Build a team where our crazy formation works

[Gator Nate]

My first thought is that it's not the formation, it's what we're doing with it. I don't believe what Ten Hag is trying to do can work in the EPL. Either that, or he's not capable of communicating it to the players. I can't believe at this point that they are all incapable - to a man - of following his instructions. Teams with far less talent than we have can boss us around. Plenty of teams run a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 much more effectively than we do, and our players have done so under other managers, here and elsewhere.

 

[DWelbz19]

Although I feel the issue has more to do with the same mistakes being repeated, like failing to pick up players in midfield that are wide open. It is clear that the system breaks down as soon as one or two players don‘t follow instructions, or others aren‘t covering for their teammates.

This failure in communication and application is also apparent when defending set pieces. Defending these is coached extensively for sure.

When a system is so vulnerable in this way -- surely it's not a viable tactic?

It's strange how married ten Hag seems to be to this system when he was more flexible in his first season.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Again City played like that for 3 years straight and thats only one example. The issue isnt the 2 8s pushing up its the other pieces not doing their jobs and the manager has said this plenty of times. No one is moving goal posts 6 with 2 10s/attacking 8s is nothing new in football

Correct, the problem is ETH’s horrid selection of profiles for this style and his complete lack of competence when it comes to coaching the right structure needed for that set up. We play with a single 6 and 2 high 8’s but press with 5 while our backline sits deeper and it creates a comically easy to bypass “press”.

I also don’t think the team is nearly athletic enough to get away with trying to play a a high octane pressing style but that’s another issue on its own

 

[Teja]

Again City played like that for 3 years straight and thats only one example. The issue isnt the 2 8s pushing up its the other pieces not doing their jobs and the manager has said this plenty of times. No one is moving goal posts 6 with 2 10s/attacking 8s is nothing new in football

This - I don't see why people are being blind to it. Arsenal currently play with Rice, Havertz and Odegaard. It's not a problem to have a single pivot with two advanced #8s. As mentioned already, City do this quite a bit. Spurs That's the way football is going.

Preventing counter attacks in a possession based system is an age old problem. You could do it many different ways but most systems (regardless of the formation) rely on 4-5 players to do it depending on how defensive the coach wants to be. In a 3-4-3, it's the 3 CBs and the DM. In a back four it could be the two CBs + two #8s if the fullbacks are advanced. In our case it's one of the fullbacks + the two CBs + the DM (mostly Shaw, Martinez, Varane and Casemiro) to mop up the counter attacks.

I don't think the tactics are the reason why we're open on the counter - part of it is just physicality - it's too easy to shrug off guys like Rashford, Bruno, Garnacho, Mount etc. This is definitely the case against bottom half teams, away from home etc. The other part of it for me (mostly against the top sides) is that football is not played on paper and our players just seem too thick to understand how the opposition is adapting to the press and finding different solutions in-game.

 

[bosnian_red]

Correct, the problem is ETH’s horrid selection of profiles for this style and his complete lack of competence when it comes to coaching the right structure needed for that set up. We play with a single 6 and 2 high 8’s but press with 5 while our backline sits deeper and it creates a comically easy to bypass “press”.

I also don’t think the team is nearly athletic enough to get away with trying to play a a high octane pressing style but that’s another issue on its own

The average positioning of our two #10's is basically higher than City's midfielders, despite us not dominating games anywhere near to the extent they do. And our defensive line is as you'd expect, deeper. It creates a huge gap. It's not just personnel, it's instructions of what he tells them to do. If mainoo, mctominay, mount, Eriksen and Casemiro all play the role the same way... Then it's not them not being good enough, it's the tactics asking them to play this way.

With City, they play with advanced midfielders yes but Pep instructs them all to operate in areas where they control games. Pep dominates the center of the pitch every time he coaches a side. Ten Hags tactics actively abandon the midfield and try to bypass those spaces. On paper both might be a 4-3-3, but they are extremely different in practice due to instructions.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

You also need technical midfielders who are comfortable on the ball and can carry the ball.

