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Team shape, tactics and personnel


MaVilla

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17 minutes ago, a m ole said:

           Bailey Watkins JPB

                 Chukwuemeka

          Hause Wesley Tuanzebe

           Mings Konsa Bogarde

                    Martinez


This is a joke post.

Watkins left IMO.

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1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

Grealish was the main reason we did what we did last season 

Just look at the drop off when he was injured 

Totally agree and I've said as much. But the owners' script for this season will not involve going backwards or battling relegation.

 

So for Smith's sake I hope he can prove himself able without JG. In 3 years he hasn't been able to, so it's make or break time this season for him.

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19 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

this for me is how we will line up when everyone is fit...442 (not bothering with the back 5 as that picks itself)

        Ings           Watkins

Buendia                           Bailey

       McGinn      Sanson/Luiz/Marv

Apart from Buendia being out of position and McGinn not being able to play in a two, this is... still not going to work

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1 minute ago, juanpabloangel18 said:

Apart from Buendia being out of position and McGinn not being able to play in a two, this is... still not going to work

smith has said he will be playing both ings and watkins centrally...we know mcginn wont be dropped so like it or not, he's playing in a two.

fine swap the two wingers then. but this will still be how dean lines us up when everyone is fit

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On 14/08/2021 at 16:32, MrBlack said:

I see no possible formation where Ings, Watkins, Buendia and Bailey all start, and we don't get overrun elsewhere on the pitch.

I disagree. That's only four attacking players. Are you saying we should play with only three attackers in the whole side and with three defensive midfielders in front of the back four? Everyone would soon be complaining that we don't score enough goals.

In any formation, you need midfielders who can attack but also track back. In a 4-2-3-1, two or three players in the 3 need to track back, making it more like a 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 when defending. Part of our problem on Saturday was that the players in the 3 didn't get back. Ghaz is too slow for that...he's not a midfielder; as I've said before, he's an old-fashioned centre-forward whose sole talent is striking the ball. Buendia just didn't do it, except on their third goal, where he had to cover for Cash who got caught upfield, and where his defensive abilities were worryingly exposed. Young clearly can still defend—he stopped Sarr in the second half when he moved into Targett's role—but probably was told to stay high like Buendia apparently was. Ings wasn't supposed to track back as the 1.

On top of that, Targett and Cash pressed forwards quite a bit in the first half, further leaving us exposed on the wings.

On top of that, McGinn's defending was not as good as usual in the first half.

Finally, we missed Ollie's pressing. (Watford pressed far better than we did.) The 4-2-3-1 came into style about the same time that aggressive pressing came into style and the two seem to go together. You need a couple guys to press and slow down the attack so the others can get back and help defend.

McGinn is usually a pretty good defender. Nakamba's sole redeeming quality is defending. You had two capable DMs out there. They got overrun because they just didn't get any support. But that doesn't mean adding another DM, which is just going to create a different problem. Instead, the players in the 3 need to chip in on defending, and in Saturday's case, Targett needed to recognize much earlier that Sarr was too fast for him and stop joining the attack.

The bigger problem with the McGinn and Nakamba pairing was that neither can pass the ball. If you're going to run a 4-2-3-1, one of the pivots needs to be able to start the attack from deep. Dougie is better in that regard. Sanson, if they use him that way, will be better in that regard. One of them will be favored over Nakamba when they're ready.

Or maybe Ramsey will. He seemed to slot into the pivot role when he came on and McGinn seemed to go forward. He did a pretty good job distributing from deep. I will not be surprised to see him start against Newcastle. He's been overlooked (including by me) in all the preseason hype about the new players, but he may have a bigger role this year than any of us suspected.

 

 

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5 hours ago, TomC said:

I disagree. That's only four attacking players. Are you saying we should play with only three attackers in the whole side and with three defensive midfielders in front of the back four? Everyone would soon be complaining that we don't score enough goals.

In any formation, you need midfielders who can attack but also track back. In a 4-2-3-1, two or three players in the 3 need to track back, making it more like a 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 when defending. Part of our problem on Saturday was that the players in the 3 didn't get back. Ghaz is too slow for that...he's not a midfielder; as I've said before, he's an old-fashioned centre-forward whose sole talent is striking the ball. Buendia just didn't do it, except on their third goal, where he had to cover for Cash who got caught upfield, and where his defensive abilities were worryingly exposed. Young clearly can still defend—he stopped Sarr in the second half when he moved into Targett's role—but probably was told to stay high like Buendia apparently was. Ings wasn't supposed to track back as the 1.

