DEFchenkOE
Well-Known Member
- Feb 13, 2006
- 10,527
- 8,052
Yep i'm kinda bored at work today. So longish post coming up....
We all know the problem with the strikers, but for some reason I find that despite it being our strongest area on paper something in our midfield just doesn't seem right. I think we've struggled to get the balance right on a number of occassions. While playing a 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 with Bale and Lennon on the wings it seems to leave our central midfield very light against most teams that are now playing 5 in midfield. Especially when we have Modric as one of the players in central midfield who also has instincts to try and get forward, he should be playing a bit further forward imo but often can't due to the wide open spaces this leaves.
Last season we never really cut teams open and often relied on individual briliance for goals. Something we don't do too well is keep the ball for sustained periods in the opposition half, a result of this is we don't create many opportunities against teams that sit back and look to counter. Teams that come at us we seem to have no problem creating chances against. From what I've seen in pre-season and last season I have no reason to believe that we've done anything to work on improving our results against the teams where we need to force things, due to their sitting back. It will again come down to odd moments of magic rather than us moving about their midfield and defence.
Our main tactic most of the time is getting it out to Bale or Lennon and hoping they can beat their man and get a cross in, when this doesn't work (due to them being doubled up on or having a bad game) we tend to pass it about in midfield a bit and then look for Crouch's head.
What do you guys think we need to do to improve this? Maybe we cant compete with the other guys financially but we already have the squad to be able to beat the bottom teams and we should be able to do this but it cannot be a coincidence that we dropped so many points to these teams last season. So many times I've seen the gap between our central midfielders and attackers to be too big.
I think to be successful now playing 4-4-2 you need to really have 2 athletic/physical central midfielders that more or less have the complete all round game. I'm thinking of Petit/Viera or Keane/Ince types. These players could pass, tackle, press, score, and get up and down the pitch at will. I'm thinking that Sandro definitely has the potential and attributes for this, and maybe Diarra would too if we did sign him. So I could see a 4-4-2 with Sandro and Diarra in the centre working but I don't believe the other players we have in the squad are capable. YEs we have seen that Modric is able to play in the middle 2 but I think this takes away from his game somewhat and restricts him.
Is it time that we change system to best accomodate our creative players and not leave us too open? Do we need to move towards a 4-3-1-2 or a 4-3-3? In my opinion we need to do it, and do it soon. More than likely if Modric went to Chelsea he'd play in a midfield 3 and share the attacking/defensive duties with 1 other player and still have another player sitting to give added cover. People always complain that he doesn't score enough but it's often because he's not able to due to the way we play. At Chelsea it would probably be Modric---Mikel---Malouda/Lampard. I don't see why we cannot play Modric---Sandro---VDV, we can push Bale and Lennon further forward against teams that sit deep.
On Saturday I saw us play with Modric and Krancjar in central midfield, good idea imo, only problem was the defensive midfielder was missing! It wasn't even like we had 10 men. I'm almost certain we won't play with Mods and Krancjar as centre mids in a 4-4-2 in any competitive game, it would be suicide. So I cannot see the logic with using this in our last game before the season starts. We have the players to adapt to different systems but we're not trying it, even in pre-season. Personally i'm finding it a bit frustrating and hard to understand. If anything I'd say the way our attacks develop has slowly gone backwards instead of improving. Am I the only one that sees things like this?? :shrug:
We all know the problem with the strikers, but for some reason I find that despite it being our strongest area on paper something in our midfield just doesn't seem right. I think we've struggled to get the balance right on a number of occassions. While playing a 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 with Bale and Lennon on the wings it seems to leave our central midfield very light against most teams that are now playing 5 in midfield. Especially when we have Modric as one of the players in central midfield who also has instincts to try and get forward, he should be playing a bit further forward imo but often can't due to the wide open spaces this leaves.
Last season we never really cut teams open and often relied on individual briliance for goals. Something we don't do too well is keep the ball for sustained periods in the opposition half, a result of this is we don't create many opportunities against teams that sit back and look to counter. Teams that come at us we seem to have no problem creating chances against. From what I've seen in pre-season and last season I have no reason to believe that we've done anything to work on improving our results against the teams where we need to force things, due to their sitting back. It will again come down to odd moments of magic rather than us moving about their midfield and defence.
Our main tactic most of the time is getting it out to Bale or Lennon and hoping they can beat their man and get a cross in, when this doesn't work (due to them being doubled up on or having a bad game) we tend to pass it about in midfield a bit and then look for Crouch's head.
What do you guys think we need to do to improve this? Maybe we cant compete with the other guys financially but we already have the squad to be able to beat the bottom teams and we should be able to do this but it cannot be a coincidence that we dropped so many points to these teams last season. So many times I've seen the gap between our central midfielders and attackers to be too big.
I think to be successful now playing 4-4-2 you need to really have 2 athletic/physical central midfielders that more or less have the complete all round game. I'm thinking of Petit/Viera or Keane/Ince types. These players could pass, tackle, press, score, and get up and down the pitch at will. I'm thinking that Sandro definitely has the potential and attributes for this, and maybe Diarra would too if we did sign him. So I could see a 4-4-2 with Sandro and Diarra in the centre working but I don't believe the other players we have in the squad are capable. YEs we have seen that Modric is able to play in the middle 2 but I think this takes away from his game somewhat and restricts him.
Is it time that we change system to best accomodate our creative players and not leave us too open? Do we need to move towards a 4-3-1-2 or a 4-3-3? In my opinion we need to do it, and do it soon. More than likely if Modric went to Chelsea he'd play in a midfield 3 and share the attacking/defensive duties with 1 other player and still have another player sitting to give added cover. People always complain that he doesn't score enough but it's often because he's not able to due to the way we play. At Chelsea it would probably be Modric---Mikel---Malouda/Lampard. I don't see why we cannot play Modric---Sandro---VDV, we can push Bale and Lennon further forward against teams that sit deep.
On Saturday I saw us play with Modric and Krancjar in central midfield, good idea imo, only problem was the defensive midfielder was missing! It wasn't even like we had 10 men. I'm almost certain we won't play with Mods and Krancjar as centre mids in a 4-4-2 in any competitive game, it would be suicide. So I cannot see the logic with using this in our last game before the season starts. We have the players to adapt to different systems but we're not trying it, even in pre-season. Personally i'm finding it a bit frustrating and hard to understand. If anything I'd say the way our attacks develop has slowly gone backwards instead of improving. Am I the only one that sees things like this?? :shrug:
