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AVB & Spurs Tactics and Formations discussion thread

chancer said:
Ah, the good old 2-3-2-2-1. Bliss.
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lineup.jpg
 
I'm leaning towards a 2-1-7 so we can have a forward, inside forwards, wingers and outside wingers.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
Is it?

A 433 with two DMs and one with one DM and two attackers are both 433, but completely different depoyments of it.

Mourinhos wasnt one sitting and two advanced IMO. It was one sitting, one advanced and one B2B trying to tie the two together.

What is so different between these in practice?

433

.......Sandro.......Modric
.............Sigurdsson
Lennon.......................Bale
...............Adebayor

4231

.......Sandro.......Modric
Lennon......Sigurdsson......Bale
...............Adebayor
?

Basically you can play the same formation two completely different ways, and different formations (on paper) the same way!
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Shouldn't this be in the special tactics thread!?

Anyway, I agree that the two formations you've put there are both 4-2-3-1.

Formations when in possession are always fluid, so it's better to label formations based on their shape without the ball IMO. And as someone else said, the key is the shape of the central trio.

Last season Spurs defended largely with two banks of four, and VDV ahead of the four midfielders. Whereas I gather AVB has previously defended with two banks of four, and another DM in between those banks. I don't think it's an insignificant difference, though it's clearly not a huge one.

I think it's a valid question to ask if VDV (and maybe Sigurdsson) are at their most effective given the extra defensive responsibility of playing in a bank of four (rather than just ahead of it).
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
Point being - arguing/worrying about playing a 4231 at Stevenage seems a little premature to me, especially as the differences between formations can be so mild.
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agreed , but i think the difference is the instructions you give the players which determine which kind of game your going to play.
infact i would imagine that if we signed moutinho and played him and sandro together , we may be more inclined to see a 4231 than a 433....even though moutinho can play from top to bottom of a midfield three
 
isn't 4-2-3-1 a more specific version of a 4-5-1 since you can never line up 5 midfielders across the pitch.
 
In the modern game no one plays three strikers.

They do play the less distinct inside forward/inverted winger/attacking midfielder or whatever you want to call it, but not three strikers.

I think far to much is made out of distinguishing these formations, when ultimately they are so similar it barely seems worth classifying them in different ways.

433/4321/4231/451 - All in all add up to basically the same thing. One striker and a bunch of midfielders (be that attacking and defensive).

The interesting part is how they are deployed, defensive or offensive? Wide or narrow? Long ball or short passing?
 
I'd say 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 are both variants on 4-5-1, with wingers counted as midfielders as we do now.

With Mourinho's 4-3-3 it was almost 4-5-1 in defence when the wingers were forced to defend. I seem to remember this was an issue for some of them. Some of the Allardyce and Hughes teams at Bolton and Blackburn might have got close to a flat 4-5-1 in defence (and sometimes in attacking mode).

The problem with the formations is we are all trying to give a simple shorthand to tell people what general line-up we are talking about, but people differ on how they see the line-ups. For instance, what is our standard formation? I tend to say 4-2-3-1, while others prefer 4-4-1-1 (which fits the defensive line-up better).
 
Under Harry I saw it as a 4411. The wingers were wide, Adebayor was effectively a lone man and while VDV played ahead of the midfield he never seems to be part of a 3 man unit. Though as MK often argued, is that really removed from a 442?

Yes a traditional 442 has a front line partnership, but its not an exclusive rule is it? Depends really on how you would classify VDV I suppose.

I see all those others as variations of 451, defined in my mind by the single striker - everything else is just semantics...
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
Under Harry I saw it as a 4411. The wingers were wide, Adebayor was effectively a lone man and while VDV played ahead of the midfield he never seems to be part of a 3 man unit. Though as MK often argued, is that really removed from a 442?

Yes a traditional 442 has a front line partnership, but its not an exclusive rule is it? Depends really on how you would classify VDV I suppose.

I see all those others as variations of 451, defined in my mind by the single striker - everything else is just semantics...
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How we played the 4-4-1-1 under Arry is totally different to a 4-4-2 imo.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
Under Harry I saw it as a 4411. The wingers were wide, Adebayor was effectively a lone man and while VDV played ahead of the midfield he never seems to be part of a 3 man unit. Though as MK often argued, is that really removed from a 442?

Yes a traditional 442 has a front line partnership, but its not an exclusive rule is it? Depends really on how you would classify VDV I suppose.

I see all those others as variations of 451, defined in my mind by the single striker - everything else is just semantics...
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I see your reasoning. But to me a 4-4-1-1 is a variant of 4-4-2 with a withdrawn striker, someone like Rooney or Sheringham. When the "one" is an attacking midfielder, us with RvdV or Modric, then I see it as a 4-2-3-1. Also when we play with two wingers, it seems more appropriate to put the three attacking midfielders together in the "quarter-back" line in front of the two half-backs.

It doesn't really matter as long as people know what others mean, but it often leads to discussions going at cross-purposes.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
The 5 is never flat, it is more nuanced than that - making it a.... 433? 4231? 4321? As above - there really isnt a substantial difference!
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i dont know personLLy, i see a clear difference in how barca employs it and how jose employED it when he had robben and duff.

case in point, over the years these are the players that barca have played as a front three

ronaldinho
etoo
messi
villa
pedro
henry
overmars

these people cant easily NOT be classified as midfielders. you would say that they are primarily forwards , striker and wing forwards whose natural position is far more advanced during open play than people that are generally employed in a 451

i guess its a diffference of opinions in this one

if someone made a point of telling me "i am playing 433 today" and then someone else said "i am playing a 451" or even a "4231"....i think i would know what they were talking about and i would know what i expect to be the difference
 
Mate, as annoying as I know it will be - Im not arguing specific details here, rather at a slightly more vague level.

At a slightly more vague level, there really is little to no difference.

All the details you might argue are just semantics
 
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