On top of that, Targett and Cash pressed forwards quite a bit in the first half, further leaving us exposed on the wings.

On top of that, McGinn's defending was not as good as usual in the first half.

Finally, we missed Ollie's pressing. (Watford pressed far better than we did.) The 4-2-3-1 came into style about the same time that aggressive pressing came into style and the two seem to go together. You need a couple guys to press and slow down the attack so the others can get back and help defend.

McGinn is usually a pretty good defender. Nakamba's sole redeeming quality is defending. You had two capable DMs out there. They got overrun because they just didn't get any support. But that doesn't mean adding another DM, which is just going to create a different problem. Instead, the players in the 3 need to chip in on defending, and in Saturday's case, Targett needed to recognize much earlier that Sarr was too fast for him and stop joining the attack.

The bigger problem with the McGinn and Nakamba pairing was that neither can pass the ball. If you're going to run a 4-2-3-1, one of the pivots needs to be able to start the attack from deep. Dougie is better in that regard. Sanson, if they use him that way, will be better in that regard. One of them will be favored over Nakamba when they're ready.

Or maybe Ramsey will. He seemed to slot into the pivot role when he came on and McGinn seemed to go forward. He did a pretty good job distributing from deep. I will not be surprised to see him start against Newcastle. He's been overlooked (including by me) in all the preseason hype about the new players, but he may have a bigger role this year than any of us suspected.

 

 

I think you explained my point. Using McGinn and Nakamba behind that front 4 leaves us exposed and getting overrun.

Maybe, when Sanson is fit, and if he played alongside Luiz we'd cope better. His stats seem to back up the fact he can press and intercept well. But I guess it's a bit of an unknown.

My view is that to play that front 4, in any combination, requires a better standard of player in the double pivot. Probably just one, who can sit alongside either Luiz, McGinn, Sanson, or Ramsey (who did indeed play pretty well when he came on).

The other point to make is that playing that particular front 4 requires playing at least 2 of them out of their preferred position. We've got form for being able to changes a players position, so maybe it will be OK. 

Edited by MrBlack
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5 hours ago, TomC said:

I disagree. That's only four attacking players. Are you saying we should play with only three attackers in the whole side and with three defensive midfielders in front of the back four? Everyone would soon be complaining that we don't score enough goals.

In any formation, you need midfielders who can attack but also track back. In a 4-2-3-1, two or three players in the 3 need to track back, making it more like a 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 when defending. Part of our problem on Saturday was that the players in the 3 didn't get back. Ghaz is too slow for that...he's not a midfielder; as I've said before, he's an old-fashioned centre-forward whose sole talent is striking the ball. Buendia just didn't do it, except on their third goal, where he had to cover for Cash who got caught upfield, and where his defensive abilities were worryingly exposed. Young clearly can still defend—he stopped Sarr in the second half when he moved into Targett's role—but probably was told to stay high like Buendia apparently was. Ings wasn't supposed to track back as the 1.

On top of that, Targett and Cash pressed forwards quite a bit in the first half, further leaving us exposed on the wings.

On top of that, McGinn's defending was not as good as usual in the first half.

Finally, we missed Ollie's pressing. (Watford pressed far better than we did.) The 4-2-3-1 came into style about the same time that aggressive pressing came into style and the two seem to go together. You need a couple guys to press and slow down the attack so the others can get back and help defend.

McGinn is usually a pretty good defender. Nakamba's sole redeeming quality is defending. You had two capable DMs out there. They got overrun because they just didn't get any support. But that doesn't mean adding another DM, which is just going to create a different problem. Instead, the players in the 3 need to chip in on defending, and in Saturday's case, Targett needed to recognize much earlier that Sarr was too fast for him and stop joining the attack.

The bigger problem with the McGinn and Nakamba pairing was that neither can pass the ball. If you're going to run a 4-2-3-1, one of the pivots needs to be able to start the attack from deep. Dougie is better in that regard. Sanson, if they use him that way, will be better in that regard. One of them will be favored over Nakamba when they're ready.

