flow.
Changing formation does not make you necessarily anymore attack minded or defensive minded. Barcelona and Madrid play the same 4-3-3 you are criticizing. Both Athletico and Monaco play the same narrow 4-4-2 with totally different approaches.
Everybody plays a base formation in most of their games but there those few games when you need to decide whether to change your formation and/or tactics or let things be.
Seems you belong to the school of thought that would rather stick to the same formation and tactics in every game - which is fair enough as long you are willing to live with the consequences when your rigid formation and tactics plays into the hand of the opposition e.g. when we took advantage of Chelsea's predictability to beat them 2-0.
I belong to the school of where you select your formation and tactics based on the opposition and desired result. I am not a purist, and do not subscribe to some vague notion of there being some approved way to play the game. What I simply want is whatever gets my team the desired result. I have no problem with a team parking the airbus if it wins the game (e.g. Barca vs Inter) than being philosophical and getting trounced 10-2 over 2 legs like Arsenal. A player's individual performance or freedom is even less relevant to me compared to the team's success.
When Mourinho played an open game against Barcelona, he lost 5-0 and the team had to bear a lot of pressure, but when he played a more 'negative' football, he got a positive result in the copa del rey final. I will take the trophy, thank you please!
The clutching at straws comment was regarding you using Isco in last weeks game against Atleti as an example of what you are arguing. Like I said he was only playing becasue Bale was injured, and once you have to use him instead you can't play him as wide as he's not suited there, so he had a free role within the front 3.
As for the rest, If you are happy playing negative football against other top teams as long we win, then that's fair enough, I'm not. However you are suggesting I think like Wenger, which is not the case, I'm saying we are throwing around money like it's going out of fashion, Arsenal get done not because of their philosophy, but because their players aren't good enough to be so attacking, we are shelling out the kind of money that should allow us to build a team like Bayern, Real and Barca that wins trophies by taking the game to teams and dominating them, and any formation shift should be to enhance our attacking strengths and punish an oppositions weaknesses, not to prevent their strengths at the expense of our attacking game.
My main point though was that most of the best teams have their ethos and their formation and they play it almost every game so they become a cohesive unit, it's difficult not to lose your attacking impetus when you use a formation once in 8 games, you simply can't be as cohesive. The biggest problem though comes in the form of what you are suggesting with Pogba and James in this specific formation flux.
I enjoy watching attacking football as much as the next guy but I deemed it stupid when Real Madrid played an open game game against Barcelona in the last el classico, when, if they had been more conservative, they would have probably secured the title by now.
Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern and Juventus are so financially dominant in their local markets that they can afford to assemble a better squad at a cheaper price point than almost any other club. How many teams can afford to have the kind of quality that Madrid possess on the bench, where their B-team is likely good enough to beat half the team in la liga. They have players like Isco, Morata, Kovacic, James etc on the bench and can still afford to pay 45m euros for some teenager in brazil who hasnt even made a senior appearance. Besides Pogba and De Gea, none of the current united players can be a guaranteed starter at any of those teams.
How much you have paid for a player does not equate to the quality of your squad, and the clear truth is that the current roster is nothing like the top teams you are comparing us to. if you want us to play like them while having a roster that is inferior to theirs, then (according to you) you are even more like Wenger than I alluded to before.
I never said that we should be playing like that with out current team, we are talking transfers and building the team from the base of the best formation to suit the quality players we do have so that we become that team.
Even with those potential transfers, we still wont be close to that level. The James in question is sitting on the bench at Real which shows the level of surplus they have.
The current Madrid team has been assembled over almost 8yrs+ and it will take about three summers of recruiting top level young talents before we even come close to them.
The first step is to have a squad that can compete domestically (cos the other top PL clubs wont fold their hands), then we can start looking to benchmark agfainst the Barcelona and comapny.
One thing I hope to see in the coming season is more investment in teenage talents, which are then sent out on loan. Chelsea has been doing a lot of this and they have gotten Courtois, Lukaku and De Bruyne via such means. The RM and Barca also do this.
Of course it will take time to build, I agree with that, but we wont be taking the right steps by assembling an expensive team where we are constantly playing high priced aquisitions out of position.
Not sure how we'll approach young talents, you see here constantly posts about not wanting to buy xyz because they'll get in the way of Academy product #3, but I personally think you are on point about utilizing the loan system and buying talent like say Dolberg and Tielemans and farming them out, rather than waiting for them to blossom elsewhere and then having to shell out 3 times as much to get them.
im just surprised there are posts about Griezeman and it's not just all who is better Pogba or Ali which seems to be how most threads end up
It's got a smell of the Pogba signing last year and I think this ones been already provisionally agreed.
I was thinking the same. Our "system" is crap, I'm sure if Jose signs Greizmann it's for the greater good of the "system". I mean it can't really be any worse from an attacking point of view.
well said. People are strangely averse to signing top quality players, as if we can still make do with what we have like we said when we had loads of brilliant players.Nail on head. Completely agree. If the biggest concern is that Griezmann will disrupt the current attacking unit that can only be a good thing.
I think we were desperate for him and he's turned us down and now it's gone quiet on this front while we explore alternatives.
This is the second time I come in to a thread where you shat the bed. Seriously. First it was 'Ajax would simply outscore us' now its 'Griezmann has turned us down'. Where are getting this from?
Though we're not really going to fuse 2 players into 1, are we?
