Critique this 11

[Web of Bissaka]

So, Telles attacks while Maguire is left on his own to cover the left side of our defense? Maguire? Alone? All the goals will be coming in from the left side then.

Agree with the rest of it.

Better than putting Lindelof there, not like we have any better choices.

Fred (mainly) and Matic/McT will also fortify our left side. When both of them are- or our CDM (Matic/McT) is pulled to help our left defense, our RCM (Pogba/VDB) will have to cover the central role and Bruno to drop back to midfield.

 

[mattunited1978]

Works for me, suits our personnel, worked well in paris when we switched to it.

 

[Oo0AahCantona]

A note about people's comments on the defensive side of the midfield that I particularly disagree with, you don't have to play with 2 fully defensive midfielder bruisers, there's 2 other box to box players there that can help out with the defensive work, while the top of the diamond and the forwards press further up. its not 3 CAM's in a diamond, Fred has twice the engine necessary to cover for maguire.

There just don't seem to be these Danielle de rossi style complete midfielders you can acquire at the minute and have in your defensive midfield without sacrificing your offensive potential. My concern is our inability to put our best players on the pitch together.

 

[MZX7]

Better than putting Lindelof there, not like we have any better choices.

Fred (mainly) and Matic/McT will also fortify our left side. When both of them are- or our CDM (Matic/McT) is pulled to help our left defense, our RCM (Pogba/VDB) will have to cover the central role and Bruno to drop back to midfield.

How about Bailly or Tuanzebe?

 

[Oo0AahCantona]

Got there first.

 

[Sea-Cow]

https://www.buildlineup.com/shared/5f958343573afb0547a80e92

I look at that team or minor variants of it, ie Greenword for one of the forwards, you could slot in Mctomminay at the base, mata for dvb etc. Surely that is a very good side and we still have plenty of depth? i dont understand why our benches often look stronger than our first 11.

I actually think we have an excellent squad we just haven't found a way to actually use our best players together. you can also bring in an extra defensive midfielder very easily if you need to play more defensively.

Who would track the opposition full-backs when they bomb forward? Lets just look at the left. Would we ask Pogba to track the runs of the right fullback and to help Telles, who would surely be worrying about the right winger? Or would we want Rashford to track back?

Are you going to have Fred do all of the defensive work, for both sides of the pitch? Can Donny play deeper, and do defensive work?

Hell, do we even know if Telles is good enough defensively to start one v one against right wingers? Wasn't that a question about him and his ability?

 

[Oo0AahCantona]

Who would track the opposition full-backs when they bomb forward? Lets just look at the left. Would we ask Pogba to track the runs of the right fullback and to help Telles, who would surely be worrying about the right winger? Or would we want Rashford to track back?

Are you going to have Fred do all of the defensive work, for both sides of the pitch? Can Donny play deeper, and do defensive work?

Hell, do we even know if Telles is good enough defensively to start one v one against right wingers? Wasn't that a question about him and his ability?

Pogba, Fred and DVB are all capable CM's with plenty of energy, they aren't going to get walked over. The only 1 of the 4 who has more leniency to not track back as far would be Bruno, as his job will be to press with the 2 forwards. As for the fullbacks, its going to defend like a 433 would defend that threat, there isn't a gap here, there's still 11 men on the pitch who are all very mobile.

Will it be as solid as Fred and Mctominay as a sitting 2? of course not, but i'm not convinced we have to play with 2 completely defensive midfielders with the personnel available to us, we aren't Burnley. This team or variants of it has the energy to dominate the midfield, feed the forwards and create goals. if that comes as a slight sacrifice of the lefthand side, so be it, slabheads more than good enough to deal with crosses into the box, and AWB is arguably one of the best defensive RB's in europe. Every team or formation has a weakness, including when we play with 2 DM's but i feel we have the quality to punish other teams and win more games playing more on the front foot.

 

[Himannv]

It's like we're somehow trying to force Pogba, VDB and Bruno into the same team. I'd probably only try this if the opposition have parked the bus and we're having trouble unlocking them while not expecting to do loads of defending.