Or maybe Ramsey will. He seemed to slot into the pivot role when he came on and McGinn seemed to go forward. He did a pretty good job distributing from deep. I will not be surprised to see him start against Newcastle. He's been overlooked (including by me) in all the preseason hype about the new players, but he may have a bigger role this year than any of us suspected.

 

 

Liverpool score goals for fun with 3 attackers 

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With our current players I'd go with a 433

                         Watkins

          Bailey                       Buendia

       McGinn                        Sanson

                            Doug

Usual back 5

 

Obviously, I'm hoping we might find ourselves with a new, shiny midfielder but I won't assume that's the case.

 

 

Edited by picicata
I can't add up
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1 minute ago, picicata said:

With our current players I'd go with a 443

                         Watkins

          Bailey                       Buendia

       McGinn                        Sanson

                            Doug

Usual back 5

 

Obviously, I'm hoping we might find ourselves with a new, shiny midfielder but I won't assume that's the case.

 

 

This is what I would play tbh. Big decision to drop Ings but they must have known this when they signed him, right?

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7 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

This is what I would play tbh. Big decision to drop Ings but they must have known this when they signed him, right?

It is a big decision but I don't think Ings and Watkins will work well in any formation that pushes either of them out of the middle forward position. It is a squad game and Ings will undoubtedly get chances to claim the place ahead of Watkins - but at the moment I prefer Watkins up there.

Dean Smith is paid handsomely to make these decisions

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15 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I don’t think we have the personnel to play anything other than a 4-3-3 and that will become even more apparent in our next few fixtures. 

 

Same here, even thou Buendia (or maybe even Ings) is a improvement on Barkley I don't feel we have the midfield to carry a #10. 

Using numbers for simplification the "6,8,10" formation is too open and also doesn't get the best out of any of our midfielder imo. With the current players available I still think Luiz in the deep role with Sansaon and McGinn ahead of him in a midfield 3 is the way to go. All 3 share the defensive job but Luiz is the one who starts the build up play and McGinn and Sanson are free to maraud forward once we get the ball. 

Not perfect and leaves either Watkins or one of our big money signings this summer on the bench but still the way to go imo. A new type of midfield signing changes things but atm this is how I'd go. 

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This is what I'd go with. 

Luiz DLP,  lots of pressure and work from the 2 CMs, attackers have more freedom as a result. Sanson moves forward more to support, while Marv can stay back. 

lineup.png

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i know it will never happen as Deano doesnt play it, but i think we should look to transition to a 343/3421/3412 formation (variation).

i do wonder if the next development in football positions might be those wing back/defensive winger roles.

For example, the last few years have seen the development of the pressing forwards, where the forward line/wingers/strikers work as hard as pretty much anyone else in the team, which has really developed teams massively tbh.

I wonder if the next development will be the specialisation of wingers/wing backs who are defensively strong, have extremely high energy, pressing stats, but have a lot of the skills and ability of modern wingers (like a super wing back).

I know there are some very good "wing backs" who might fulfil that criteria, but i wonder if the envelope will be pushed further for some kind of super winger/wing back hybrid, like an Ollie Watkins type wing back, loads of energy, pressing, good defensive stats, fast, fairly skilful etc.

tbh......kinda like the players Kesler and Chrisene seem to be developing in to........almost next level defensive winger wing back types.

For example, in a year or two (ye ye.....i signed Bissouma for us and decided all 4 youth players will be good enough to step up....eat me...):

 

                      Martinez

        Konsa - Bogarde - Mings

Kesler - Chuka - Bissouma - Chrisene

      Buendia - Watkins - Bailey

 

 

 

Edited by MaVilla
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In theory at least the workrate/pace/pressing of Watkins, Buendia, Ings & Traore should mean that our opponents will have less time to play out of defense and will be forced to make less accurate passes and have more trouble during buildup compared to last season. Hopefully this should mean less pressure and a easier job for or midfield regardless of how we line up there.

In theory. Remains to see how it will pan out of course.

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13 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

i know it will never happen as Deano doesnt play it, but i think we should look to transition to a 343/3421/3412 formation (variation).

i do wonder if the next development in football positions might be those wing back/defensive winger roles.

For example, the last few years have seen the development of the pressing forwards, where the forward line/wingers/strikers work as hard as pretty much anyone else in the team, which has really developed teams massively tbh.

