BillyShears said:I got an interesting lecture on the Robinho conundrum tonight...
Purely from a footballing point of view, his position is wide left of a front three. He's got the vast vast majority of his goals and assists when playing in that position. I guess that's pretty obvious though. The part which got me thinking was that he's actually not versatile at all. He simply can't play in any other position. So in effect, as soon as you put him wide left of a midfield four, he becomes completely redundant because he just can't play there. It doesn't suit his abilities or his natural instincts. It's the equivalent of playing Petrov as a centre forward.
BillyShears said:I got an interesting lecture on the Robinho conundrum tonight...
Purely from a footballing point of view, his position is wide left of a front three. He's got the vast vast majority of his goals and assists when playing in that position. I guess that's pretty obvious though. The part which got me thinking was that he's actually not versatile at all. He simply can't play in any other position. So in effect, as soon as you put him wide left of a midfield four, he becomes completely redundant because he just can't play there. It doesn't suit his abilities or his natural instincts. It's the equivalent of playing Petrov as a centre forward.
depps said:BillyShears said:I got an interesting lecture on the Robinho conundrum tonight...
Purely from a footballing point of view, his position is wide left of a front three. He's got the vast vast majority of his goals and assists when playing in that position. I guess that's pretty obvious though. The part which got me thinking was that he's actually not versatile at all. He simply can't play in any other position. So in effect, as soon as you put him wide left of a midfield four, he becomes completely redundant because he just can't play there. It doesn't suit his abilities or his natural instincts. It's the equivalent of playing Petrov as a centre forward.
Who gave you this lecture billy? A good number of posters on here have been saying this for months and for me its the main reason why I was bemused by Hughes' efforts to play 4-4-2 when it seemed all summer he had been buying players for a 4-3-3.
I don't think Robinho has to play on the left side of a front 3, he's slightly more versatile than that but only very slightly! He can be played in any formation than can afford to have a player playing on the left, high up the pitch with no defensive duties whatsoever. When we bought Barry, a left sided defensive midfielder who also plays as a full back, I thought we did so with this in mind but I guess I was wrong.
He could play as a second striker in a 4-4-2 in less physically demanding league but his few outings in this role for us have been pretty dismal so far. Really to get the best out of Robbi, and probably Ireland too, we need to go back to the 4-3-3 that we were playing under Hughes when he first arrived. When this worked for us last season it was spectacular and when it didn't it was due to being too defensive with Kompany and De Jong in the middle or too lightweight with Ireland and Elano. Barry should in theory be exactly the player we we're missing all along to get the whole thing ticking
PaleBlue said:Not his biggest fan this season - if he plays in the Semis and plays well fair enough, if he fails miserably he can fook off for me before the end of the month.
ocimpean said:If he is playing and he is that good, he will prove it tomorrow, right?
BillyShears said:depps said:Who gave you this lecture billy? A good number of posters on here have been saying this for months and for me its the main reason why I was bemused by Hughes' efforts to play 4-4-2 when it seemed all summer he had been buying players for a 4-3-3.
I don't think Robinho has to play on the left side of a front 3, he's slightly more versatile than that but only very slightly! He can be played in any formation than can afford to have a player playing on the left, high up the pitch with no defensive duties whatsoever. When we bought Barry, a left sided defensive midfielder who also plays as a full back, I thought we did so with this in mind but I guess I was wrong.
He could play as a second striker in a 4-4-2 in less physically demanding league but his few outings in this role for us have been pretty dismal so far. Really to get the best out of Robbi, and probably Ireland too, we need to go back to the 4-3-3 that we were playing under Hughes when he first arrived. When this worked for us last season it was spectacular and when it didn't it was due to being too defensive with Kompany and De Jong in the middle or too lightweight with Ireland and Elano. Barry should in theory be exactly the player we we're missing all along to get the whole thing ticking
I thought the same thing when we signed Barry. I was licking my lips at the prospect in the summer. Barry, Ireland, and De Jong, with a front three. Strangely enough, Hughes' signing of Tevez put paid to that because Hughes himself didn't think Tevez could play as a lone striker, and Tevez doesn't like or excel playing wide right or wide left.
Since Mancini's come in, we've had Ireland injured, problems at centre back meaning Vinnie has had to drop back there, effectively leaving us short in the centre of the park. So Mancini's had to play 442 out of necessity so far. What we'll see over the course of the rest of the season, is whether once he has all his players fit, he chooses to play 433 or 442.
I read today that he said he fully expects Viera to play 20 games this season. For me, that implies that he expects to play 433 because Viera is never going to play in a 442.