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Team shape, tactics and personnel


MaVilla

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We're going to play best when we sit back and try to hit teams on the counter now.  Bailey, Watkins, Ings, McGinn, and Buendia will rip apart the defenses of most of the top teams on the counter attack.  The problem is that most teams in the league will try to do the same thing to us.  We need to figure out how to break teams down consistently and not give the ball away frivolously.  Grealish was amazing at never losing the ball and drawing a foul when the challenge comes in, but as we're already noticed, the team is losing the ball in the opposition's half a lot more than we did last season, which is exposing the high line we're playing with.  

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1 hour ago, Rightdm00 said:

Buendia doesn't cut inside he literally drifts all over the field.  There were a couple times he was actually on the left touchline. When a player wants a free role like that it's  much easier to cover for him If he starts from the center. Do that from a wide position and you are leaving your FB 2v1 all day. 

Agree with this. Think he will be right side of a midfield 3 with a license to roam and get in the inside right channel, de bruyne lite. With Ollie ings and Bailey ahead of him in a front 3 his through ball ability would be a pretty potent weapon

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9 hours ago, The Inspiration said:

Agree with this. Think he will be right side of a midfield 3 with a license to roam and get in the inside right channel, de bruyne lite. With Ollie ings and Bailey ahead of him in a front 3 his through ball ability would be a pretty potent weapon

Sorry to repeat myself from another thread, but if it's Watkins, Bailey, and Buendia behind Ings in a 4-2-3-1, all three of them may have license to roam. Buendia shows up everywhere, Bailey supposedly operated on both wings at Leverkusen, Watkins can operate on the left or in the center. I can imagine them switching to confuse defenders. We looked less rigid in attack on Saturday than last year and I even saw Cash show up on the left once and Young and El Ghazi on the right.

 

Edited by TomC
clarified "rigid in attack"
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2 hours ago, TomC said:

Sorry to repeat myself from another thread, but if it's Watkins, Bailey, and Buendia behind Ings in a 4-2-3-1, all three of them may have license to roam. Buendia shows up everywhere, Bailey supposedly operated on both wings at Leverkusen, Watkins can operate on the left or in the center. I can imagine them switching to confuse defenders. We looked less rigid in attack on Saturday than last year and I even saw Cash show up on the left once and Young and El Ghazi on the right.

 

Assume that would drop McGinn in to the famed double pivot? Nullifies his game doesn’t it?

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1 hour ago, The Inspiration said:

Assume that would drop McGinn in to the famed double pivot? Nullifies his game doesn’t it?

Thing is, rightly or wrongly, Deano doesn't seem like he'll ever drop him. He's had a number of below average performances last season but wasn't missing a minute of football.

We don't really have the right players to play a 2 in midfield, when that happens not only do we get overrun, but we have massive trouble passing the ball up the pitch. 

I much prefer us with one 6 and 2 8s, but that means two of Ings, Watkins, Buendia, Bailey and Traore have to miss out.

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I think we will have two main game plans.

1) Counter attack against strong teams using Bailey as a over-the-top out ball on the RW and Watkins as a hold the ball up/flick on out ball on the LW with Ings looking to score from either which means Buendia probably sits on the bench unless we go behind for these matches assuming everyone is fit.  Hopefully there are only 4 or 5 teams we would set-up like this against.

2) Possession focused against weaker teams where the front three will stay the same but Beundia comes in as a 8/10 to add some creativity to break teams down.  We might rotate Traore in to work some magic with Bailey/Watkins on the LW.

 

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We'll play these 3 core formations this season depending on opposition (and the very similar variations). 

3 5 2 / 5 3 2 / 3 4 2 1 - Essentially 3 at the back and options in the set up ahead. Watkins and Bailey as the 2 up top away to Chelsea for example, with the blistering pace for the counter.

4 2 3 1 / 4 2 2 2 / 4 4 1 1 / 4 4 2 - Basically formations at home when we play Ings and Watkins centrally, all depends on how far forward the wide players and Ings play. 

4 3 3 / 4 1 2 3 / 4 2 1 3 - This is when we play 3 midfielders either in a 1 2 or a 2 1 formation. Like we did against Newcastle where we've Luiz/Nakamba sitting and Sanson/McGinn/JJ/Chukwuemeka in front of them. Or we go with McGinn, Luiz and a Buendia in a 10 ahead of them. Front thee of Watkins Ings Bailey Traore type

 

We'll learn these formations and various set up to prep for opposition and how to counter them. It'll also allow us to change mid game if things aren't working. Look at Watford we went to 4 3 3 from a 4 2 3 1 when we brought JJ on for Targett. We were much improved in second half then. 

 

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3 hours ago, CVByrne said:

We'll play these 3 core formations this season depending on opposition (and the very similar variations). 

3 5 2 / 5 3 2 / 3 4 2 1 - Essentially 3 at the back and options in the set up ahead. Watkins and Bailey as the 2 up top away to Chelsea for example, with the blistering pace for the counter.

4 2 3 1 / 4 2 2 2 / 4 4 1 1 / 4 4 2 - Basically formations at home when we play Ings and Watkins centrally, all depends on how far forward the wide players and Ings play. 