I wonder if the next development will be the specialisation of wingers/wing backs who are defensively strong, have extremely high energy, pressing stats, but have a lot of the skills and ability of modern wingers (like a super wing back).

I know there are some very good "wing backs" who might fulfil that criteria, but i wonder if the envelope will be pushed further for some kind of super winger/wing back hybrid, like an Ollie Watkins type wing back, loads of energy, pressing, good defensive stats, fast, fairly skilful etc.

tbh......kinda like the players Kesler and Chrisene seem to be developing in to........almost next level defensive winger wing back types.

For example, in a year or two (ye ye.....i signed Bissouma for us and decided all 4 youth players will be good enough to step up....eat me...):

 

                      Martinez

        Konsa - Bogarde - Mings

Kesler - Chuka - Bissouma - Chrisene

      Buendia - Watkins - Bailey

 

 

 

I think a 3-5-2 could suit us and is likely to be DS go to if we are chasing a goal. 

It's the best way to play Ings and Watkins in a 2 while making the most of our attacking options. With Hause and Axel we have good options to for the back 3.

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1 hour ago, MaVilla said:

i know it will never happen as Deano doesnt play it, but i think we should look to transition to a 343/3421/3412 formation (variation).

i do wonder if the next development in football positions might be those wing back/defensive winger roles.

For example, the last few years have seen the development of the pressing forwards, where the forward line/wingers/strikers work as hard as pretty much anyone else in the team, which has really developed teams massively tbh.

I wonder if the next development will be the specialisation of wingers/wing backs who are defensively strong, have extremely high energy, pressing stats, but have a lot of the skills and ability of modern wingers (like a super wing back).

I know there are some very good "wing backs" who might fulfil that criteria, but i wonder if the envelope will be pushed further for some kind of super winger/wing back hybrid, like an Ollie Watkins type wing back, loads of energy, pressing, good defensive stats, fast, fairly skilful etc.

tbh......kinda like the players Kesler and Chrisene seem to be developing in to........almost next level defensive winger wing back types.

For example, in a year or two (ye ye.....i signed Bissouma for us and decided all 4 youth players will be good enough to step up....eat me...):

 

                      Martinez

        Konsa - Bogarde - Mings

Kesler - Chuka - Bissouma - Chrisene

      Buendia - Watkins - Bailey

 

 

 

I don’t think it’s realistic that we’ll have 4 youth team players in the first team in a year or two. For that to happen, and for us to be challenging for Europe, you would expect their values to be around the £30m+ mark. I just don’t see that happening in such a short space of time.

We have to be careful with not overhyping our youngsters too much.

Chukwuemeka looks like he could make the step up, and Bidace has had a good pre-season, but they’re all still very young and need more experience.

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Good to see the Douglas Luiz bashing hasn't stopped, poor boy. Interested looking back at the views here what people think now. Glad to see how much our squad has improved since this thread was last used. I still don't think 3 at the back suits us as our regular formation, occasional changes in certain situations can be good though. I think this weekend showed how much better we are with 3 in the middle. Interestingly, when I looked at what formations are being used in the premier league this season, 4-3-3 with a holding player is by far the most popular (7 teams) whilst the largely derided 4-4-2 is the joint second most used alongside 4-2-3-1 (3 teams each). Bare in mind that with fluidity of movement these 'formations' are less set in stone than they used to be. If one player pushes forward 4-3-3 quickly becomes 4-2-3-1 for a few moments. Wingers track back and suddenly 4-3-3 is 4-5-1. Likewise 5-3-2 and 3-5-2 are very similar (1 team each) and there are other examples too.

 

For me, with our current squad, I am looking forward to seeing these players together (chop and swap to preference):

      Bailey    Watkins    Buendia                    El Ghazi/Philogene-Bidace   Ings   Traore

    Sanson   Douglas   McGinn               or                     Chukwuemeka   Nakamba   Ramsey

Targett   Mings   Konsa   Cash                                                  Young   Hause   Tuanzebe   Guilbert

                    Martinez                                                                                      Steer/Sinisalo

 

Of course we expect to lose Hourihane, Wesley, Davis, Trezeguet to either sales, loans or injuries but I would cope with selling El Ghazi too once the others are fit. I'd also replace Nakamba with a defensive midfielder but this list is based on no further additions.

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