4.4.2 outdated, who would you play in a 4.2.3.1 system

[gally]

This seems to be the most popular formation with 2 holding midfielders, and three behind the frontman, to start this off, my team would be:
Given
Kelly Dunne St Ledger O'Shea

Wilson Whelan/Gibson

McGeady/O'Hara Keane Duff

Doyle

[mypost]

4-5-1 is designed to be an emergency formation for hard away games, not your staple tactic. One man upfront, sends out the message that you only want a point, even if you are at home.

[Dodge]

4-5-1 is designed to be an emergency formation for hard away games, not your staple tactic. One man upfront, sends out the message that you only want a point, even if you are at home.

Germany played with one up front. Didn't do them any harm.

Formations do not go in and out of date. It all depends on the players available. if you've two good strikers, two good ingers and two good full backs, then 4-4-2 is the perfect system for you

The English media have gone to twon on 4-4-2 but when one of the 2 is Heskey or Defoe and the other one didn't turn up its doomed to failure.

[irishfan86]

In some ways we play a 4-2-3-1.

We often shape up like this:

----------------Given------------------
O'Shea--Dunne--Sledge---Killer
---------Whelan--Andrews-------
Lawrence----Keane------Duff
----------Doyle---------------------

Keane drops deep as we all know, and Trap just wants his central midfielders to sit back.

You can call it a 4-4-2 if you consider Robbie an out and out striker, but it's less about formation and more about what sort of roles players play when it comes down to it.

[boovidge]

442 suits us. We have natural wide men unlike England.

[Poor Student]

4-5-1 is designed to be an emergency formation for hard away games, not your staple tactic. One man upfront, sends out the message that you only want a point, even if you are at home.

It's been working fine for UCD this year even in games we've been favourites and dominated.




Formations do not go in and out of date.

Dodge, that's not true, 2-3-5 and WM are most definitely out of date and couldn't be played today.

[Dodge]

yeah, fair point. i stand by the comment that players are more important than systems though

[Stuttgart88]

I'm with Dodge 100% - I think. You set your team out to suit your players, not try and fit players into a shape you've selected. Half the time Ireland is 4-6-0 anyway!

I'd personally like to see Andy Reid in an advanced playmaking role for us, but the reality is we've got good wide players and 2 good forwards. We've also got weak full backs, so we need players ahead of them. If we were to go 4-2-3-1 we'd have to leave Keane or Doyle out which doesn't make sense, and we'd expose our full backs. I also think shape should be dynamic anyway and clever players should fill the right spaces at the right time.

4-4-2 is getting slated in the media, but a balanced 4-4-2 still works. Mick deployed 4-4-2 in Japan / Korea and it was perfectly balanced. Every pair complemented each other perfectly. At least part of England's problem was a lack of balance. The midfield 2 didn't complement each other, nor did they protect the 2 CBs. The left side was a round hole filled with a square peg. Rooney & Defoe don't complement each other in my opinion.

[livehead1]

I think we could perhaps look at altering the formation slightly; what system I don't know. What I would say is that our results against Italy and France don't look anywhere near as good as we believed them to be at the time given what has happened in the WC.

[seanfhear]

I think we could perhaps look at altering the formation slightly; what system I don't know. What I would say is that our results against Italy and France don't look anywhere near as good as we believed them to be at the time given what has happened in the WC.
I was thinking that meself. Both Italy and France were woeful at the world cup and 4-4-2 is getting a bit of stick at the moment.

Still I believe Trap did a pretty good job in that qualifing campaign with the players available.

The evasive follically challenged one could play behind a striker (I think) possibly Andy Reid(?) or Robbie Keane (? ?).

You see from that that I am not sure if we have a player capable of playing such a role especially as the evasive follically challenged one remains ... well evasive.

[jbyrne]

I think we could perhaps look at altering the formation slightly; what system I don't know. What I would say is that our results against Italy and France don't look anywhere near as good as we believed them to be at the time given what has happened in the WC.

they havnt always been as bad as they were in the wc. in hindsight we possibly gave them both too much respect and should have gone for it a little bit more but neither italy or france drop too many qualification points and we dominated both away from home

[Stuttgart88]

The performances against Italy and France were both decent and if we were more clinical and streetwise at either end of the pitch we'd have had at least one famous result to celebrate. Changing the system isn't going to put Duff's chance in the back of the net, convert Robbie's late chance in Bari, convert Doyle's header in Paris, convert Whelan's chance in Dublin or make us less naive than we were in the minutes following St. Ledger's goal.