 

[Red_Orchestra]

https://www.buildlineup.com/shared/5f958343573afb0547a80e92

I look at that team or minor variants of it, ie Greenword for one of the forwards, you could slot in Mctomminay at the base, mata for dvb etc. Surely that is a very good side and we still have plenty of depth? i dont understand why our benches often look stronger than our first 11.

I actually think we have an excellent squad we just haven't found a way to actually use our best players together. you can also bring in an extra defensive midfielder very easily if you need to play more defensively.

I would love to see this starting 11 deployed, it would take a while for the chemistry to gel together.
But, we have absolutely nothing to lose playing this formation because our "wingers" are non existent, we haven't played with actual wingers in a long time.
So I see no harm at all playing this team for a few months.

Unfortunately I don't think Ole and his team has the brains to pull this off.

 

[Craig Ward]

I agree on the righthand side, but that left looks deadly. Telles/pogba/rashford

Looks deadly easy for oppositions aye.

Telles is an attacking full back/wing back and Pogba cannot defend or track players to save his life.

We would be ruined down the left side all day long as Pogba will leave Telles too exposed.

 

[Craig Ward]

A note about people's comments on the defensive side of the midfield that I particularly disagree with, you don't have to play with 2 fully defensive midfielder bruisers, there's 2 other box to box players there that can help out with the defensive work, while the top of the diamond and the forwards press further up. its not 3 CAM's in a diamond, Fred has twice the engine necessary to cover for maguire.

There just don't seem to be these Danielle de rossi style complete midfielders you can acquire at the minute and have in your defensive midfield without sacrificing your offensive potential. My concern is our inability to put our best players on the pitch together.

Agree but we have issue's in this regard.

For DM we have tried:
Matic - natural position however lacks mobility and fitness to play this regularly to a high standard
Fred - More box to box but playing as a pure DM limits him and I don't think he's reliable enough to play as a lone DM
McTom - Very raw. Hell of an engine, does some good things but is so basic with his passing and movement. Struggles to be a lone DM
Pogba - Car crash as a DM. Will always miss runners/lose concentration. For a player with his talent, he lacks the discipline to be a DM of any shape.

So we kind of HAVE to play two DM's cos anyone left as a lone DM will get exposed as they have flaws to they're game.

So lets go with the theory of a 3 man midfield with 1 DM, 2 box to box.

It looks like an appealing option, but for me it will leave us a tad exposed and short in attack and certainly we will have zero width. We already struggle to break teams down with a 4-2-3-1 with some width. Our full backs do not do enough attacking wise (Shaw/AWB - Telles may but we shall see. TFM and Williams certainly do nothing offensively), and whats more our CB;s cannot cover the full backs as they lack pace and are frankly appalling at defending 1v1.

As a box to box midfielder Pogba wont do the dirty work and while on paper Donny could be suited to this role - we havent seen enough of him.

McTom doesnt do enough offensively for a box to box player but I do think Fred would suit it well. If we leave any one of the 4 mentioned above exposed in the DM position we are going to be asking for trouble.

 

[Andycoleno9]

The most common counter to the diamond formation I normally see is that we don’t have the fullbacks to make it work.

Best diamond maybe in history (Milan) was with centre backs playing on full back position.
We have squad which is perfect for diamond.

 

[Oo0AahCantona]

It was a great performance tonight with a similar set up.

 

[el3mel]

It was a great performance tonight with a similar set up.

The difference from the lineup in the post is we had Fred the whole game helping Matic defending, and not just one defensive midfielder option.

Fred is undroppable for us and if we want to play the Diamond on the long run it's more of a reason to keep him around plus Scott or Matic, with Bruno up top and VDB/Pogba for the 4th spot.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

It's perfect. We don't have any wingers so why play a system with wingers? Rashford and Greenwood are forwards and Mata is a 10. Play to our strengths.

Similar set up worked a treat tonight.