Ralf: United switching to 4-3-3

Tarrou said:
I’d pick Fred there
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Fred's passing is so sloppy that he would turn any of our attack or counter to a Brentford's counter. I'd prefer McT. Both don't have the brain required but imo McT's passing is a bit more consistent than Fred's.
 
At least he can spot a change. Rather than assuming that if we try hard enough and go the extra mile and have loads of passion, we can work in a 4-2-2-2
 
roonster09 said:
All this changes is Bruno will play bit deeper, it won't magically fix all the issues like our players not making enough off the ball runs, our players not making themselves as option to receive pass, not playing with enough intensity.
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A 15-20 yard change in positioning makes a huge amount of difference when it comes to the way we progress the ball or create chances. Bruno at #10 used to try find space between the lines and leave the progression to our CMs. He will no longer do that, he'll be one of the CMs responsible for progressing the ball, defending, tracking runners and all that a CM role entails. In terms of chance creation, Ole-ball was to give Bruno a free rein and to let him do whatever he wants to do - create overloads, try risky passes, get into the box etc. With Bruno deeper, the forwards, fullbacks have to take on a lot more responsibility for chance creation.

Of course it won't magically fix all the issues but getting the balance in the team selection right is a very important one that you're understating. If you take it to the logical extreme, you would never play a team of 10 Ronaldos as talented as they may be. All the philosophy, off the ball running, intensity won't help that side. It's an extension of that from there.

roonster09 said:
In this set up all it changes is Bruno will play bit deeper. We didn't play forward as attacking mid, it was always Bruno or at times De beek.
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The game we lost against Wolves was a 4-2-2-2 with Greenwood, Sancho, Cavani, Ronaldo as the front four. That can never happen in a 4-3-3 world.
 
Mr Anderson said:
As I said to a few lads, Fred higher up still plays like Fred.

Heavy touches, sloppy passes. You can flip and move player’s, but if they keep repeating the same mistakes with heavy touches and sloppy passes - the same poor results will come.

our downfall in large part is our own unforced errors. Your useless pricks need to pull the finger out as no formation play will fix that.
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Fred has 2 assists (he got one against Villa) and 2 goals since Rangknick came in and utilized him further up the pitch in some games. He's producing. Your criticism is misplaced and ill timed
 
Having Pogba as No.6 is a good idea until he consistently gets the ball taken off him by a guy making a tiny fraction of his salary. Then it's a terrible idea.
 
Teja said:
I'd love to see this but based on current subs under Rangnick, he's a Bruno backup. I think it'll be Pogba #6.

Ole tried this and it was a disaster but I think that's more to do with our tactical intelligence at that point than anything else.
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Pogba 6?! That is pure suicide from a defensive point of view.

Dwells on the ball, can be pressured off the ball quite easily, unfocused defensively (cost us numerous times), injured a lot (unreliable as a long term solution)
 
No great options from the current crop, but I'd go for McTominay as he's more adaptive of nature than the others and is safe to have on the ball.

Did a similar job as dm against Liverpool some years ago where he was really good.

It's a big task, to clean up after two 8's if they're giving it away like Bruno or even Pogba can do. Not sure any defensive midfielder in the world is suited for that to be honest. The two 8's have to adapt their play too.
 
Teja said:
A 15-20 yard change in positioning makes a huge amount of difference when it comes to the way we progress the ball or create chances. Bruno at #10 used to try find space between the lines and leave the progression to our CMs. He will no longer do that, he'll be one of the CMs responsible for progressing the ball, defending, tracking runners and all that a CM role entails. In terms of chance creation, Ole-ball was to give Bruno a free rein and to let him do whatever he wants to do - create overloads, try risky passes, get into the box etc. With Bruno deeper, the forwards, fullbacks have to take on a lot more responsibility for chance creation.

Of course it won't magically fix all the issues but getting the balance in the team selection right is a very important one that you're understating. If you take it to the logical extreme, you would never play a team of 10 Ronaldos as talented as they may be. All the philosophy, off the ball running, intensity won't help that side. It's an extension of that from there.



