I know it isn’t fashionable these days, but I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t go back to the type of formations Rafa used to employ, especially first half to try and stop conceding fucking goals every 15-20 minutes. Keep it tight and maybe nick a goal, go more attacking as the game opens up.
Basically a 4-5-1 type set up. Remembering back to Torres with Gerrard in behind him, I wonder if it could work for us?
In front of the back 4 maybe have Grav and Endo sitting (and staying put) in the Alonso/Masch role with Dom and Mac either side doing the Kuyt/Benny type roles and Wirtz in behind Hugo (or maybe Hugo in behind Isak) - Not 100% sure on the personnel (Frimpong in the Kuyt role if he was fit - but he isn’t) but in principle it would make us much harder to beat and if we could get to half time without conceding then we stand a better chance of gaining confidence and going on to win the game, if Hugo or Florian can nick a goal then we are in a great position. This is only to get us going again as something has to change NOW! I’m not suggesting this is our strongest formation long term or anything.
Any thoughts?
For those whose interest was piqued, its this
FWIW, I dont get the reservation at all about how you’d press from this formation. Almost no pressing approaches have players defending in what approximates their defensive position in paper anyway.
That is pretty consistent with Cox’s point…the issue is less that you cannot press out of a diamond, but more the compactness makes it easier for teams who press you to give you problems.
The diamond also doesn’t work particularly well in an era based on pressing. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the diamond as a pressing shape of its own — the attacking midfielder can push forward to become an extra striker, and you’re pressing with a 4-3-3. Besides, the lateral compactness of the shape can actually be very effective at boxing opponents towards one flank and suffocating their attempts to play through the lines.
But that same compactness can, equally, make it easy for pressing sides to overwhelm the diamond. The distances are short and easy for the opposition to cover. The passing lanes are simple to shut down. There’s no out-ball. The diamond means teams play their way into trouble.
I obviously haven’t watched a lot of Bournemouth full games, but I would hope people paid to make these decisions saw some of Kerkez’s aspects we see at Liverpool even at Bournemouth.
I’m not sure whether they (Kerkez and Semenyo) played a lot down the same side? If you bring a player, there has to be more reasons.
If we bring Semenyo, I guess he comes in the hierarchy as a competitor on both wings (and an outside option up top if needed), especially the left and probably pushes Chiesa out the door (either in January or next summer).
The idea of having Grav as a CB is to have him bring the ball out of defence, however as you said this is also mostly done by Arne to get an extra forward on and therefore losing shape and options in midfield.
If Arne thinks it suits us having Grav as a ball playing CB, then try it with a midfield in front and a coherent shape.
It’s not about positions, but the type of players you have, what it morphs into. Then how do you defend when the press doesn’t work.
Even when you have amazing runners like Gattuso and Seedorf as two #8’s in Milan’s diamond. Fast forward a season or two from Istanbul, they were in a compact 4-4-2 (at times a 4-3-2-1, also rare), basically everything built around bringing the best out of Kaka as a central #10 or second striker better to say.
It’s not the same thing having Zidane, Kaka, Firmino, Wirtz or Szoboszlai as the single #10.
Hypothetically, because we have not done it, but if we did deploy the diamond we would defend with three midfielders behind Wirtz, who would be behind Isak and Ekitike. Grav, Szobo and Macca/Jones would give us a good solid trio in the middle.
The fullbacks would provide overlapping width, using their stamina to get up and down the flanks. If possession turned over Grav at the base of the diamond would slot into a back three to give defensive solidity.
Based on the players we have now, I think it would be much better than what we have seen. If Slot intends to play with wingers (and he is still here) he needs to buy one or two, as neither Gakpo or Salah, for different reasons, are elite.
How would we press in a diamond? I can only talk in concepts, as it would need to be dialed in on the training ground and with reps on the pitch in a match situation. But no passengers, everyone working hard and putting in the running. Pressing in a trio, or a four, moving in concert, cutting off passing lanes, taking away options for the defending team to either win it back directly - Wirtz in the past has been very good at getting his toe in, or the press would force them to do a bad pass and we get the ball back that way.
Based on the players we have I would like to see a diamond tried. It has the potential to get our attacking talent on the pitch and even though the vast majority of teams stay away from this system, there’s no reason why we can’t innovate by cracking it, given the players we have.
Alternately, if we signed, say, Semenyo, I could see a 4231 coming to the fore with Ekitike-Wirtz-Semenyo behind Isak. Bold in an attacking sense for sure, and the others would need to be compact to ensure enough defensive stability.
My thought on this, basically stay solid, don’t concede, score and then open up more as an attacking force… it would be much better than what we’ve been seeing.
We concede so many goals at the minute that stopping that flow would be a big improvement, and then we do have the attacking players to turn that up a bit as the game progresses.
He is gone. Cannot fixit. No idea. Just get it done. Blaming Sakad (fecked) and VVD (not)is mad.
Copying this over from the PSV post game thread because its more applicable here…
There obviously isn’t much visibility into the specific dynamic among the group involved in personnel decisions or who contributed what to which decisions, but i find some of the scenarios being suggested that paint Slot as someone let down by the process are just inconceivable to imagine with how we know this group has worked in the past.
