Please Stop All This "We Must Play 4-4-2/4-3-3" Nonsense.

[Profondo Rosso]

Formation has to be the single most overrated thing in football. Even more so than Jimmy Bullard, Ian Holloway, "character", "passion", the competitiveness the Premier League and the English media's opinion of the English national side.

Over the past couple of weeks I've seen endless posts saying we must play either 4-4-2 or 4-3-3, or it's the 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 formation which has been the reason for our 2 recent poor results.

There is FAR more to football than where players stand in relation to each other on the pitch. Firstly, there are literally thousands of ways to play both 4-4-2 or 4-3-3. 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 say nothing about how high a defensive line you play, they say nothing about whether you want to keep possession or hoof it long when you get the ball, they say nothing about aggressively you press the opposition, they say nothing about how tight you try and squeeze the opposition when you are on the ball, they say nothing about the millions of individual human decisions that get made by the 22 players on the football pitch over the 90 minutes of play.

The formation had nothing to do with Sean St. Ledger deciding to dwell on the ball when Maynard nicked it off him. The formation had nothing to do with our abysmal marking in set piece situations which gifted Reading their first on Saturday. The formation has nothing to do with all those misplaced and sloppy passes or our players being completely static rather than trying to find space when a team mate is on his own. The formation has nothing to do our incredibly one-dimensional and predictable tendency to pass it out to the wingers/full-backs to cross it into the box in every single attack.

One criticism I've heard is that it is causing "David Nugent to be too isolated." Again, there are plenty of teams who have been successful and continue to be successful playing one loan striker (Barcelona and Arsenal come to mind, Barcelona arguably don't even play with a striker), the fact that we don't have any players who can provide that killer ball or who can break through the opposition defence is the problem (and fwiw, Nugent has had at least 4 one-on-one situations in the 3 games so far, so we are creating the opportunities anyway).

 

[Graz]

I've been waiting all week for a comment from you on all the rubbish that's been spouted following 2 (yes, it's only 2) losses.

 

[Uncle Connolly]

For the most part of that, well said.

Not sure about the ball going out-wide as a constant, deliberate tactic.

I think it's happening as the opposition deliberately flood the midfield to stop us having a passing game through the centre.

We've played two teams at home who executed it extremely well, in their own ways.

 

[Profondo Rosso]

You could possibly be right, it's not an uncommon tactic anyway, just something I've noticed that most of attacks have seemed to end up going that way over the past couple of games.

 

[Uncle Connolly]

You could possibly be right, it's not an uncommon tactic anyway, just something I've noticed that most of attacks have seemed to end up going that way over the past couple of games.

Spot on - it's been very common - as well as the hopeful 'runs with the ball' into the box that a few players have tried too.

We'll get there though, I'm sure.

 

[Profondo Rosso]

Oh and I saw someone the other day say "4-3-3 lacks width." Hilarious. Have you ever seen Barcelona play? Tell me, do they lack width?

So many people seem to just think formation = tactics, when it is only a very small part of tactics. Formations are not inherently attacking or defensive, they do not inherently lack or support "width."

Saying that we are inherently wrong playing a 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 formation is ****ing stupid and I'm tired of hearing it, I'm sure there are plenty of ways to play either formation with success.

 

[Blue Maniac]

Oh and I saw someone the other day say "4-3-3 lacks width." Hilarious. Have you ever seen Barcelona play? Tell me, do they lack width?

So many people seem to just think formation = tactics, when it is only a very small part of tactics. Formations are not inherently attacking or defensive, they do not inherently lack or support "width."

Saying that we are inherently wrong playing a 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 formation is ****ing stupid and I'm tired of hearing it, I'm sure there are plenty of ways to play either formation with success.

There are many reasons to love the Prof. This is one of them.

 

[Matt_B]

Well said that man

 

[Dour]

Well said prof. 3-5-2 is where it's at and we'll never be successful until we return to that formation.

 

[Lako42]

Please stop comparing us to Barcelona, just because they can pull a certain system off does not mean we can do anything like make it work.

 

[Blue Maniac]

Please stop comparing us to Barcelona, just because they can pull a certain system off does not mean we can do anything like make it work.

Take note of this too, Prof. As right as you may be a lot of the time, drawing comparisons between the current Leicester team and one of the greatest club sides ever assembled does nothing for your argument.

 

[bocadillo]

I never mentioned 4-4-2 nor 4-3-3 - and Prof still won't send me any predictions.
:icon_cry:

 

[Graz]

I thought it was interesting today to hear Fabio Capello's thoughts on this topic (he obviously visits here a lot).

Fabio was on Goals on Sunday this morning, accompanied by Trevor Booking.

Ben Shepherd and Chris Kamara were talking about England, and I can't remember which one, but one of them asked Fabio if 4-3-3 was now his preferred formation for England going forward. His response fit in very well with this thread.

He said (and I'm paraphrasing) that he doesn't like to talk about formations and tactics in terms of numbers. A system needs to be fluid. You can't talk about 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 or diamonds in the modern game, because it's way beyond that. The important thing is for the team to be compact. Yes, at times it's 4-3-3... but then at different phases of the game, and as possession moves from team to the other and to different areas of the pitch, that 4-3-3 might become 4-5-1, or 4-2-3-1, and there will be times when it will be 9-0-1.

He said (and some of this might have come from Trevor Brooking) to look at the way Barcelona play, and you'd find it hard to pick out exactly what their formation is, by trying to describe it in the traditional numbers way. Xavi tends to sit deeper in the midfield, but you'd struggle to say what position the likes of Iniesta, Villa, Pedro and of course Messi are playing for most of the game. Fabio said everyone has to a part to play in the attack, and everyone has to help defending. He said obviously you want someone to stay up there as an outlet, and you don't want your right back spending the whole game up front. But as long as everyone understands their responsibilities within the team, modern tactics aren't about the numbers.

Shepherd/Kamara asked if this meant England were going to be playing like Barcelona (like people have said here to Prof's original post). Fabio said Barcelona are the best team in the world, and he highlighted them as the ideal. Their style is what you work towards.


Shame there's no video of it I could post here, as I thought it was really interesting and fit in perfectly with the conversation on here.

Was searching to see if I could find the video anywhere, and Sky Sports website has this excerpt from the discussion I'm talking about

The modern formation is 9-1. You play one forward and everyone else defends. Then, when we go forward you can decide what formation to play. It's not as important. It's better to be compact. The best team in the world now is Barcelona. All their players defend, all go forward. This is modern football, not 4-3-1-1, diamond...it's about the players. Of course you need to know where to stay - you don't want the right back playing up front!

 

[Micky]

People complain about the formation but I think the underlying issue is the style of players that we have available. Sven's tactic appears to allow us to bulk out the midfield when we need to be tight, whereas a 4-4-2 with two traditional wingers would perhaps leave us a lot weaker as a defensive unit. I think people want to see two attacking wingers who are capable of beating a man and delivering a pinpoint cross and therefore harp on about the 4-4-2. Could you imagine city playing that system with dyer on one side and gallagher on the other and king and wellens in the middle. We'd get completely overrun.

 

[TornadoShaunUK]

There wasn't a great deal of difference between the formation of the Forest game and previous games but the performance was worlds apart. We were much more energetic, many players harrying them when they were in position, and much better off the ball movement when we were in posession too. In general it just seemed like there was a lot more effort going into the performance and more of a desire to win!

I think prof (and Capello) are right, formations and such do have a part to play but it's only one of a number of issues that combine to decide whether you are succesful or not and it's down to Sven to make sure we are using the most beneficial formations/ tactics/ instructions at the appropriate points in each match.