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4-4-2

Re: The Lennon, The Bentaleb and the Wonky

Gutter Boy said:
I'm not sure it was the formation (Kane was playing largely where Eriksen does normally anyway)

But the Mason-Bentaleb combination at CM was fantastic. We haven't had such good transitioning since Modric.
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Its amazing, for all your insight i personally take that comment about kane and the formation to mean that you probably dont know how the wonky worked? Do you remember what it was like under Jol and Harry?

kane doesnt play where eriksen does at all. That would be saying that erisken is a forward who comes deep which he isnt.

Kane is a striker / forward but when we DONT have the ball his duties expand to being the midfielder that defends from the front and joins in the midifield to make up numbers. I think the reason why you see him as playing eriksen's role is because of when we transition from defending to attacking...you see him in the hole? but thats just a by product of his position from his duties when we dont have the ball to his duties when we do

Kane is 100% playing as s striker / forward today...just that he is also the defensive guy of the two (remember the wonky with keane and defoe? Keane was the guy that put the extra shift in midfield / defending from the front)

this whole performance was 100% the formation...same thing with the win against hull.....despite the fact that we had the extra man.....the behavioural traits and positioning of our players were very similar
1. the left back working the whole left flank (i said all through the season that i wouldnt want rose there and i stand by it. I think Davies is better for the wonky in an attacking sense)
2. Eriksen not being marked
3. A midfield base that can supply the creative players
4. a winger on one side that stretches
5. a creative winger / am on the other flank that drifts infield, much harder to mark, and gives us superior numbers centrally

the wonky is just a lob sided 3-5-2.

I agree about the effect of mason and bentaleb.

Infact i think a bentaleb TYPE player is crucial for the wonky to work.

Big praise for pochettino on playing two youngsters in a such a BIG game against very experienced everton side


EDIT:- obviously not 100% formation, but highly significant
 
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Re: The Lennon, The Bentaleb and the Wonky

africanspurs said:
Its amazing, for all your insight i personally take that comment about kane and the formation to mean that you probably dont know how the wonky worked? Do you remember what it was like under Jol and Harry?

kane doesnt play where eriksen does at all. That would be saying that erisken is a forward who comes deep which he isnt.

Kane is a striker / forward but when we DONT have the ball his duties expand to being the midfielder that defends from the front and joins in the midifield to make up numbers. I think the reason why you see him as playing eriksen's role is because of when we transition from defending to attacking...you see him in the hole? but thats just a by product of his position from his duties when we dont have the ball to his duties when we do

Kane is 100% playing as s striker / forward today...just that he is also the defensive guy of the two (remember the wonky with keane and defoe? Keane was the guy that put the extra shift in midfield / defending from the front)

this whole performance was 100% the formation...same thing with the win against hull.....despite the fact that we had the extra man.....the behavioural traits and positioning of our players were very similar
1. the left back working the whole left flank (i said all through the season that i wouldnt want rose there and i stand by it. I think Davies is better for the wonky in an attacking sense)
2. Eriksen not being marked
3. A midfield base that can supply the creative players
4. a winger on one side that stretches
5. a creative winger / am on the other flank that drifts infield, much harder to mark, and gives us superior numbers centrally

the wonky is just a lob sided 3-5-2.

I agree about the effect of mason and bentaleb.

Infact i think a bentaleb TYPE player is crucial for the wonky to work.

Big praise for pochettino on playing two youngsters in a such a BIG game against very experienced everton side
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Nice summary AS

As ever the champion of the wonky
 
Re: The Lennon, The Bentaleb and the Wonky

i really didnt see today as a wonky, to be honest. it seemed the same 4-2-3-1 we've been watching for a long time, but executed a little (ok, a lot) better. we had high enough effort levels to make it work, but more importantly than that, the team seemed humble and together. No ****ing around with superfluous touches, quick 1 touch pass and move.

I saw kane taking up a lot of positions especially in the first half that were very wide, and deep. i know we played a striker who dropped a little deeper back then (vdv) but he used to love helping the ball around in the midfield before it got up top. Kane played a very different role in my opinion and it was more about (first half especially) swapping with lennon and eriksen when it made sense or pressing pulled them out of position.

great display today :)
 
well I hate to say I told you so....but myself and Pirate have been banging this drum for a while now....not sure with eriksen on the left though.

In Kane we have a very special player who has the intelligence to know when to drop in and when to get close to solly.

It doesn't really matter if we call it 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2 Kane has been the difference. with special mention to the cm pair awesome today.....happy as a pig in sh** that we have found our mojo today.
 
^ A natural winger one side and an inverted one the other is 'wonky' by definition i guess - whether it was 442 or 4231 though is a matter of semantics, Kane and Soldado are forwards by nature but im not sure both were played that way.
 
It's difficult to call it, but I will say we suffered at times from not having a left winger. Kane put in some great crosses in the first half but with Eriksen tucked in field, Soldado was the only person in the box.
 