Yep and we have exactly 1 and he’s 18

 

[didz]

Well I wouldn't say the 2 8s aren't also an issue because, the two we've seen the most, Bruno and McTominay, have their own downsides in terms of limits in their skillset. But overall, you are completely right, it isn't a new thing at all and it isn't the system or formation we are using per se, it is our execution of it - a) the actual understanding of the system, who is doing what when, b) synchronisation, if player a does X, I have to do Y asap and c) overall subpar workrate. The system ETH has chosen this is ambitious, knowing our squad and from where they come from but it isn't wrong per se.

I think, people are way too hungup on the single-DM thing. I mean, the observation is correct, we aren't doing a good job of being solid in this area but it isn't like the system is just created like that. Just look at City, just in the last like 3 years they came up with multiple ideas to add personal to the middle in certain situations during a match. Be it a fullback who tucks in like Walker or Cancelo or be it a CB pushing up like Stones more recently. Pep and many other coaches try to create situational formations, against the ball it looks different than when on the ball. But this requires players to have a good understanding of their roles, a good general intelligence, round skillsets in a lot of positions and good workrate. For all the talk about the pros and cons, all our midfielders of the last years weren't really rounded in their skillsets. Yet you have seen posters claiming that Bruno and Eriksen should just play the 8 position. Now we finally have a few midfielders who can be trusted in midfield, Casemiro, Amrabat and Mainoo can contribute on and off the ball. Casemiro isn't one for the future, Amrabats overall level is probably a bit on the low side and Mainoo is young. But we are getting there. From what I've seen, even Mount is a bit more rounded than Bruno or McTominay.

And this time it isn't me saying we need to get rid of Bruno for it work, we just have to make more of an effort to balance it out. Casemiro, Mainoo and Bruno sounds pretty good on paper to me. Then either Martinez to push up or Dalot to invert (theoretically Shaw should be suited to do that as well) and a player with Antonys work ethic but Garnachos output on the right plus Hojlund with more service and more class in front of goal and we are set as a functional team. But it will take some for players to bed in. Injuries haven't really helped as they prevented synergies to emerge. Somebody said, the level of fluidity is a bit too high, I am inclined to agree. It seems to be a little to much to handle for some of our players.

Ten Hag kind of touched on this second paragraph point in his post game against Wolves.

He was asked about Casemiro being left isolated and his words were something to the effect of "at times he was surrounded by Shaw, at times Licha, and at times by Mason Mount."

In a league where pretty much every team is very comfortable at countering through the middle of the pitch, it's a pretty bold move to have 3 players taking it upon themselves to work out when it's their turn to support the lone holding player. It was a move that obviously did not work in that game, although maybe it could work given the same players for a consistent run of games.

Now from my memory of that particular match, Shaw pretty much did it every time for the first 20/25 minutes, before all those rotations kicked in and we then started looking more porous. Generally, I think you're better off having one player designated to support a lone holding mid, at least when it comes to defending transitions.

 

[sunama]

However one thing continues to be a black mark against ETH is inability to get the team playing to his vision, with this persistence of the one 'holding' midfielder and the high press leaving us wide open in transition.

I would argue that the team IS playing to his vision.
The problem he has is that his tactic just isn't good enough for the EPL. I don't even think this team would do well in the Dutch league.
Put simply, ETH isn't good enough. He is below par in virtually every area you care to rank him as a manager/coach.

 

[NLunited]

When a system is so vulnerable in this way -- surely it's not a viable tactic?

It's strange how married ten Hag seems to be to this system when he was more flexible in his first season.

Indeed. There is a big difference in how Ten Hag is approaching this season vs last season. It doesn‘t make sense that he suddenly forgot how to set us up and forgot how to make subs to affect a game.

My take: he started over with a new system and is going to make it work or die trying.

 

[Paul778]

Seeing all the talk about signing this player or that player or the discussion in the ETH threads about whether he is worth keeping and thought it might be worth bumping this thread.