It's dumb to say let's change the system unless you have the players to suit the new system.

4-2-3-1:

The 2 would probably be 2 of Whelan, Andrews or Gibson. Just as the midfield two were in our 4 man midfield.

The 3 could be Duff - Keane - Lawrence, and Doyle could be the 1 upfront.

But is this any didfferent to the 4-4-2 we play all the time? Keane drops so deep all the time he's not just an orthodox forward. The difference between the two is just nuance.

The debate in England about 4-4-2 is because it doesn't offer a balanced use of their best players. It probably does for us.

If we had stronger full backs I think we could look at sacrificing our natural width. But natural width is one of our strengths so why compromise that?

And football isn't like table football where you have rigid formations. We're 4-6-0 without the ball for all intents and purposes. With the ball we're anything from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1. It's all BS anyway: when your CBs go up for a corner are you then playing 2-1-7 or 2-2-6? No, players are just using their brains to go where they're needed.

[Stuttgart88]

Glenn Moore in today's Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/is-it-time-for-england-to-ditch-the-442-and-play-like-the-rest-of-the-world-2013101.html

Terry Venables tells a story about Paul Gascoigne at Tottenham. Gazza, with his limited attention span, was forever bemoaning the time spent working on tactics. Then he went to Italy to play for Lazio. When Venables saw him next, Gascoigne had changed his tune, even admitting that, after confronting the deep and well-organised defences of Serie A, he realised how important tactics were.


Fabio Capello is under fire for playing 4-4-2 (the formation with which England won the World Cup an awfully long time ago) in Bloemfontein on Sunday. It is a simple system in which everyone knows their jobs; perfect, you might argue, for the tactically unsophisticated English. This is why most England managers end up using it.

The Italian is also perplexed by the criticism, arguing he played the same formation in qualifying and no one complained then. Not every observer agrees. It looked a lot like 4-2-3-1 in qualifying, with Frank Lampard sharing midfield anchor duties with Gareth Barry, and Wayne Rooney playing behind Emile Heskey. Against Germany, Lampard seemed to get forward more, and with Heskey on the bench, Rooney also pushed up. He had to, as Jermain Defoe does not hold the ball as well.

The problems with 4-4-2 are that better opponents can slip between its straight horizontal and vertical lines, and the midfield can be outnumbered. Most teams here have been playing a five-man midfield, as Germany did. A team playing two-up is a man short in midfield. Neither Chelsea, Manchester United nor Arsenal play 4-4-2. Nor do the Champions League finalists, Internazionale and Bayern Munich. All prefer a system which allows a five-man midfield when defending, and three-man attack when going forward.

The argument has also been made that a five-man midfield, with Gerrard pushing up when England attack, would put the best players in positions that suit their talents, positions they are used to at their clubs. If England did not have a world-class striker beyond Rooney, why play with two up front? In winning Euro 2008, spain played 4-5-1, 4-4-1-1 and 4-4-2. They have a surfeit of top-quality midfielders but they also have two outstanding strikers, David Villa and Fernando Torres. When one of this pair is unavailable they play an extra midfielder. This has been the case under both Luis Aragones and Vicente del Bosque. For them the game is about finding a system which suits their players; but it works because the players are capable of playing different systems.

The formation Capello used on Sunday is not the problem, the problem is the players, and the fundamental structural weaknesses in the way the English game develops them.

It is a constant debate in coaching circles: is a game won or lost by the system used or the players? The usual conclusion: it is a bit of both. Bad players lose matches whatever the formation, but the right system can make the difference when teams are relatively even – as at the World Cup.

Blame the system?

*Including England, only nine sides of 32 at have consistently used a 4-4-2 formation at this World Cup: Algeria, Cameroon, Chile, England, Ghana, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States. The tournament's major powers are conspicuous by their absence.


