Txiki and the 4-3-3.......

[Deleted member 52846]

The formation really does matter.

Only when you dont have the ball.

Surely even you realises that

I can't work out if you're just being silly or genuinely don't know anything about football.

The formation matters whether you have the ball or don't. Obviously.

I don't think it does, really. When a team has a period of sustained possession an attacking formation can take the shape of a 2-4-3-1 or 2-1-5-2. Sometimes there can be no shape to an attacking formation at all:
----------CH-------------------
--------------------CH----------

------------DM------------------

FB-------------------------------

---------------DM---------------
CM-------------------------------

AM-------------------------------
---AM----------------------------
-------------------S-----FB------
...yet it could be effective in different periods in the game.

But you'd never shape up like any of those defensively; defensively it'd revert back to a rigid 4-2-3-1 or whatever it lined up as on paper before kick off.

 

[Anonymous]

I disagree Dave

Whenever I watched Malaga with Pellegrini in charge he's always gone with 4-2-3-1, which is why I'm puzzled he hasn't executed it here, we have the personnel?

I agree about the holding players though, Yaya and Dinho need to start getting some sort of understanding and gelling soon because at the moment it's costing us.

It's an interesting discussion about why he seemingly is sticking to the 4222 that Mancini played. Must be because of the quality of forwards he has on offer. Personally I agree with Rammy - and I think it was a weakness Mancini exhibited as well ... feeling the need to shoe horn two centre forwards into the team whenever he could, simply because he had them available.

I don't think Pellegrini is helping himself by going down this route - however that's not to say that I don't think we can't be successful playing the 4222 ... we won the league with it ... it's just a much more high risk proposition playing the way Pellegrini wants us to play.

Fascinated to see what he does tonight and if there's any difference from the league games so far in terms of how we line up.

 

[supercity88]

It doesnt at all matter if you have the ball.

Do you say to the player on the right you stay there to recieve the ball and there only as that is our formation? Do you say to Vinny if he rampaging out of defence with the ball WHOA stop Vinny you are out of formation? Oh sorry Zabbs please dont come over here our formation doesnt allow it?

Think about it lad?

We lose the ball and formation is important again as thats how we defend and thats tactically what we will have worked on.


Perhaps im just silly in your eyes for seeing football differently.[/quote]


I know what you mean, in terms of fluidity and movement on the ball it doesn't strictly matter as much as when defending. But the players should be looking to receive the ball in the set formation. For most teams with a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 the front 3 or 4 players swap around within that formation. But City have had issues where the lone striker, Aguero, Dzeko or whoever moves out of position when we have the ball and then we struggle to effectively break teams down. So whilst movement is crucial on the ball, the players should still be playing based around the set formation, that doesn't mean they have to stop when in a different position but it means that the majoritity of time they should be looking to receive the ball in or around their set position.

 

[Deleted member 52846]

I disagree Dave

Whenever I watched Malaga with Pellegrini in charge he's always gone with 4-2-3-1, which is why I'm puzzled he hasn't executed it here, we have the personnel?

I agree about the holding players though, Yaya and Dinho need to start getting some sort of understanding and gelling soon because at the moment it's costing us.

It's an interesting discussion about why he seemingly is sticking to the 4222 that Mancini played. Must be because of the quality of forwards he has on offer. Personally I agree with Rammy - and I think it was a weakness Mancini exhibited as well ... feeling the need to shoe horn two centre forwards into the team whenever he could, simply because he had them available.

I don't think Pellegrini is helping himself by going down this route - however that's not to say that I don't think we can't be successful playing the 4222 ... we won the league with it ... it's just a much more high risk proposition playing the way Pellegrini wants us to play.

Fascinated to see what he does tonight and if there's any difference from the league games so far in terms of how we line up.

We almost always played 4231 in our title winning season.
If we had two strikers[by trade] on the pitch one of them played in the '3'.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Apologies in advance if this has been covered in other threads as I've not been on today and was forever playing catch-up over the weekend on the MP thread.

Anyway, I was playing football this evening when the thought crossed my mind that am I imagining stuff when I say that wasn't there a statement that we were going to play 4-3-3 right through all levels at the club, as this was "the future"?

Just found it strange that we all seem to have missed this whilst discussing the doubts about our new manager and the performances of late seeing as we've played a rigid 4-4-2 in all 4 games.

Txiki didn't say it. One of the coaches claimed to the press a year or so ago that a message had been passed on to the junior coaches that this was going to be the formation that players were developed on. It was never confirmed, in fact I've a feeling it might even have been denied.

Either way, we've been 4222 all season, and about 60% of pre-season (although I haven't seen Saturday's game). And that's the formation Pellegrini is best known for I believe. At the moment it isn't working, mainly, Because we can't get the holding players working properly and there's no proper link play or fluidity. We have seen that great big gap between the holders and the attackers that we suffered from 2 years ago.He might carry on with it now vinny is back in the hope that his distribution and 'stepping out' will stop yaya coming deep and slowing us down.

