We are relatively one dimensional when it comes to making the bag bulge.
Modric is most effective in a three man midfield but one of the other midfielders needs to be a goalscorer. Is this VDV...?
We're less one dimensional than Arsenal or Barca, but yes, VDV is a goalscorer... He was our top goalscorer a couple of seasons ago and is more than capable of playing in the position that's the point of the diamond in a diamond 4-4-2, that's his best position (as far as position on the pitch goes, I'm not saying we should play a diamond 4-4-2, that'd be insane).
There's not really a huge problem there. We currently have Ade, Bale and VDV that can score goals, with various others chipping in, that's fine. It is slightly more one dimensional than would be ideal, but when you look at teams that play with a lone striker, it's what you're going to get most of the time.
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As for the rest of the thread, there just aren't words for most of it.
Ade - Had enough of him. I want to see Defoe start ahead of him every single match now.
*Facepalm.*
We never kept the ball enough
We kept it more than Chelsea until 4-4-2.
ok, so what is the point in Modric, we dont suit his style.
*Facepalm.*
we can take the 50 million from City and buy a player to play simple balls out wide for bale and lennon....whats the problem?
*Facepalm.*
This,stick to one system please.
That is debatable. If players are drilled to the point that they know a few systems, it gives you a plan B and it stops opponents from being able to know exactly what you're going to do, it also doesn't give you any opportunity to play players in their best positions if you can't play your first choice 11. You see Di Matteo play 4-2-3-1 every time, but he'll play players out of position on an epic scale. By contrast you can see Barca play a ton of different styles, but everyone is drilled... If they go a game without looking like they know exactly what they're meant to be doing their manager drills them. It'd be nice to be able to switch on the fly to something else if our formation puts us at a tactical disadvantage. For the most part, I'd like us to stick to 4-4-1-1 for most games, but without VDV we can't play that, so we need something else.
The argument is WHERE VDV playes. I say he plays up front. The other thing is that you can play any formation but if you play players out of position then you aren't proving anything.
For example, 4-4-2 with Modric on the left? Sure as hell isn't 4-4-2 is it?
This is why I'm having extreme difficulty replying to your posts. We all seem to have different ideas of which formation is which. (I seriously hope Harry explains to the players, or they're going to be like us.)
I totally agree with the players shaping the formation, I agree that when you play players out of position the formation itself is going to play out fudged and I agree that the "False Memories" thread is incredibly hard to read properly. (Personally because every 4-5-1 makes me think of 3 holding midfielders when we play Sandro, Parker and Modric and I don't remember seeing us play a 4-3-3 this season.)
VDV is always too far from Adebayor.....its not good enough, Ade is isolated and also we never have anyone in the box when we cross the ball in
soo feckin frustrating
If VDV was next to Ade and Ade was isolated, they'd both be isolated. If VDV is far from Adebayor, it means we're having trouble finding him when he's far from our midfield. VDV knows the flow of the game well enough that in his usual 4-4-1-1 role, he will go where he's needed.
We do sometimes, if Lennon or Walker cross the ball, at best, we can realistically have Ade, VDV and Bale in there. If BAE crosses the ball, we can realistically have Bale, VDV, Ade and maybe Lennon in there (for all the good that'd do), if Bale crosses the ball it's down to Ade and VDV with Lennon maybe lurking at the far post (despite being short), if Ade crosses the ball, we might have VDV and Ade in there... It's possible for Modric to cross the ball, but it's unlikely that Bale will be in there, so maybe Ade and VDV will be. If VDV crosses the ball, it's probably just going to be Ade, but Bale might be there.
However, that's assuming we try to hold possession for a few minutes so we can get people in the box. Our strategy today was to counter attack using the wings. The biggest problem with that is Bale, Lennon and Ade are the only people likely to be forward when a cross comes in. There was one scenario about 30 minutes in when we saw BAE play it quickly to Bale who then did a first time cross into the box... Lennon was our only player in there, VDV was just at the edge, John Terry won the header...
Today Ade crossed, VDV got to it, Lennon passed it back to him and he had a header cleared off the line. So it wasn't a total failure. Chelsea are well set up to defend that though.
Why does VDV have to keep dropping deep to pick up the ball. He gets a lot of cheap posesion that way, but I would prefer him to just stick to the hole in front of Adebayor. I cant imagine that this is part of some great tactical plan. Harry needs to sort it.
The great tactical plan is that 3 is greater than 2.
I will expand on this. Chelsea played Drogba, Mata, Ramirez (defensive box to box midfielder but played as a winger), Kalou, Lampard and Obi-Mikel. Chelsea aren't completely brick in the middle of their midfield. When VDV drops deep 2 things happen, firstly anyone marking him loses him, secondly Modric has someone to help him play his way out of midfield. You can see from Chelsea's team selection that Di Matteo is saying "fudge you Harry, we're going as defensive as we can on the wings, you're going to have to play through the middle"... Now if VDV stays with Ade, they can leave Obi-Mikel with him (likely) or even send Luiz forward a touch to deal with him (if he's way up there) as long as Bale and Lennon aren't pushing right up on their full backs and even then, they're likely to have Kalou and they will definitely have Ramirez in a position to defend against that and help their full backs out.
Either way, if VDV comes to halfway line, they definitely aren't sending Obi-Mikel all the way up the pitch with Lampard to leave a huge gap between their defence and midfield (if their defence is deep, which is pretty much has to be unless they want Bale and Lennon running in behind), they also aren't going to alter their defensive line purely because VDV moved. So most of the time, he's leaving Obi Mikel to give us an extra man close to the ball. Once in the first half, he went deep and Obi-Mikel followed him but Lampard had to go back to defend... That's when we attacked quickly and Lampard tackled Parker in the box.
But when he came deep, things often happened. But when he stayed things didn't happen. There are times when he's in the hole and has Obi-Mikel marking him and someone tries a long ball to him, Obi-Mikel wins that header every time I saw us try it. By contrast when he comes very deep (to the edge of our third), he's usually in a ton of space because they didn't like Lampard or Mikel going forward towards our box when we had the ball, they tended to stop around the halfway line. When we were in their attacking third and VDV came deep, Modric pushed forward.
It also meant he could run from deep, when that happened he was totally unmarked on a couple of occasions. In fact, in the second half when he did not receive the ball deep, that is when people on here said he became anonymous. Of course, him coming deep was what allowed him to hit the post (he had a ton of space then too), so there is more than enough evidence from that match that coming deep was what made his first half so good. You can even see some of his great passes from deep.
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We actually played 4-5-1 today, as opposed to 4-4-1-1 that we usually play with VDV and Ade up top. I just don't understand why we did it.
VDV didn't come deep
that often, he did a bunch of times but not all the time. He defended with the midfield which was normal (and worked well as their only real goal came from a long ball to Drogba), so there wasn't a whole lot unusual about it. Chelsea had the ball a lot of the time, so we were defending a lot of the time and Chelsea didn't let us camp in their attacking third. Obi-Mikel picked VDV up, that left Modric and Parker vs Mata and Lampard for the most part.... We either had Ade and VDV vs Terry, Luiz/Cahill and Mikel or VDV, Modric and Parker vs Lampard and Mata in the middle. (Sometimes Lampard and Mikel switched, but that was the general picture.)