*The most successful teams so far have varied used more 'modern' alternatives:

Brazil: 4-2-3-1 Dunga employs two holding players to allow the front four freedom to attack

Argentina: 4-3-2-1 Messi and Higuain slot in behind Tevez to create a three-pronged attack.

Spain: 4-3-1-2 Iniesta enjoys a troublesome free role behind Torres and Villa.

Germany: 4-2-3-1 Klose is a focal point; Podolski, Müller and Ozil push forward.

[Stuttgart88]

MY PC is playing up, I wasn't able tio embolden all the bits I wanted to.

Anyway, if our 4-4-2 gets found out in the latter stages of a WC I'll be delighted!

[shakermaker1982]

Glenn Moore in today's Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/is-it-time-for-england-to-ditch-the-442-and-play-like-the-rest-of-the-world-2013101.html

*Including England, only nine sides of 32 at have consistently used a 4-4-2 formation at this World Cup: Algeria, Cameroon, Chile, England, Ghana, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States. The tournament's major powers are conspicuous by their absense.

Chile don't play 4-4-2! What was he watching?

[endabob1]

All this hype about 4-5-1 is getting bloody stupid now. It's a formation for Gods sake. The way it's talked about you'd imagine it's only a matter of time before 4-5-1 finds a cure for cancer.
We have a limited pool of players, we select a team & formation that gets the most out of that pool, at the moment that would clearly appear to be 442.

[stojkovic]

France and Italy pretty much played a variation of 4-5-1 (or 4-2-3-1) and it didnt do them much good did it.

Bob Pasiley was once asked what Liverpool's secret was - "Good players" he replied. Simple as.

[kev mcq]

This seems to be the most popular formation with 2 holding midfielders, and three behind the frontman, to start this off, my team would be:
Given
Kelly Dunne St Ledger O'Shea

Wilson Whelan/Gibson

McGeady/O'Hara Keane Duff

Doyle

O' Hara?? Not even Irish so how would he fit in?

[third policeman]

Maybe not the most popular of selections but........


Given

Coleman - O'Shea - Dunne - Duff

McCarthy - Meyler (O'Hara / Gibson)

Ireland - Keane - A.Reid

Doyle

Assuming that Ireland's return to the fold may never happen, swap McGeady for the Bald Primadonna

[geysir]

Chile don't play 4-4-2! What was he watching?

Chile have a roller-coaster game plan, it ebbs and flows effortlessly between 0-2-8 and 8-2-0.

I can´t really focus today as I'm going cold turkey, roll on Friday

On formations for us. It does fit into Trap´s scheme of things if
Doyle plays the Daveed Villa role and Robbie the Torres role. (Of course Torres would have to be a bit sharper in order to have role called after him)

Pity we don't have a Xavi or Iniesta, but we do have 2 Busquets.
Where as our Centre Halves are mighty, our full backs can be wobbly and any sensible opposing manager would be watching out if we continue to go with KK or/ McShane. Fortunately, because we have Trap, most opposing teams assume that if Trap picks them they must be good, they have the Guaranteed Trap sign.

[Charlie Darwin]

Germany played with one up front. Didn't do them any harm.
It's more of a 4-3-3 than a 4-5-1. Mueller and Podolski are both strikers by trade and have the pace to alternate between midfield and attack. If we were to do the same we'd need to sacrifice Duffer and Lawrence completely , or else push Damien inside.

[Dodge]

It's more of a 4-3-3 than a 4-5-1. Mueller and Podolski are both strikers by trade and have the pace to alternate between midfield and attack. If we were to do the same we'd need to sacrifice Duffer and Lawrence completely , or else push Damien inside.

Well Germany played a 4-2-3-1, but it doesn't matter. mypost assumes that all formation with 1 upfront are negative, when thats clearly not the case

[mypost]

1 man upfront v 5 at the back. When you send the ball up towards him, he has 20% chance of winning the ball. If that isn't defensive, then what is?

[tetsujin1979]

you could play the same ball to either of the wing forwards? Or keep possession in the middle of the park with the extra man and allow the wingers, or full backs to push up?

[Charlie Darwin]

Well Germany played a 4-2-3-1, but it doesn't matter. mypost assumes that all formation with 1 upfront are negative, when thats clearly not the case
True, but I still think Podolski and Mueller are primarily in the team to score goals and aren't asked to do an awful lot of tracking back compared to most wide midfielders.


