4-4-2: What's different this year?

[mosssideblue]

Same players in name only, most are considerably weaker than they were last year.

Joe Hart: Slightly improved from last year
Zaba: a lot weaker than last year
Clichy: About the same to slightly improved depending on what part of the season you are talking about.
Kompany: great depreciation from last year.
Demi: About the same
Nasri: About the same ( consistently inconsistent)
Silva: About the same to slight depreciation.
Yaya: Greater depreciation.
Dihno: Slight depreciation.
Aguero: About the same. Great, then injury marred.
Dzeko: AbouT the same.

Others
Milner, Navas, Jovetic and are all about the same. Bony hasn't replaced Negredos performance
Fernando hasn't replaced Garcia's performance
Mangala has been at about Lescotts level.

So in essence outside of Joe ( who is returning from an insane dip in form) Only Clichy has been an improvement on his last year's performance.

Everyone else has stagnated or dropped.
K
So we are considerably weaker than it looks on paper.

So yeah, its silly to think we'd be as effective as last year.
Clearly, age is an issue. We are just an older team, and we bought last summer, specifically to win that season. Every player was in his late 20s. So its no surprise we are going to have lots of holes to plug.

Hopefully, we do it with longer term prospects.

Post of the day. Spot on

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

It's less successful because MOTD say it is then the sheep-fans start to say it is. The problem isnt what formation we play imo.

Take the Barca game, we played 442 in both halves, shit in the first and less shit in the 2nd half. Lol

MOTD or any other shite commentary doesn't need to say a thing. It was a glaring issue on the pitch during the match in both games, more in the Liverpool. I don't see how the second part of your comment proves anything (either better or worse) other than saying we played 'shit'..

Well 2nd half -v- Barca was a marked improvement yet was still 442. We would have scored again up until the red card.

442 worked well for us in the past, the only difference now is that we needed more defensive midfielder's in there.

It just isnt as simple as saying lets not play 442 and all will be well.

 

[Sergi0 Na5r1]

It's less successful because MOTD say it is then the sheep-fans start to say it is. The problem isnt what formation we play imo.

Take the Barca game, we played 442 in both halves, shit in the first and less shit in the 2nd half. Lol

MOTD or any other shite commentary doesn't need to say a thing. It was a glaring issue on the pitch during the match in both games, more in the Liverpool. I don't see how the second part of your comment proves anything (either better or worse) other than saying we played 'shit'..

Well 2nd half -v- Barca was a marked improvement yet was still 442. We would have scored again up until the red card.

442 worked well for us in the past, the only difference now is that we needed more defensive midfielder's in there.

It just isnt as simple as saying lets not play 442 and all will be well.

Yeah but you're comparing 4-4-2 to 4-4-2 in both halves. Not the only issue but it was a tactical mistake.

Now the bolded part, how many defensive midfielders do you think we can fit in a 4-4-2...

 

[gerrygowsjockstrap]

To play 4-4-2 you need 2 above average strikers. Dzeko this season has not been 1 of them. When he scored against NUFC it brought an end to a 15 game run of no goals. Aguero has been injured but he is still world class. It is all right fans trying to blame injuries. Yes we were hit with a bad patch. But to be at the top you need back up for every position. Also a manager who is not to scared to admit his tactics are wrong. MP needs to change them during a game & make early substitutions. Until he does this I can't see us winning anything. Change of tactics & some new players, with a fair few out.

 

[lancs blue]

We won the league and played some great football last year with the 4-4-2; beating the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs despite being outnumbered in midfield. We're using the same system this year, same players, so why is it distinctly less successful this year?

Simplistically it's down to our poor home record, that is the main difference between last season and this. Last season we were blowing teams away week in week out at home, this season we've been much less fluent and penetrative going forward (partly down to injuries) and the defensive deficiencies which were apparent on occasions last season have been exploited by the opposition, right from early in the season with the Stoke defeat.

Without pinning the blame entirely on their shoulders, had Fernando turned out to be the quality DM that we were supposedly looking for and had Jovetic shown some good form after overcoming the injuries that jinxed him last season then I believe results would have been considerably better.

 

[Rebelblue]

We play 4222 not 442 for starters..

442 is outdated and won't win anything continually. We got lucky in the end last year. Look how fluid the scousers were yest.

The lesser teams now have it worked out, they realise they can't just sit and try to defend it, now they try to defend with a large emphasis on taking a chance that we leave massive holes between our midfield and back four. It was glaring last season it is being exploited by most this season. Pissing through our midfield to take on a totally exposed back 4 nay 2 as the full backs are invariably over half way like Zabs yesterday. It's been found out and we should have changed it in early season Stoke period.

No shame in going away from home and playing Nando and Dino in front of a back 4 and say in do not move from there. Let's see what yaya silva nasri and Kun can create. Nil nil with 10 or 15 left isn't a crime. Then see if you want to stick or twist.

Last relevant factor is we've only had yaya Vinny silva nasri and kun start in the first 11 twice..no consistency at all.

 

[Dribble]

We lost away at Liverpool last year. We started with 1 upfront against Barca last year and lost. Chelsea have bought 3 top class players since last January and we've bought 0 top class players. So it's not really all because of the 442 but it's very popular to say it is at the moment.

