Didsbury Dave said: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.Rammy Blue said: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.
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.
Kidd will insist he change, he has our best interests at heart and I hope he listens.
We played 4-2-2-2 again and it was woeful.