1 man upfront v 5 at the back. When you send the ball up towards him, he has 20% chance of winning the ball. If that isn't defensive, then what is?
If you pass the ball to a player he has more than a 20% chance of winning the ball. Not every team is managed by Jack Charlton.

[Dodge]

1 man upfront v 5 at the back. When you send the ball up towards him, he has 20% chance of winning the ball. If that isn't defensive, then what is?

SO not only are you assuming that the opposition is playing 5 at the back, you're also assuming that your team can't play a simple pass to the forwards feet? Why doe he have to "win it"?

[shakermaker1982]

SO not only are you assuming that the opposition is playing 5 at the back, you're also assuming that your team can't play a simple pass to the forwards feet? Why doe he have to "win it"?

+ it's very rare that 5 defenders mark one man!!!

[irishfan86]

you could play the same ball to either of the wing forwards? Or keep possession in the middle of the park with the extra man and allow the wingers, or full backs to push up?

Possession? What's that, Tets?

[tricky_colour]

I'd say with one up front you would need 2 players mark him.
With 2 up you could manage with 3 defenders.
That makes one up front more effective.

Having said that your formation is more often than not forced on you by the opposition.
If you are the weaker team you have to play the oppositions formation, because they have the ball
and you have to mark up!!

[mypost]

With one upfront, you need one marker, with 2 you need 2.

If you play 1 man upfront against a park-the-bus side, it's basically one man against the entire team. It relies on him, and if he doesn't deliver the goods, everyone else suffers.

Wingers are wingers, and midfielders are midfielders, with their own jobs to do. The idea of 2 men upfront is to give the forwards some help against 4-5 defenders, and carries considerably more threat.

[Dodge]

Why do you keep metioning 5 defenders? Nobody bar North Korea has played defenders in years

Teams who play one up front would absolutely LOVE to face a team with 5 defenders as it'd mean they'd have at least a one man advantage (probably 2) in midfield) and would dominate. if two strikesr play up front, defenders know their job. if 2/3 are running a them from midfield defenders aren't so sure. Thats what absolutely destroyed England last weekend

[mypost]

In fairness, the formation didn't beat England. England were crap, and beat themselves.

[pineapple stu]

How can one person be so utterly, consistenly wrong about everything?

England beat themselves? What does that mean? Did they score four own goals and run the line too?

The Germans beat the English, and they did it with an attacking one-up-front formation.

[Dodge]

In fairness, the formation didn't beat England.

Exactly formations mean **** all. glaad you've finally seen sense

[Stuttgart88]

Back to that age old foot.ie debate - the so-called "holding midfielder". I've lost count of the number of experts who describe Germany as a 4-2-3-1 with "two holding midfielders" - so obviously including Schweinsteiger as a holding midfielder. Holy fcuk. The guy is absolutely anything but. When was the last time anyone here saw a "holding midfielder" dance past 3 or 4 defenders in a WC QF and set up a goal on a plate for a teammate, or totally dictate the pace and direction of play at this level? The term is 100% bogus. You have midfielders more creative than defensive, and you have midfielders more defensive than creative. You have playmakers who do their best work in advanced positions and you have playmakers who do their best work in withdrawn positions. The term holding midfielder is straight out of the 21st century management guff bible: blue sky thinking, out of the box, mission critical, holding midfielders - all meaningless b/s that allows so-called experts spoof their way through a career.

[backstothewall]

I can't see that the debate between 442 and 4231 that seems to be ongoing in the English press really applies to us. Robbie must play, and throughout his career doing anything with him apart from playing him with a big physical centre forward he can sit slightly behind (be it Quinner, Berbatov, Vieri, Viduka, Folan etc) has been a waste of his talent, and a mistake made repeatedly by pairing with Defoe, Torres, Alan Smith etc.

And if he has to play in the middle off the striker, whether you call it a 442, or a 4231, or a 451, he's still going to be behind the striker, with Duffer on one side of him, and McGeady/Lawrence on the other. So basically the debate is over what tag to give the same players in the same positions.