The role of the coach is to get the best team performances from the players available to him for every game. Whittling things down to just this, the system he has chosen clearly does not do this and is never likely to even if he had the pick of players in world football.

The scary thing is i believe any current premier league manager would get a better tune out of this squad than ETH. There is no pragmatism in his setup and doing the same thing week-in week-out and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity.

 

[NLunited]

Seeing all the talk about signing this player or that player or the discussion in the ETH threads about whether he is worth keeping and thought it might be worth bumping this thread.

The role of the coach is to get the best team performances from the players available to him for every game. Whittling things down to just this, the system he has chosen clearly does not do this and is never likely to even if he had the pick of players in world football.

The scary thing is i believe any current premier league manager would get a better tune out of this squad than ETH. There is no pragmatism in his setup and doing the same thing week-in week-out and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity.

There‘s the problem: Hag chose a strategy for this season but hasn‘t had a squad to execute it with with any consistency.

You are saying he should change the strategy based on the players available week by week, which is not great for development of the team. Tactics can be changed every game but the strategy (your chosen play style / identity) should be consistent.

The only game where we played completely different was Pool away.

In theory Ten Hag‘s idea would work if he had a more consistent squad available to him. We would probably finish fourth/fifth which is where we belong right now.

The Fulham game makes me feel like we could fall off a cliff though, we were so poor. Remember thpugh that we had to play Lindelöf at RB and had no striker.

 

[RuudTom83]

The huge gap in midfield can be solved by having the back four play higher.

Sadly when you are picking from a crop of Varane, Lindelof and Maguire your hands are tied.

Which would then bring you to the conclusion having the midfield play high is the wrong choice with said defence behind them.

But then the team has an attack which scores less than the teams at the bottom of the table.

So again your hands are tied and the teams only choice is to play pin-ball and hope they finish above Spurs/Villa.

 

[Longlivekeano]

———————-onana—————-

-Dalot——Maguire—Martinez-Shaw-

————mainoo—-Casemiro———-

———————-Mount——————-

—bruno———-hojlund———garnacho

would love to see this be given a shot

 

[Paul778]

Sadly when you are picking from a crop of Varane, Lindelof and Maguire your hands are tied.

Yeah. This is why I said on one of the transfer threads that we should do our defence transfers early in the window and get 3 new defenders in, preferably all fast, strong and used to playing in a high line. If the players can cover multiple roles, such as LB/LCB all the better.

The sooner we get ALL of our defenders capable of playing in a high line, the sooner we can free Onana to play in the way we signed him for, and easier to see what we actually need in midfield. As can be seen by countless videos (statman dave and Ste have done ones on YT just this week), no player from any team could cope with the demands we put on our no. 6 and no. 8.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Yeah. This is why I said on one of the transfer threads that we should do our defence transfers early in the window and get 3 new defenders in, preferably all fast, strong and used to playing in a high line. If the players can cover multiple roles, such as LB/LCB all the better.

The sooner we get ALL of our defenders capable of playing in a high line, the sooner we can free Onana to play in the way we signed him for, and easier to see what we actually need in midfield. As can be seen by countless videos (statman dave and Ste have done ones on YT just this week), no player from any team could cope with the demands we put on our no. 6 and no. 8.

Yeah I think it should be obvious to the decision makers that rebuilding the spine should be the first priority this summer, and especially focusing on the athleticism of the spine. 2 top CB prospects and an athletic, technical DM are imperative if we ever want to be a high pressing team.

 

[GazTheLegend]

What is our formation at this point, something like a 3-1-6 when the opposition have the ball and a 2-1-7 when we have it? Ten Hags plan hasn't worked, fair play to him for trying something new but it's complete madness to keep going with it. It's a failed experiment, hopefully we'll try something different tomorrow.

@NLunited yeah - I'm going to give some credit, he's absolutely attempted to nail down this transition football business but a hill I will die on is that we were never a counter attacking team, we were always a possession based side that just so happened to be fantastic on the break, this idea that you can base a whole football team around quick counters is a misnomer