"matter of semantics"??!! its the difference between a confident shot striker having tons of support and one that can easily get isolated to mention one difference from many between the two...

those are two COMPLETELY different formations!!!! AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH the blaspheme and sacrilege :angry::2walls::3walls:
 
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Cochise said:
It's difficult to call it, but I will say we suffered at times from not having a left winger. Kane put in some great crosses in the first half but with Eriksen tucked in field, Soldado was the only person in the box.
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delivery should be coming from davies.....not his fault as much as his experience and the trust he generates from the rest of the team......i saw many times they could have used him on the left but chose a different option.....not a bad thing...just saying he could have been like BAE..constantly putting balls in the box. thing is though at times when he did get the ball...he would chose to pass infield and keep possesion...again..not a bad thing...just choices.

we definately played a cautious wonky...in the past when modders/ Niko was on the left they would be in the hold...but it would be jenas making up numbers with the strikers. in today's situation mason and bentaleb didnt really maraud into the box to make up numbers ... which i think we should be perfectly happy with as it limited our exposure to the counter PLUS allowed to to dictate when and how we pressed them

personally i think i am completely cool with the lack of one sides width..as long as someone can deputise there at a crunch and we keep playing well
 
Re: The Lennon, The Bentaleb and the Wonky

Bullet said:
As I just said elsewhere:

No passengers fannying around in a "3 behind the striker" like you get in a 4231... everyone in a 442 clearly has a role and cannot hide so you end up with more running, more work, better passing angles, fewer 5 yard passes...

It may not sound cultured or clever, but in a 442 (whether wonky or not) every player clearly knows what area of the pitch is their responsibility, as opposed to 532 or 4231 where people can hide without the ball, or with the ball you end up with people too close together and lots of short passes going nowhere.

Note that Everton played 4231 and played just like Spurs normally do, they couldn't get it in to the front men and weren't working hard enough, the "3" were not good enough in their 4231
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:eek:k: Spot on. I haven't been as proud of a Spurs performance for a long time. Two up front gives us real (not imaginary) vertical penetration.

Well done to all.
 
Nigeyman said:
well I hate to say I told you so....but myself and Pirate have been banging this drum for a while now....not sure with eriksen on the left though.

In Kane we have a very special player who has the intelligence to know when to drop in and when to get close to solly.

It doesn't really matter if we call it 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2 Kane has been the difference. with special mention to the cm pair awesome today.....happy as a pig in sh** that we have found our mojo today.
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Couldn't have said it better myself \o/
 
Davies had acres of room at times today because eriksen came in And overloaded the middle ... If only we found him with the ball

I'm a massive 4-4-2 advocate but I'm not convinced the formation was the key today. For me it was sheer work rate and effort all round and playing as a unit. No one let the other down. They covered for each other and all the players did their job. 4-2-3-1 could work too if the players work as hard....

Another big difference today was no. Egos on the pitch. It's amazing that when we play without any hair stylists or posers we look like a team
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Davies had acres of room at times today because eriksen came in And overloaded the middle ... If only we found him with the ball

I'm a massive 4-4-2 advocate but I'm not convinced the formation was the key today. For me it was sheer work rate and effort all round and playing as a unit. No one let the other down. They covered for each other and all the players did their job. 4-2-3-1 could work too if the players work as hard....

Another big difference today was no. Egos on the pitch. It's amazing that when we play without any hair stylists or posers we look like a team
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Players/effort always trump formations, but look at AS comments above.

The width, shape in defense, the two up front making runs, the freedom Eriksen got, all because the formation allowed.
 
Hey I'm a massive advocate of the system... I could quote about 30 posts in this thread alone but I just thought today I didn't see a massive change in formation per se as a massive changed in work rate and attitude. The formation did look like a wonky but that's subtlety different to how we gave been playing (all be it with 2 strikers rather than 1 as AS points out and they also pointed out in tv)... The big difference was sheer balls and hard work for me
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Hey I'm a massive advocate of the system... I could quote about 30 posts in this thread alone but I just thought today I didn't see a massive change in formation per se as a massive changed in work rate and attitude. The formation did look like a wonky but that's subtlety different to how we gave been playing (all be it with 2 strikers rather than 1 as AS points out and they also pointed out in tv)... The big difference was sheer balls and hard work for me
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Big differences were Lennon (without him, the formation (no matter how it starts) just deteriorates into a congested middle. Second (beyond effort), was tempo. To me, when we move the ball faster and forward we simply look a completely different side.
 
Jordinho said:
http://www.fourfourtwo.com/statszone/8-2014/matches/755430/team-stats/6/OVERALL_01#tabs-wrapper-anchor

It also looks like a lopsided 4-3-3 or a 4-2-2-2.

Today was about improved movement and positional fluidity. Players moving where there's space.
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Very interesting map. More suprised to see that Soldado had a deeper average position that Kane, although this could be just because of Soldado being subbed and Kane then taking up the forward position. The midfield though does look very much like a 433 would, but we can definately see that we had no width on that left hand side.

Definately had shades of the Poch 4321 from last season about it though, where Lallana (Eriksen) quite often was expected to defend as a left winger would whilst having a free role in attack. Davis quite often got high up that right hand flank as well although not with the natural winger instinct Lennon has.
 
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