Double Pivot

[Stevieatlasblue]

It’s the purity of his technique that draws me in. Pass him any ball in pretty much any situation and he perfectly lays it off first touch to a team mate, right foot or left foot, long ball or short, marked or not - he finds a blue shirt.

That kind of player is important in any team but to a team like us who place such emphasis on controlling possession he’s absolutely vital.

Long live the Gundog

Totally agree he is top draw and peps first signing for us

 

[Da_Blu_Moona]

Those who don’t recognise the merits of Gundogan in our team simply don’t appreciate the style of football that Pep is trying to establish. Not saying they know any more or less about football, that would be insulting. Different strokes for different folks. Make no mistake about it. He’s a truly magnificent player and technically very gifted.

 

[Colin Bells Boots]

Nah fuck that, the colour red hurts my eyes.

You're right and I'm ashamed of posting it. The very thought disgusts me too.

 

[Dax777]

Not really when the ball is played over the top or down the channels as Wolves did with ease 2nd half. We played some good stuff first half but in reality didn’t create that much and were gifted the first goal. Options were limited the other night but long term we’ll be mostly up against teams who park the bus and 2 holders won’t help us break teams down. Also the best way to stop the counter against us is to press high with 2 8’s who have lots of energy. We have 3 in the squad who can do that and hopefully this season Bernie or Foden get to play there alongside KDB more often than not.

@ws01 pay attention. You might learn something.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Those who don’t recognise the merits of Gundogan in our team simply don’t appreciate the style of football that Pep is trying to establish. Not saying they know any more or less about football, that would be insulting. Different strokes for different folks. Make no mistake about it. He’s a truly magnificent player and technically very gifted.

I know exactly what Pep is trying to do & I imagine 99% of posters do too.

The question is whether it can only be done with a Gundogan in the team or not or whether it could be done even better, without him & instead have a player who is either much better without the ball, much better with the ball, or much better at both, replacing him.

 

[SanPellegrini]

 

[WallyA]

It is AN option for Pep to mess around with us, but don't think its the starting one.

Probably will see when Bernardo is fit, a mid 3 of him, Rodri and Kev.

I think the best thing that the 4231 did was free Kevin even more, he had the freedom to be basically anywhere.

 

[Uncle Wally One Ball]

Still find it an odd thread title and an uncomfortable Americanism

 

[mccity]

I think the difficulty in assessing the midfield pairing is that regardless of who we play in the two positions it's heavily reliant on really strong pressing from the front 4 ahead of them. With just 4 players instead of 5 in attacking positions it's going to be more difficult to create chances and pin teams back hence the importance of the press. We did it really well in the first half against Wolves.

You take away that press, and the front 4 become sitting ducks. Then whenever attacks break down and given that we're going to press whatever's going on it ends up with us being rather easy to slice through. Tiredness can cause this just as it did in the second half against Wolves.

This system we saw against Wolves might come unstuck if Aguero or Mahrez play, especially both. They can't press like any of the other attackers quite can, although they'll both give it a go and press when they can. When these two play, we'd probably need another player higher with De Bruyne to support the press and ensure that the likes of Aguero and Mahrez have the ball as much as possible to do their magic. I think a difficulty we had last season was that Gundogan nor Silva especially had the relentlessness to do that in the other #8 role, so the press failed again. And we were cut open again, and it's even worse with only one defensively positioned midfielder.

Although on top of this, this is where having top CBs helps us. Because when we get played through they can reliably deal with whatever comes against them. At least with a reasonable amount of success, as playing high up is going to get the better of even the best defenders from time to time. It means that whenever the press does go a bit awry the CBs can just mop shit up for long enough to give the pressing players a chance to get back up to it.


The only time a double pivot would work with us without the need of a super strong press is the rare occasion we play a team that presses us and we need a way to play out patiently, such as some recent fixtures against Liverpool and away at Real Madrid. But that's a really specific scenario.


Basically, the most important thing is that the front players (ie De Bruyne + front 3) press really well and the CBs don't shit the bed. The rest will take care of itself. Rodri, Fernandinho, and Gundogan, and Bernardo if he plays there all have enough quality and in game intelligence to ensure that as long as the first two conditions are met then they can support both attack in control and press and defence in whatever way is necessary.

 

[Blue Alex]

I really liked the way that we play against Wolves this double pivot with Rodri and Dinho was perfect we almost controlled all the game It was a solid perfomance and this leaved me with a big question should we stick with this setup ? We know that our sucess with Pep was built in a 4-3-3 but i think that are a few things to consider we had by far one of the best midfield in Europe KDB, Dave and Dinho were outstanding Dave and Kevin are genius born capable of playing as central mids and Dinho is a monster reading the spaces but with the eventual aging of Dave and Dinho both losed a big part of their work rate wich changed everything, Bernardo had a fanstatic debut season but now he doesn't seem able to play in that central role, Foden was barely tested there and is preffered for Pep as a winger/false 9, Rodri it's proven to be a great signing but at times It feels he need someone else helping him, and that leaves me with the posibilty of us sticking with this 4-2-3-1/4-2-2-2/4-4-2 , Agüero/Jesus as the 9, De Bruyne as a 10 and the Right Winger Bernie/Foden playing as a false 10 joining Kev in the middle playing between the lines as two 10's, with Sterling/Torres in the left making diagonal runs in to the box with both fullbacks providing the width and two Dm's covering the spaces and distributing the possession, in my opinion this setup showed on monday looks like the most promising for us this season.