It was never my favourite formation but we've used it for most of the last two years with Barry providing the momentum and link play.

But it's giving him the first challenge of his city career and I am keen to see how he reacts.

I disagree Dave

Whenever I watched Malaga with Pellegrini in charge he's always gone with 4-2-3-1, which is why I'm puzzled he hasn't executed it here, we have the personnel?

I agree about the holding players though, Yaya and Dinho need to start getting some sort of understanding and gelling soon because at the moment it's costing us.

I am not a big watcher of European football at all, fella, so of course I believe you.

But I read this with interest before he started and it states he settled on and played his best football with the 4222:

<a class="postlink" href="http://eplindex.com/33378/engineering-change-manuel-pellegrini-tactical-insight.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://eplindex.com/33378/engineering-c ... sight.html</a>

What's interesting is that the 4222 the article describes appears to be exactly what he's trying with us.

But, like Mancini's 352, it hasn't suited the personnel at all. But our injuries in key positions have severely hampered us, I would argue that he should have recognised that and changed the system - Hull in particular was crying out for a bolstered midfield.

He may say he's bedding that system in and that he believes it will click when we get Kompany, Silva, Clichy and Micah back into the frame. That time is now, and he's got two hugely significant games to show that that gamble has worked.

IT's going to be a fascinating week, this one. It's probably too early to say season-defining, but we desperately need good results to give us a platform.

 

[Anonymous]

We almost always played 4231 in our title winning season.
If we had two strikers[by trade] on the pitch one of them played in the '3'.

I disagree. We began every game 4222, and shifted to a more 4231 depending on how things panned out. However it's a moot point for me. If you're going to play 4231 with Aguero/Tevez/Jovetic/Balo seemingly in the hole. You're effectively playing 4222. To be a pure 4231, which is what I'd like to see, you push Yaya forward or you play with a real number 10 like Silva in behind with two wide players (Nasri/Navas) either side of him.

For me if you're playing with two narrow "wide" players (Silva/Nasri in our title winning season) with a forward dropping off then it's 4222 for me.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I disagree Dave

Whenever I watched Malaga with Pellegrini in charge he's always gone with 4-2-3-1, which is why I'm puzzled he hasn't executed it here, we have the personnel?

I agree about the holding players though, Yaya and Dinho need to start getting some sort of understanding and gelling soon because at the moment it's costing us.

It's an interesting discussion about why he seemingly is sticking to the 4222 that Mancini played. Must be because of the quality of forwards he has on offer. Personally I agree with Rammy - and I think it was a weakness Mancini exhibited as well ... feeling the need to shoe horn two centre forwards into the team whenever he could, simply because he had them available.

I don't think Pellegrini is helping himself by going down this route - however that's not to say that I don't think we can't be successful playing the 4222 ... we won the league with it ... it's just a much more high risk proposition playing the way Pellegrini wants us to play.

Fascinated to see what he does tonight and if there's any difference from the league games so far in terms of how we line up.

We almost always played 4231 in our title winning season.
If we had two strikers[by trade] on the pitch one of them played in the '3'.

Where has this myth come from? WE played 4231 in the FA Cup winning season every week. The following season, we started with 4222 in about 80% of games. We sometimes changed to 4231, but rarely started with it.

 

[Anonymous]

It's an interesting discussion about why he seemingly is sticking to the 4222 that Mancini played. Must be because of the quality of forwards he has on offer. Personally I agree with Rammy - and I think it was a weakness Mancini exhibited as well ... feeling the need to shoe horn two centre forwards into the team whenever he could, simply because he had them available.

I don't think Pellegrini is helping himself by going down this route - however that's not to say that I don't think we can't be successful playing the 4222 ... we won the league with it ... it's just a much more high risk proposition playing the way Pellegrini wants us to play.

Fascinated to see what he does tonight and if there's any difference from the league games so far in terms of how we line up.

We almost always played 4231 in our title winning season.
If we had two strikers[by trade] on the pitch one of them played in the '3'.

Where has this myth come from? WE played 4231 in the FA Cup winning season every week. The following season, we started with 4222 in about 80% of games. We sometimes changed to 4231, but rarely started with it.

That's certainly the way I saw it too. Why I'm baffled by people who keep saying Pellegrini's changed the formation...

 

[Skashion]

I always find discussions about formation entertaining amongst the football experts. No-one can even agree on what formation we've been playing for several years.

 

[Anonymous]

I always find discussions about formation entertaining amongst the football experts. No-one can even agree on what formation we've been playing for several years.

Instead of laughing at us why not tell us what you think ...