I'll refer to City and Napoli non-title-winning examples that use 4-3-3. 18 (Aguero) +4 (Iheanacho from first part of the season) +4 (Jesus from January) =26
24 (Aguero) +4 (Bony) +8 (Iheanacho) =36 (in total 4349 minutes from 2015/16 season)
24 (Mertens) +5 (Milik) =29
Mata should be a substitute for Pogba playing behind the striker. In 1478 minutes this season he's managed to score 6 goals and back in 2013/14 Juan got 6 goals in 1229 minutes. He's well capable of being a fine second choice player.
But how did City fare in the Champions League for example? I don't think that winning the title 2 times in 7 seasons is the level we should aspire to replicate. The quality and structure of midfield is highly relevant in this regard.
I'll repeat what I believe to be true that we're debilitating Pogba's game with such instructions. It can happen for one season, but more than that? I hope not.
Dunno if plenty, but weren't there more average and bad ones? All this affair wouldn’t irk me that much if the whole chapter of losing Pogba for free to Juventus and then bringing him back for a world record fee didn’t actually happen and he was simply an outstanding academy graduate with no downright crazy story behind him.
https://www.whoscored.com/Players/97752/Show/Paul-Pogba
He's only scored 1 goal per domestic cup in each of those 2 seasons. So excluding them that's 9x2. Btw CAMs shouldn't be judged only by numbers of goals they've scored. The assists are equally important.
Yeah then let’s use city’s oil strategy of throwing unlimited amounts of cash so like them we’ll get it right at some point and start being competitive.
All I'm doing is campaigning for sensible spending in the midst of a muppet storm. Is there no middle ground between aiming for most expensive players out there (who aren't flawless) and being content with our current team?!
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For the Pogba at AM proponents, who refer to his last season at Juve as evidence, an interesting stats comparison (per 90mins) between Pogba and Dybala for Juve last season http://www.squawka.com/comparison-m...847/0/p#chances_created/key_passes/assists#90
where Chance created = Keypass + Assist
Chance created – A pass that leads to a shot on goal.
Keypass – A pass that leads to a shot on goal that is not converted.
Assist – A pass that leads directly to a goal.
It shows that Dybala created significantly more chances (>1.5x) than Pogba but Pogba had more assists. This can possibly be due to the fact that Pogba plays a deeper position and thus has more goal scorers (including dybala) to pass to, while when Dybala is the originator of the pass, there are less clinical options available. It can also be due to Dybala not creating clear enough chances or simply that he was new to the team that season.
(PS Morata had the highest assists per min for Juve last season)
Similar comparison for our current season http://www.squawka.com/comparison-m...325/0/p#chances_created/key_passes/assists#90
It shows Mata creating the most chances on average but Herrera having the most assists.
where Chance created = Keypass + Assist
Chance created – A pass that leads to a shot on goal.
Keypass – A pass that leads to a shot on goal that is not converted.
Assist – A pass that leads directly to a goal.
It shows that Dybala created significantly more chances (>1.5x) than Pogba but Pogba had more assists. This can possibly be due to the fact that Pogba plays a deeper position and thus has more goal scorers (including dybala) to pass to, while when Dybala is the originator of the pass, there are less clinical options available. It can also be due to Dybala not creating clear enough chances or simply that he was new to the team that season.
(PS Morata had the highest assists per min for Juve last season)
Similar comparison for our current season http://www.squawka.com/comparison-m...325/0/p#chances_created/key_passes/assists#90
It shows Mata creating the most chances on average but Herrera having the most assists.
In fairness, if we continue down the road of being defensively structured, but lacking in almost any systemic identity or clear structure of how we attack, buying the best players available to us is probably about as good a tactic as any. You rely on fantastic players doing fantastic things to cover up your own failings. Personally, I find it really odd that people appear willing to afford managers endless credit for being defensively sound, all the while basically playing 6 at the back with static full backs and would praise the team if they were good going forward, but are willing to write off being utterly blunt in an attacking sense as 'just players missing chances they should score' and not really within the control of the manager. When players score and we win, the manager is praised. When we don't score or don't win, it's treated by some as being something that has happened to the manager, rather than being something he is, or at least should be, directly responsible for.
Pogba struggled to adapt to the no 10 role for around half of the season so he was never going to catch back up stats wise after that
Yeah, it is a tad mental. It's like turning down Scarlett Johansson because your waiting for Beyonce all the while your wife is a munter who can't cook and gives you attitude.
Pogba had been playing in the team for 3 season prior and under Allegri the previous season, while Dybala was joining from a different club entirely. If anyone had difficulty settling down, I would expect it to be Dybala.
If you live on an African island populated by cannibals that adore Scarlett for all wrong reasons then it's an apt comparison
Dybala walked straight into his preferred position after an outstanding season in Italy already. Pogba had to change his game entirely to suit the managers needs.
Its not really a matter of debate, the proof is there to see.
It's like Mata, a fantastic no 10 but struggled to adapt to the wide right position for a while. They're not robots.
That is counterintuitive - if Pogba is more "suited to being an AM" then he should not struggle adapting to it. Using your analogy, if Mata was moved from the wing to #10 he should adapt quite easily.
Those stats you've cited are nonsense. First of all they have the 4 AMC as being a 10 which isn't his best position and wasn't being discussed, so claiming he's only been in his best position 4 times this season it false. Secondly it's including FA Cup/League cup and European championship games for France whilst also not specifying what games he played in which position so please be so kind to show me how you concluded he'd only been in a 3 man CM on 4 occasions all season?
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