bobmcfc said:
There is a very fine line also when asking players to suddenly adapt to roles they are unfamiliar with. I have already stated that this is how Yaya has played for us since day one and it only seems to be a problem now that we are playing a much more attacking style. Would you prefer he adapts a less adventurous role and and score less valuable and important goals and stick to a more defensive role
No, quite the opposite. As I said in an earlier post, it should be about getting the best out of our players and playing to our (their) strengths. If Yaya is not so great in a defensive role especially in 4-4-2 away from home, then why don't we recognise that and stop asking him to do it. Push him forward, play 4-5-1 and get someone else to do the defensive work. Surely???
Yaya is utterly brilliant at what he does best and having him marauding around the penalty area, our opponents would be drawn to him like bees around honey, leaving gaps all over the place for Kun/Beast/Dzeko. Not to mention his free kicks, killer passes or storming runs into the box. Just keep him high up the pitch and leave Fern/Rodwell or Fern/Garcia to do the cleaning up. It's not rocket science.
For umpteen games under Mancini we started with Yaya playing deep and then made changes, taking off a striker, pushing Yaya forward and bringing on a DM. As far as I can remember, this ALWAYS made us play better. Like it did against Swansea on Wednesday, btw.
There was some debate about this a year or two back and someone (Didsbury Dave perhaps, I can't recall) made the comment that Yaya is at his most destructive best when breaking from deep. I can see that. But if that comes at the expense of defensive holes and leaked goals, I'd rather we just "settled" for him playing in the hole and ripping opponents to bits from there.
