Thursday, September 10, 2009

Teams: formations rather!

After the hullaboo about That Boy being sold to the White Castle and the consequential impact on the formation of United,one thing is very clear, no way we can play 4-4-2 and win in Europe.I say this with conviction cause the more successful teams in Europe( read Chelsea and Barca) are all playing a very fluid system wherein the midfield adjusts and breaks up into different formations depending on the opposition and the sad consequences of playing a ridig 4-4-2 when we dont have a creative world-class Central Attacking medio like Diego or Kaka is there for people to see. Even Michael Carrick for all the praise heaped on him by Sir Alex is no Pirlo and lately Carrick has developed a habit of fading and getting lost in big crunch matches.
Furthemore, we dont have 2 out and out strong Centre Forwards like Zlatan-Henry at Barca or the Raul-Ronaldo- Kaka trinity at Real.
Plus Sir Alex is in a building and consolidating mode right now and he has more than 3 promising wingers at his disposal and it is a criminal waste of resources to keep the likes of Tosic,Nani and Anderson on the bench since the formation is all wrong for them to play.
So we need to basically follow a fluid 4-2-3-1 system wherein the front 3 behind the main striker goes into attack every time and atleast one or two of them falls back to support the deep-lying sweepers.
The backline at United sort of selects itself with Rio and Vidic the first choices for the Centre-back spots and Wes Brown and Johhny Evans being rotated regularly.
Ever since arraving from Monaco in Jan 2006, Patrice Evra has slowly but steadily made the left-back spot his own and now is the first-choice for France ahead of the brilliant but error-prone Eric Abidal at Barca.
At right-back we have a long-term problem since Captain United Gary Neville has suddenly become very injury-prone and John O`Shea at best is a stop-gap. For all his heart-bursting efforts O`Shea is a good sweeper-Libero at best and in the right-back role his passing leaves a lot to be desired. What we need is someone like Glen Johnson or Maicon to run and pull back or put in a cross for the attacking players to head-in/ tap in.
In the centre of the park, Hargreaves and Fletcher form the holding and attack-breaking midfield two and they will be also pushing up the line when required.
The 3 players just behind the main strikers is the main area where United will have all the action and the combinations being worked out.
In the centre we have Carrick in an advanced attacking role and Scholes coming on for the big matches.Nani and Park can be the two wide options with Valencia slowly adapting to life at United and Tosic to be used to European matches against light-weight but skilled continental teams.
For premier league, Park and Valencia will be the best options on the wings and even Obertan can have a go once he is fit and running.
Up front we have Ronney who is the main striker or maybe Berbatov as the main striker with Rooney just behind him with the two attacking wingers for home games and Park and Valencia for away fixtures. For away european fixtures we need to have Micaeal Owen coming in around 70 mins when the defenders are tired and also since Owen has been out of Europe both in club and England matches many of the defenders havent ever played him or are not sure of his current form and role.

So basically for home matches.
Ben Foster( TK )-Evra-Vidic( Evans )- Rio( Brown) - Neville- Hargo-Fletcher- Carrick( Scholes/Giggs/ Rooney) - Nani( Park) - Valencia( Tosic)-Berbatov.
For Away matches
Ben Foster( TK )- Evra- Vidic-Rio-O`Shea( Rafael)-Hargo-Fletcher- Carrick- Park- Valencia-Berbatov( Owen).
This will give us the fluidity and dynamic movement and also the extra yard of pace in Counter-attacks we seems to have lost after Ronaldo left. But with so many skillful and fast players like Rooney,Valencia. Obertan,Nani and Tosic in the ranks, speed and skill in attacking and converting wont ever be a problem for United.

1 comment:

Gee said...

the football part i dont understand. The rest of it is great..:P

Anyway, i want dark chocolates. NOW!