noodlehair
"It's like..."
Just been thinking about this more and more. Not only now but for the majority of Ole's tenure, we seem to insist on having 2 midfielders and using what would be the third midfielder as an extra forward.
It's become a self feeding problem now where we haven't properly strengthened our midfield possibly at least partly due to only thinking we need 2 starting midfielders, and now not having enough midfielders to pick 3 even if we wanted to.
What other (good) teams get away with playing this system? Chelsea play 3 midfielders, Liverpool play 3 midfielders, City might push forwards more but they still have 3 people occupying the midfield.
We used to play with two under Sir Alex, but 1) We would almost always play a third midfielder against any decent opposition, 2) We'd use Carrick to effectively bypass the midfield anyway, 3) It probably wouldn't work now even with players like Carrick or Scholes.
I don't understand what the thinking is. The only way I can see you get away with being a man light in the middle of the park, is by not contesting the ball there and sitting your midfield on the edge of your own area, and playing purely on the break...but we don't do this. For a spell under Ole we did it against some of the better teams, and it sometimes worked, but it never worked (if we never really even tried it) against anyone else. As soon as you try to contest the midfield while a man light, any semi organised team is surely just going to play round you. Every team now has athletic players in this area. Every team does their homework on their opponent.
I don't envisage how its ever going to work. I thought the midfield would do for Ole this season as soon as it was obvious a midfielder wasn't his main priority, because it was already glaringly obvious. Now I don't know if Rangnik still hasn't recognised this as a problem, or just doesn't have the personel to do anything about it...it could be the latter but then on more than one occasion now he's chosen to play Matic in a two man midfield, which it's just so obviously is a bad idea I can't think why anyone would do it unless they haven't clocked on that its an issue at all. If you play Matic you HAVE to play 3 midfielders or play entirely on the counter.
When are we going to stop doing this? Are we going to stop doing it? The only pro argument I can see is to fit Fernandes into the team, but any other team would do that anyway either by playing him in a system where he acts as a third midfielder, or sacrificing one of the other forwards.
It's become a self feeding problem now where we haven't properly strengthened our midfield possibly at least partly due to only thinking we need 2 starting midfielders, and now not having enough midfielders to pick 3 even if we wanted to.
What other (good) teams get away with playing this system? Chelsea play 3 midfielders, Liverpool play 3 midfielders, City might push forwards more but they still have 3 people occupying the midfield.
We used to play with two under Sir Alex, but 1) We would almost always play a third midfielder against any decent opposition, 2) We'd use Carrick to effectively bypass the midfield anyway, 3) It probably wouldn't work now even with players like Carrick or Scholes.
I don't understand what the thinking is. The only way I can see you get away with being a man light in the middle of the park, is by not contesting the ball there and sitting your midfield on the edge of your own area, and playing purely on the break...but we don't do this. For a spell under Ole we did it against some of the better teams, and it sometimes worked, but it never worked (if we never really even tried it) against anyone else. As soon as you try to contest the midfield while a man light, any semi organised team is surely just going to play round you. Every team now has athletic players in this area. Every team does their homework on their opponent.
I don't envisage how its ever going to work. I thought the midfield would do for Ole this season as soon as it was obvious a midfielder wasn't his main priority, because it was already glaringly obvious. Now I don't know if Rangnik still hasn't recognised this as a problem, or just doesn't have the personel to do anything about it...it could be the latter but then on more than one occasion now he's chosen to play Matic in a two man midfield, which it's just so obviously is a bad idea I can't think why anyone would do it unless they haven't clocked on that its an issue at all. If you play Matic you HAVE to play 3 midfielders or play entirely on the counter.
When are we going to stop doing this? Are we going to stop doing it? The only pro argument I can see is to fit Fernandes into the team, but any other team would do that anyway either by playing him in a system where he acts as a third midfielder, or sacrificing one of the other forwards.