4 3 3 / 4 1 2 3 / 4 2 1 3 - This is when we play 3 midfielders either in a 1 2 or a 2 1 formation. Like we did against Newcastle where we've Luiz/Nakamba sitting and Sanson/McGinn/JJ/Chukwuemeka in front of them. Or we go with McGinn, Luiz and a Buendia in a 10 ahead of them. Front thee of Watkins Ings Bailey Traore type

 

We'll learn these formations and various set up to prep for opposition and how to counter them. It'll also allow us to change mid game if things aren't working. Look at Watford we went to 4 3 3 from a 4 2 3 1 when we brought JJ on for Targett. We were much improved in second half then. 

 

If you are going to quote position numbers as if this was a decade ago then we can't really have a discussion can we? 

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28 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

If you are going to quote position numbers as if this was a decade ago then we can't really have a discussion can we? 

Is it not pretty standard to refer to attacking midfielders/playmakers as 10's? It seems fairly mainstream in newspapers/on podcasts etc. Granted a 2 or a 3 are never mentioned and are just called full backs/wing backs but 6,8,9,10 are all pretty standard to describe a player's position. For example I live in Germany where the DM (be it stopper or playmaker) is almost exclusively referred to as die sechser position. Direct translation - the 6 position.

I thought it's just a case of personal preference.

Edited by sparrow1988
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50 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

If you are going to quote position numbers as if this was a decade ago then we can't really have a discussion can we? 

I only started doing it because of you. 🤣 Have to be a bit more simplistic to get my points across was my takeaway. 

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2 hours ago, sparrow1988 said:

Is it not pretty standard to refer to attacking midfielders/playmakers as 10's? It seems fairly mainstream in newspapers/on podcasts etc. Granted a 2 or a 3 are never mentioned and are just called full backs/wing backs but 6,8,9,10 are all pretty standard to describe a player's position. For example I live in Germany where the DM (be it stopper or playmaker) is almost exclusively referred to as die sechser position. Direct translation - the 6 position.

I thought it's just a case of personal preference.

It was a reference to a previous debate. I should have added the :trollface:

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12 hours ago, The Inspiration said:

Assume that would drop McGinn in to the famed double pivot? Nullifies his game doesn’t it?

I don't think so, at least not as I see his game. His strengths are defending and scoring goals. He's a "box-to-box" midfielder in the original sense, which is doing those two things but not much responsible for playmaking in between. As long as he has freedom to get forward, which I think he will, he's fine in the 4-2-3-1. The 4-2-3-1 as most teams play it assumes that at least one of the pivots will join the attack; it's not intended to be a negative formation with only 4 players attacking. When McGinn does get forward, It will probably look more like a 4-1-4-1 sometimes; other times Bailey or Buendia will have to track back when he gets forward. I saw Buendia track back plenty against Newcastle. I haven't seen enough of Bailey to know if he's responsible defensively.

The bigger question right now in my mind is that now that Rambo has forced his way into plans, do you play a 4-3-3 with all of Dougie, Rambo, and McGinn? Then you do have to choose among Bailey, Watkins, Buendia, Ings, and Traore. As CVByrne put it...

 

10 hours ago, CVByrne said:

We'll learn these formations and various set up to prep for opposition and how to counter them. It'll also allow us to change mid game if things aren't working.

 

 

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In my attempts to avoid doing anything productive today, I've stumbled upon this - https://elitesoccercoaching.net/dean-smith/playing-with-split-strikers/

It's a training session in how to play with split strikers by... drum roll please, you guessed it.... Dean Smith. You need an account to view everything but the google image results of the session are below. Even without access to the full session you can see how we could potentially set up with two strikers. So it might not be just Ings or Watkins and two up top is definitely a possibility.

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Edited by sparrow1988
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Thinking about the midfield who is the last central midfielder we’ve actually had that every fan has been happy with. Delph?

Could it actually be it’s such a pivotal position with so much involvement fans expect too much?

Edited by Vive_La_Villa
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I would like to see a midfield 3 of Luiz (deep) with Mcginn and Buendia either side with a front 3 of Bailey, Watkins and Traore. Don’t think we’re good enough, or have the correct players, to play 4231. 
Buendia would be able to link better in this role and play his clever through balls, plus he’s not afraid to graft.

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On 01/09/2021 at 14:53, sparrow1988 said:

In my attempts to avoid doing anything productive today, I've stumbled upon this - https://elitesoccercoaching.net/dean-smith/playing-with-split-strikers/

It's a training session in how to play with split strikers by... drum roll please, you guessed it.... Dean Smith. You need an account to view everything but the google image results of the session are below. Even without access to the full session you can see how we could potentially set up with two strikers. So it might not be just Ings or Watkins and two up top is definitely a possibility.

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Edit: tried to post a gif to make people smile, but can’t as there is no gif button anymore, so tried to embed it but that doesn’t work either, so tried to add as an attachment but it is over the 500kb limit… so I give up.

Bring back the GIF button please! Why did we even get rid of it!?

Edited by alreadyexists
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4 hours ago, stegzy said:

I would like to see a midfield 3 of Luiz (deep) with Mcginn and Buendia either side with a front 3 of Bailey, Watkins and Traore. Don’t think we’re good enough, or have the correct players, to play 4231. 
Buendia would be able to link better in this role and play his clever through balls, plus he’s not afraid to graft.

I agree with this but the minute we signed Ings  you just knew that he would always play. 

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6 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Thinking about the midfield who is the last central midfielder we’ve actually had that every fan has been happy with. Delph?

Could it actually be it’s such a pivotal position with so much involvement fans expect too much?

If we’re including the championship era, I think McGinn was pretty universally liked in our final season there. But struggling to think of a premier league equivalent so you may have a point…,

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