- Everyone who has ever spoken on the record from the data team has been quick to share credit and spoken about the importance of the human element in the decision making, and the importance of everyone being aligned in ideas and priorities
- We know the data team don’t just look at players for positions, but profiles of players. We would not accidentally get a running FB if the manager wanted/needed a progressive passer. And we wouldn’t get someone who cannot invert if that is what the manager wanted to do.
Given this it seems inconceivable to me that Slot was dictated to or that players were bought for different profiles than he needed. Unlike in 2014 I don’t think there is even a good case to be made for us just buying players who weren’t good enough. Even the ones who are not yet performing were identified as quality outside of our interest in them and were not surprising when our interest in them surfaced.
The very uncomfortable question this leaves me with is how well did Slot play his role in the process. We are seeing a side who don’t look certain how to implement what he has been asking of them this season. If he has struggled to communicate it to the players, is it possible there was a similar disconnect with Hughes and his team in the planning stage?
The simplicity of his direction was credited for a lot of his success last year, and that is a textbook mark of good coaching…simplify the message to the one or two points that are most important for the coachee to implement. But that was achieved in the context of only making small tweaks to what he wanted to see. The attempted change this season has been bigger and has Slot just not developed the right story to help people understand what he’s looking for?
With Diaz, what I feel we are missing with him gone, is his physicality in helping the LB, pressing and always trying to be available for a pass or a mazy run to get us up the pitch.
He has thatbbit of mongrel in him which none of our current forwards as the same mongrel that Sadio had.
We have too few players who have that mongrel, Robbo, Macca and Kerkez plus Endo and 3 of these either aren’t involved or lacking fitness and the last is a little naive in his positioning.
You need more than 3 midfielders to defend in whichever formation.
It’s easy to imagine a diamond pressing with the #10 sitting on the single or one of the opponent’s double pivots and two strikers doing one of variations how they press defenders.
What about when the press breaks and the defending needs more than "we can just press morphing from a diamond to a 4-3-3? Even under Klopp, when teams broke our press, we didn’t remain as a 4-3-3 all of the time.
Do we drop Wirtz to one of the sides, so it becomes a 4-4-2? It cannot possibly remain a diamond shape, we’d get murdered with what we’re (not) producing at full back.
And how about the type of players we have up top? Isak pressed at Newcastle, but what about Ekitike? And who would be their backups, any two of the likes of Salah, Chiesa and Gakpo? How would our press look with any of them in as strikers? How would our connection in attack be when them players have to play basically back to goal?
Yep, we miss Diaz for sure. If the newbies were clicking, we would be looking backwards a lot less as new stories would be written. Hopefully that will come soon.
If Slot wants to play with wingers he needs to buy one or two, as what we have in the wings right now is not elite.
Right so its not an issue of the shape.
If you are shoehorning players into a side who you dont think are equipped to play a high pressing game and using this shape as the best fit for them then it isnt an issue of the shape. But more importantly, there is no combination of players we have at whom we could rightly throw that accusation.
Too much pressure on “others”.
Under Klopp, we did our best to camouflage one special attacker in Salah. It’s not like he didn’t defend, he absolutely had to do a certain amount. But that was our balance and how we got the best out of him.
How many players would we have to camouflage in that system with a lot of forwards and very offensive wide forwards?
Gravenberch and one of MacAllister/Szoboszlai behind is not enough. And it likely opens up other issues on the ball, a lack of control and possibly even creativity.
As a 1 v 1 defender Kerkez is excellent, but needs more help with his positioning, i.e the 2nd goal against PSV, but we have conceded several goals with Robbo from the similar type of pass to the back post.
Going forward it is hard due to how Gakpo plays out wide and constantly ignoring his runs and what seems the coaches requirements for underlapping runs, which again are ingnored.
I don’t think anyone has any problems with that whatsoever at the moment
Defending from the front, so the strikers and the 10 are all bought in and putting in the yards as needed, as well as everyone behind them. It’s the only way the press can work.
When it breaks down ideally that would be due to great play from the opposition, rather than our own shortcoming. The problem with football is that the opposition might also have some ideas about how they want to hurt you! I suppose on balance the idea is to have better players and better ideas and impose yourself on them, overall.
I would also say any system is a starting reference point, but it needs to have fluidity. So a midfield diamond could be tweaked to suit the in-game situation, and with relatively small movements it could go to 4231, 4222, etc. In actuality there would be multiple formations every game, but if the diamond was selected, it would be the starting reference point.
I;m not sure I’ve said this last part, but I’m not necessarily tied to a diamond, per se… it’s just that to my mind, it suits the players we currently have. If Slot wants to play with wingers we need to buy one or two.
I think he may have tried 3 at the back if Leoni had stayed fit or with Robertson by now on the left.
I don’t think he’s even considering it.
Quite possibly. There definitely would be too much pressure on the others if the front four just thought their job was to attack and not defend. But my philosophy would be to defend from the front, and everyone would have responsibility for that.
We talked about this in another thread not long ago where I replied (I don’t think directly to you, but I continued the conversation) that it depends on the type of players you have.
When people talk about what our diamond would be, I imagine our current players in it and also think back to the few diamonds I’ve seen in my football following.
Some would have different problems, some would have similar ones. And this is only talking about one or two phases of the game, let alone other ones.