Why 4231 ?

[IslandExile]

9 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

And how many feel Waghorn should start the next game?

One in this thread, others elsewhere, have him in place of Martin!!!

[Ghost of Clough]

6 minutes ago, IslandExile said:

One in this thread, others elsewhere, have him in place of Martin!!!

No there isn't

[cannable]

2 hours ago, TexasRam said:

Much prefer two up front, forget this false  number 9, one sitting behind the other rubbish. Play 2 upfront, get a partnership going. Marriott and Martin up top and fit the rest to that formation. 

But even in your classic 442 you’d still have one striker, slightly deeper, playing off another. 

Be it Martin dropping in and feeding balls in behind for Marriott or Marriott running onto Martin’s flicks 

[cannable]

I think an indictment of this system with this crop of players is that Bailey, Commons, Bueno and Cywka would all improve us 

[IslandExile]

1 hour ago, Ghost of Clough said:

No there isn't

Oh beg your pardon. They were talking about the formation in use last night. Sorry. More haste, less speed. Should read, more carefully.

Nevertheless, wingers/creative players throughout the ages have been inconsistent and I maintain that we should keep Paterson in the team.

[Gone]

1 hour ago, cannable said:

But even in your classic 442 you’d still have one striker, slightly deeper, playing off another. 

Be it Martin dropping in and feeding balls in behind for Marriott or Marriott running onto Martin’s flicks 

Not always but still better than one up front on his own imo 

[Gone]

3 hours ago, jono said:

Scruff of the neck, I like it. but have we the wingers to make that properly effective ? 

No absolutely not we don’t have the wingers......but we have wing backs. 5:3:2 We have the players for that, that’s tickles my fancy ?

[Millenniumram]

Inclined to agree with the OP here. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of a 4231 in the modern game. I mean, it’s not as dated as a 442 or what have you, and executed correctly you can still have success with it, but I think it’s flawed when you try to utilise it in the modern game where possession is ever more a significant part of most successful styles of play. In the past (mourinho era football) when the “In” style was to build a solid defensive unit and counter with pace, it was the go to formation for success, and rightly so. But now, with the game having changed as it has done, I’m not so sure. Seems to leave far too much of a gap between the defensive and attacking units (you know, where a midfield should be...) which often means a team is forced into playing longer balls with a lower chance of finding a teammate, or trying to run through the thirds, which again is a difficult skill to retain possession when doing. Now, if you’re team is built to play with that sort of style (you bring in tall frontmen, CDMs with a good long ball etc etc) you can still have success with the formation, as Rowett did here utilising Huddlestone to great effect. But if you’re not built for it, which at the moment I’m not convinced we are, then you become far more likely to just keep losing the ball in the middle third and hand chances to the opposition, as well as struggle to create them yourselves. 

Now, I don’t think it’s a problem that we’re not built that way, in fact I’d prefer that we’re not, because playing that style you can never truly control games, and you struggle to have long term success not being able to do so. So I’d much rather we tried to build a style where we can control the possession, and thus the game as a result. IMHO, the best formation in the modern game for doing so is the 433, so that’s the style and formation I’d aim towards us building. The interesting thing is, at the very least, I think cocu agrees with me formation wise, even if not quite the style, going by his pre season comments where I’m pretty sure he explicitly said he wanted to play 433. And yet, it seems pretty clear that our main formation is the 4231 atm, with a 433 sometimes deployed later in games if we’re struggling for control. So it’s interesting to think quite what’s changed in his mind?

Think the answer surely has to lie in him believing that it’s the best fit for the current squad, as most have alluded to, but I’m not sure I agree with that judgement myself. I don’t actually think we’ve got more than a couple of midfielders suited to the 2 in a 4231, most imo would fit much better into a 433. Only thing I can think of really is that we’ve got quite a few players who are best in number 10, and perhaps Cocu is trying to get the best out of a few of them (Lawrence, Holmes, Paterson, Dowell etc), and that’s why he’s changed his mind on formation.

If that is the case, then I think the answer to “why 4321?” is the same answer to most questions about why things aren’t going well at the club- because the recruitment team are useless! They just didn’t bring in the players to suit the formation that Cocu wants to play, not for the first time with a manager, and now we’re left with players that don’t fit. And I doubt we can change the squad with enough ins and outs in January to be able to switch to a 433 either, especially not with the muppets we have sorting transfers, so I think it’ll be 4231 until summer at least- and that’s if they can figure out what players a 433 needs even by then!