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Just a few observations for fellow anoraks, after watching the 1st half of the Portland game.

It seemed that we started with a couple of the formations used by Brazil ie 4-2-2-2 & 4-2-3-1.

Imo (unless everyone was doing their own thing & disobeying orders!) they lined up like this:


........................................Hart............................................

Trippier..............Boyata......................Mee..................Cunningham

..................Zabaleta................................Vieira......................

.................Johnson...............................Ireland......................

.................Bellamy................................Adebayor....................

Adebayor sometimes drifted out to the left side the way Robbie does when he plays that system for Brazil.

Johnson was heavily involved centrally & rarely out wide & supported the forwards, Ireland had obviously been told to get forward as fast as possible to link with the attack as he did in his Superman days.

After about 15-16 mins the formation was changed to a 4-2-3-1:

Johnson was moved to the left of the 3 & Bellamy to the right, so:

.......................................Hart..........................................

Trippier.............Boyata........................Mee................Cunningham

...............Zabaleta.................................Vieira......................

......Bellamy......................Ireland....................Johnson............

...................................Adebayor.......................................


Ireland again was getting forward very well to supplement the attacks although in both systems was a bit hit & miss with his passing.



Ater about 15 minutes of that we changed again to what looked more like a 4-5-1 (or 4-3-2-1) with Bellamy on the left & Johnson on the right & Ireland a bit deeper. It could have been that it was supposed to be something else but it turned out as pretty much 4-5-1. Again Ireland got forward well & quickly (like he used to) & we had 4-5 players in the box at the time of his stuffy deflected goal.


Johnson.........................Zabaleta................Ireland..................Vieira.........................Bellamy

...........................................................Adebayor.........................................................

It seemed to me that both Ireland & Bellamy were well drilled in these formations & it would seem odd if either was to leave IMO.

I can imagine the options of Tevez, Silva, Balotelli,Milner, SWP etc fitting perfectly either alongside or instead of the attackers & Yaya, DeJong, Barry, Milner etc fitting perfectly into the other roles. Of course it could all be experimental but it looked well practiced to me & it would make more sense to keep those players & blend the new ones in. I like it a lot & preferred it when Hughes used that system. I hope this is the plan for the season & not 4-4 fucking 2!

Thoughts anyone or not interested!? Apologies if bored!

P.S. (Whispered) would suit Robinho perfectly!

I gather you're a bit short of work at the moment?

john@staustell wrote:I gather you're a bit short of work at the moment?

Hehe! No just off to do a bit now.

I've been thinking for a bit that we'll more than likely play the 4-2-3-1, but we have lots of options, so I guess anything is possible.

there are arguments for different formations.. but my take is that if your players can comfortably play a few formations.. in addition to the individual players taking each others roles during a game then you have the makings of a very flexible team.
I'm starting to like what i am hearing of AJ playing centrally. Doug mentioned this was happening in training. The luxury of switching good players around in both formation and positions within those formations sounds like a top tactic to keep the opposition guessing. Oppo with less skillful players and weaknesses will get themselves in a knot. Good oppo will still have to be on their toes not to suffer the same.

So i hope Mancini is practicing having players change formations during the 90.

It would take time to perfect, but looking down the road some players would start to recognise when to this themselves as a team without the manager cueing it. The approach naturally makes players more formation savvy.

Just a few observations for fellow anoraks, after watching the 1st half of the Portland game.

It seemed that we started with a couple of the formations used by Brazil ie 4-2-2-2 & 4-2-3-1.

Seems that you are spot on there Ted. Just watched the video of the Match day at Portland on the OS
and sound like Kiddo right at the end explaining to a group they tried 2 or 3 different systems that they
had been working really hard on in training.
So if you needed confirmation of what you thought, then there it is straight from the horses mouth.