Many of us spotted the problem with 442 from the get go, but the fact we had a far superior squad to everyone else in arguably the weakest Premier League for many a year masked the issue.

Pellegrini also had an inability to react quickly enough when things were going west but this only reared its head when we played against the top teams who had managers with superior tactical acumen like against Guardiola's Bayern.

You're correct in saying it wasn't all down to 442, but time has quickly shown that even with our vastly superior squad that even such tactical luminaries like Hughes, Pardew, Bruce and Fat Sam had figured out how to defeat us by being able to predict how we would be set up against them and more importantly how to counteract it.

Our defensive solidarity was sacrificed for a Keegan-esque throw the kitchen sink at em - if you score 3 we'll score 4 style of football which is great entertainment for the neutrals but not a great long term plan for our football club imho. In all seriousness, how long was that tactic going to last? It also came as no surprise to me that our defensive strength seems to be evaporating and our defensive rocks look nervy and unsure of themselves as I could see it coming a mile off but again it was masked by us winning the double last season. It took us 3 years to build that defensive solidarity and 12 months to dismantle it which is criminal.

When Pellegrini succeeded Mancini, what he should have done was built on the good that his predecessor had created, not wholesalely dismantled it thus making us offensively more potent but defensively weaker in the process.

For the way MP did things last season, it looks like the game is up this season. However I see nothing to be gained by ridding ourselves of Pellegrini right now, but his future is currently still in his own hands and I just hope he can be pragmatic enough to see that one or two more slip ups could see us fighting for a top 4 finish never mind trying to close the gap on Chelsea.

Believe me Pellegrini is no mug, but it baffles me as to why with the personnel he has at his disoposal and with the way our opposition have changed their tactics to counter us, why he still believes we are strong enough to stick to our 442 principles and beat whatever the opposition can come at us with without us considering alternative ways of countering our opponents.

Many of us knew what was coming against Barca the moment the team was announced, but incredibly we go away to an in-form Liverpool and repeat the same mistake a few days later just because the same 442 tactics blew away Newcastle and Stoke previously. Well for MP's info Stoke and Newcastle may have recorded victories against us this season, but they are no Barca or Liverpool and as we found out to our cost applying a one-size-fits-all philosophy in football is an arrogant and dangerous game to play.

Over to you Manuel..........

 

[Love Bites and Everything]

Yaya hasn't won us 10-12 points single handedly this year.

Teams have sussed out that TUCYM won't budge from his system and they can read us like a book.

The form of Vinny and Zabba has been patchy at best.

We haven't had a striker (other than Aguero) banging 20+ goals in before new year.

We haven't improved in the middle of the park, some may say we've regressed.

 

[Deleted member 58678]

Same players in name only, most are considerably weaker than they were last year.

Joe Hart: Slightly improved from last year
Zaba: a lot weaker than last year
Clichy: About the same to slightly improved depending on what part of the season you are talking about.
Kompany: great depreciation from last year.
Demi: About the same
Nasri: About the same ( consistently inconsistent)
Silva: About the same to slight depreciation.
Yaya: Greater depreciation.
Dihno: Slight depreciation.
Aguero: About the same. Great, then injury marred.
Dzeko: AbouT the same.

Others
Milner, Navas, Jovetic and are all about the same. Bony hasn't replaced Negredos performance
Fernando hasn't replaced Garcia's performance
Mangala has been at about Lescotts level.

So in essence outside of Joe ( who is returning from an insane dip in form) Only Clichy has been an improvement on his last year's performance.

Everyone else has stagnated or dropped.

So we are considerably weaker than it looks on paper.

So yeah, its silly to think we'd be as effective as last year.
Clearly, age is an issue. We are just an older team, and we bought last summer, specifically to win that season. Every player was in his late 20s. So its no surprise we are going to have lots of holes to plug.

Hopefully, we do it with longer term prospects.

Depreciation is not the right word to suit the point you're trying to make.

 

[Phil1]

Same players in name only, most are considerably weaker than they were last year.

Joe Hart: Slightly improved from last year
Zaba: a lot weaker than last year
Clichy: About the same to slightly improved depending on what part of the season you are talking about.
Kompany: great depreciation from last year.
Demi: About the same
Nasri: About the same ( consistently inconsistent)
Silva: About the same to slight depreciation.
Yaya: Greater depreciation.
Dihno: Slight depreciation.
Aguero: About the same. Great, then injury marred.
Dzeko: AbouT the same.

Others
Milner, Navas, Jovetic and are all about the same. Bony hasn't replaced Negredos performance
Fernando hasn't replaced Garcia's performance
Mangala has been at about Lescotts level.

So in essence outside of Joe ( who is returning from an insane dip in form) Only Clichy has been an improvement on his last year's performance.

Everyone else has stagnated or dropped.

So we are considerably weaker than it looks on paper.

So yeah, its silly to think we'd be as effective as last year.
Clearly, age is an issue. We are just an older team, and we bought last summer, specifically to win that season. Every player was in his late 20s. So its no surprise we are going to have lots of holes to plug.

Hopefully, we do it with longer term prospects.

Depreciation is not the right word to suit the point you're trying to make.

I thought Kolo the car salesman was back in town for a second!