Not necessarily another thread to bash Ole to proclaim to have all the answers but something I've not understood and hoping that others may be able to shed light on is the balance of our team. To categorize players by their main objective, outside of the back 4 typically we have 2 defensive minded players (D), 2 creative/ retention players (C) & 2 attack minded players (A).
City typically start: Foden (C), Fernandinho (D), Sterling (A), De Bruyne (C), Rodri (D) & Bernado (C)
Pool typically start: Milner (D), Henderson (D), Keita (C), Salah (A), Firmino (C) & Mane (A)
We typically start: Fred, Mctominay, Bruno(C), Pogba (C), Greenwood (A) & Ronaldo (A) and sometimes we change Pogba (C) to Rashford (A)
I've not categorized Fred or Mctominay as I don't quite know their primary focus as a player, crass way to look at it but I think too much emphasis is placed over where players start and not what they typically do, ignoring positions I think using the groupings above we are very attack and creative heavy and very defensively light and both teams above (City & Pool) regularly have those players to connect the creative/ attacking players to defense. People dismiss the notion it might not be solely Ole as he got lots of new players and he did but I genuinely believe without the players in the midfield to tie the two sides together it won't work.
Attackers: Ronaldo, Cavani, Martial, Rashford & Greenwood
Creative: Bruno, Pogba, Sancho, Lingard & DVDB
Defensive: Matic
Other: Fred, Mctominay
It's not to bash Fred or Mctominay either, I think we have huge holes, most top teams have at least 1 or 2 top defensively minded players (Whether through interceptions, tackling or retention), we don't have one. To mitigate this issue we need to get more defensive minded players on the pitch which means we play someone out of position (Lindelof as DM) or we go 5 at the back to allow us more defenders. I genuinely believe without a top midfielder focused on the defensive actions of the game, we need to do something like the below:
--------Lindelof---Maguire---Varane------
AWB----------------Matic--Pogba------Shaw
---------------------Bruno---------------------------
------------Ronaldo----Rashford--------------
We have the 6 defensive players on the pitch there with Matic and the extra CB, for games we can't play Matic, I would move out Pogba and Matic for Fred and Mctominay to try and get that balance.
Does anyone have any other formations/ ideas to get enough defensive players on the pitch? I think Ole is too attack minded and putting loads of attacking players on the pitch makes us disjointed, not all out attacking.
Looking for ideas/ thoughts..
City typically start: Foden (C), Fernandinho (D), Sterling (A), De Bruyne (C), Rodri (D) & Bernado (C)
Pool typically start: Milner (D), Henderson (D), Keita (C), Salah (A), Firmino (C) & Mane (A)
We typically start: Fred, Mctominay, Bruno(C), Pogba (C), Greenwood (A) & Ronaldo (A) and sometimes we change Pogba (C) to Rashford (A)
I've not categorized Fred or Mctominay as I don't quite know their primary focus as a player, crass way to look at it but I think too much emphasis is placed over where players start and not what they typically do, ignoring positions I think using the groupings above we are very attack and creative heavy and very defensively light and both teams above (City & Pool) regularly have those players to connect the creative/ attacking players to defense. People dismiss the notion it might not be solely Ole as he got lots of new players and he did but I genuinely believe without the players in the midfield to tie the two sides together it won't work.
Attackers: Ronaldo, Cavani, Martial, Rashford & Greenwood
Creative: Bruno, Pogba, Sancho, Lingard & DVDB
Defensive: Matic
Other: Fred, Mctominay
It's not to bash Fred or Mctominay either, I think we have huge holes, most top teams have at least 1 or 2 top defensively minded players (Whether through interceptions, tackling or retention), we don't have one. To mitigate this issue we need to get more defensive minded players on the pitch which means we play someone out of position (Lindelof as DM) or we go 5 at the back to allow us more defenders. I genuinely believe without a top midfielder focused on the defensive actions of the game, we need to do something like the below:
--------Lindelof---Maguire---Varane------
AWB----------------Matic--Pogba------Shaw
---------------------Bruno---------------------------
------------Ronaldo----Rashford--------------
We have the 6 defensive players on the pitch there with Matic and the extra CB, for games we can't play Matic, I would move out Pogba and Matic for Fred and Mctominay to try and get that balance.
Does anyone have any other formations/ ideas to get enough defensive players on the pitch? I think Ole is too attack minded and putting loads of attacking players on the pitch makes us disjointed, not all out attacking.
Looking for ideas/ thoughts..