The game we lost against Wolves was a 4-2-2-2 with Greenwood, Sancho, Cavani, Ronaldo as the front four. That can never happen in a 4-3-3 world.
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3rd midfielder will always attack the box, especially if you end up playing attack minded players like Bruno, Pogba, De Beek. Rangnick said we played 4-3-3 against Villa and Bruno, Fred was in the box so many times.

Ball progression is more about mentality of the team rather than having one extra CM. That's why Jose with 3 CMs barely made team to play possession football/progressive game whereas Pep played possession football with only 1 CM and 2 AMs. Bayern play 4-2-3-1 and they dominate every team on the planet and they don't even play attacking mid, they play Muller who floats all over the pitch. Why are they not struggling even though they don't have 3 CMs on the pitch? It's about how compact team is and how the instructions are drilled into the players, how they should move and how they should be option for player in possession.

4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 or any other formation makes no difference if we don't play as a team, we couldn't be more disjoined even if we tried. We are just clueless when we have the ball, it wont change if we play one more CM.
 
giggs-beckham said:
Good question, also pogba is back soon. Line ups guys?
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ST - Ronaldo or Cavani
Wings - Sancho and Rashford/Greenwood.. maybe Pogba
CM - Bruno, Pogba, Fred
DM - McTominay
Usual defence

I think Ralf will try like everyone to do a midfield 3 of Bruno, Pogba and McTominay. It won't work. Then he'll switch to Bruno, Fred and McTominay sitting as the standard midfield, just with a #6 and 2 #8. Sancho to be the primary winger. Rashford and Greenwood rotating the other.

Lineup isn't that hard to guess imo and it's similar to what we've been picking. Will need a lot more than just formation to change us.
 
For me he did this after seeing Bruno playing a different class in a 4231.
 
4-3-3 is the way to go and will solidify us. However, it will also blunt us a bit in an attacking sense, especially with no one to hold the ball up a bit.
 
I've always got the impression that some armchair managers have this idea that changing formation is some kind of magic bullet. Yeah changing the team shape has an affect, but it won't suddenly stop the poor decision making, the sloppy passing and the poor attitudes.

Although at this point any sort of improvement, no matter how small, would be welcome.
 
I don’t think switching formations will matter much when the players are the problem. We are just adding another midfielder in who will still not be able to control the midfield. I expect more disjointed performances
 
Good idea to play with 3 man midfield, but we still need to sign a quality DM player, someone as good as Casemiro, Kimmich, Fabinho, or of similar quality.
 
What took him so long to realise that the players didn't buy the 4-2-2-2? But didn't Ole played 4-3-3 as well and the players looked absolutely miserable too on the pitch?
 
Other than the fact a 433 is what most have wanted us to line up with for years RR is just scrambling from one formation to another hoping to stumble onto something. He's already tried and failed to implement a 4222 and did no better falling back onto Ole's 4231. Wasn't even like we were any good against Villa with the 433 anyway, as soon as Villa stopped being passive and actually took the game to us they were dominating.

I give it until our next defeat until Ralf tries a 5 at the back
 
We already played this system vs Villa, it worked well in the first 30 mins before Villa absolutely took control, partly because Matic should be in MLS already, let's see how it would look with Mctominay playing that role, and I hope Shaw starts because he's one of the few united players not flustered in possession, all in all we need a midfield overhaul, this group aren't good enough regardless of formation.
 
charlenefan said:
Other than the fact a 433 is what most have wanted us to line up with for years RR is just scrambling from one formation to another hoping to stumble onto something. He's already tried and failed to implement a 4222 and did no better falling back onto Ole's 4231. Wasn't even like we were any good against Villa with the 433 anyway, as soon as Villa stopped being passive and actually took the game to us they were dominating.

I give it until our next defeat until Ralf tries a 5 at the back
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why not wait till RR has been here 3 years, spent 500m, built his own team and won feck all before deciding he isn't good enough? That's what Ole got so let's practice fairness.

edit Also the fact he's our interim already carries the obvious implication he isn't who we want as long term manager so nothing lost.
 
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That's good. It worked well the other night in the first half. We still need a #6 to properly play it. I guess McT will play it when Matic can't. It's not great, but it's all we have.
 