As for England, personally I couldn't give a **** about why they went out. It occurs to me that its a bit odd playing a settled system with a big man leading the line for 2 years in qualifying, then changing it once you get to the World Cup, but I haven't thought about it terribly deeply. I don't like them at the best of times, and playing football as bad as they did does nothing to endear them to my heart.

[irishfan86]

Why any manager plays Gerrard as a wide player is beyond me. They should have just stuck Gerrard in behind Rooney and started someone else on the left, probably Joe Cole.

They also lacked a playmaker in the middle -- they were too direct and lacked guile. As poor as Carrick can be, they might have been better off playing him centrally instead of Barry to provide a range of passing.

As you say though backtowalsall, who cares?

[Predator]

I trust Trap...

[Charlie Darwin]

I'm not sure the lack of a playmaker is such a chronic issue. Players like Gerrard and Lampard can unlock space when they're playing at a high tempo and standard of accuracy. They just never really reached the necessary level of intensity.

[Stuttgart88]

But neither of those two has the time on the ball that players like Schweinsteiger or any number of Spanish players has, and both (esp Gerrard) are far too prone to TV friendly speculative passes that are great when they work, but lose possession when they don't - which is too often. You're right to also point out the high tempo, but without a playmaker they can only play at a high tempo. I've long felt that Lampard & Gerrard are great ball strikers with a great sense of when to arrive, but neither is a great midfielder in the traditional sense.

[jbyrne]

How can one person be so utterly, consistenly wrong about everything?

England beat themselves? What does that mean? Did they score four own goals and run the line too?

The Germans beat the English, and they did it with an attacking one-up-front formation.

agree. by having the extra men running from midfiled they sucked the english central defence out and created lots of space in behind. it only really works well with lots of pace and the german team have that in spades

[geysir]

They beat Argentina pretty much playing 3 upfront.

[irishfan86]

I think the point we're all missing here is that Germany play a very fluid formation. The best teams generally switch and swap and alternate all over the place. A defender pushes up to join the attack, a midfielder falls into defense to cover him. A midfielder makes a run into the box, a forward drops back to the top of the box to offer a supporting option, etc.

England were far too static and that is why they were massacred. Argentina play a fluid enough game, but I think their problem was perhaps too much fluidity and not enough structure. Germany have had a great combination of fluidity and structure so far, but this Spanish team may just be too much for them.

[Stuttgart88]

Well said. You'd swear some people thought football was like table football where the notional shape you start with must be kept throughout the game.

[Charlie Darwin]

Now that Germany have been well beaten, is it time to declare the 4-2-3-1 outdated?

[irishfan86]

Now that Germany have been well beaten, is it time to declare the 4-2-3-1 outdated?

Spain play it too, or some variant of it....

[Closed Account]

Except Spain were playing that formation also? And so do the Netherlands......
If only Ireland had a Sneijder or Xavi.

(Just to be clear, I think this whole debate is nonsense. Find a formation that works with your players and stick to it. The key is discipline. If your told to play wide left, play wide left, goals are conceded when someone isn't doing their job)

[geysir]

We could do with someone who has the ability to make himself invisible to the ref, like Van Bommel can.

[mypost]

(Just to be clear, I think this whole debate is nonsense. Find a formation that works with your players and stick to it. The key is discipline. If your told to play wide left, play wide left, goals are conceded when someone isn't doing their job)

The 4-2-3-1 system was shown last night for what it is, a defensive system which backfired for the Germans against decent opposition. Against weak sides it may work, but against proper sides when you're chasing the game, you never have the ball, and it's a matter of time before you get your arse kicked. It duly happened last night.

4-4-2 is 2 full backs, 2 centre backs, 2 centre midfielders, 2 wingers, and 2 forwards. It has balance and makes sense. 4-2-3-1 is a crap formation that will sooner or later be exposed. Find your players, then fit your formation around the players, not the other way around.

[Dodge]

The 4-2-3-1 system was shown last night for what it is, a defensive system which backfired for the Germans against decent opposition. Against weak sides it may work, but against proper sides when you're chasing the game, you never have the ball, and it's a matter of time before you get your arse kicked. It duly happened last night.


Spain played 4-2-3-1 too so thats another of your theories gazumped