Don't get too exciting for now, 433 would mean:
1) CR play post man up front solely and he clearly not good at holding the ball up nor pressing.
2) Bruno either has to be dropped or play one of No.8 , as he does not have the pace to play the wing; with his discipline he may run too up front as No. 10 and even pressing the keeper, then leave the midfield unguarded.
3) we have only one qualified No.6 who is Matic , and he max out to play 60 mins.
 
Rozay said:
Sounds good in principle, but the actual midfielders themselves are not up to the task so it will make little difference.
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Agreed. Matic is probably the best player for the ‘no.6’ and he gasses every game after 40 minutes.

Also unsure Bruno fits a 433 in any position other than a false no.9; unless we play a Christmas tree type of narrow ‘wingers’, which kind of nullifies the whole point of a 433
 
afatzp said:
Don't get too exciting for now, 433 would mean:
1) CR play post man up front solely and he clearly not good at holding the ball up nor pressing.
2) Bruno either has to be dropped or play one of No.8 , as he does not have the pace to play the wing; with his discipline he may run too up front as No. 10 and even pressing the keeper, then leave the midfield unguarded.
3) we have only one qualified No.6 who is Matic , and he max out to play 60 mins.
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I think CR could be dropped in the new 433 system with Bruno playing the pseudo-9. Mcfred will be fine doing the double 8 (at least for the rest of the season). the 6 is the most concern position and i don't trust Pogba in 6 at all.
 
Borys said:
I'll believe when I see it. I still think we'll see some kind of two mids + Bruno combination.
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That is Bruno ‘in a 3’ tbf - he can’t play there. He’s a number 10/second striker, asking him to play in central midfield isn’t natural to his game. He’s always looking to peel high up the field.
 
Makes much more sense with the squad we have.

We do lack a proper DM. I would imagine we'll rotate the #6 between Matic/McTominay until we get one.
 
United in sin said:
Fred has 2 assists (he got one against Villa) and 2 goals since Rangknick came in and utilized him further up the pitch in some games. He's producing. Your criticism is misplaced and ill timed
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it isn’t. He has still misplaced passes and lost the ballhigher up the pitch on serval occasions - hauled off at half time vs Newcastle and on the bench for the next 2 shows that he isn’t polished enough at times and it costs him when he decides to take that extra touch or play a ball to a player that has 3 of the opposition around him. It’s the same mistakes happening, he isn’t the only one but it’s a simple example that there needs to be more to it than just changing our shape a bit.
 
Greck said:
why not wait till RR has been here 3 years, spent 500m, built his own team and won feck all before deciding he isn't good enough? That's what Ole got so let's practice fairness.
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That may be what Ole got from the board, it's not what he got from large amounts of the fanbase

I am practicing fairness, Ole needed to go and so does Ralf
 
Matic can be effective as long as he doesn't pick up an early yellow like against Villa and we have a plan what to do after an hour when he needs bringing off. I would hope we've learnt from both of those things after the last game.
 
United in sin said:
Fred has 2 assists (he got one against Villa) and 2 goals since Rangknick came in and utilized him further up the pitch in some games. He's producing. Your criticism is misplaced and ill timed
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A stopped clock is right twice a day. For every good thing he does its usually followed by disaster. Ive lost count of the number times hes been given an easy pass and it simply bounces off him and the opposition are suddenly cutting through us and our defence is under pressure. Tryer, but simply not good enough.
 
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charlenefan said:
That may be what Ole got from the board, it's not what he got from large amounts of the fanbase

I am practicing fairness, Ole needed to go and so does Ralf
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That’s silly, let Ralf see out the season as planned and then hopefully get in someone who will put us in right direction.
 
433 is likely best for us however we need a true DM asap.

I'm also beginning to get slight LVG vibes with the frequent formation tweaks. Hope we settle on a formation soon.
 
nainaisson said:
Having Pogba as No.6 is a good idea until he consistently gets the ball taken off him by a guy making a tiny fraction of his salary. Then it's a terrible idea.
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Generally we’ve played Pogba deep as one of two holding midfielders. Maybe playing him a the deep lying playmaker between Bruno and say Fred/McTominay would give him one extra option to move the ball quicker.

He’s our best deep playmaker even with his flaws. Jorginho gets caught in possession occasionally. It comes with that role and being brave on the ball.
 
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