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What do Andre Villas Boas and Mauricio Pochettino have in common? If you guessed a strong preference for their type of player, you'd be close. If you guessed systems that do not create enough chances or allow players to express themselves creatively, you'd hit the nail right on the head.
The 4-2-3-1 requires a special cast of characters to work and if you find the top teams that still employ the formation, you notice that they are clubs such as Chelsea or Real Madrid that have massive wage bills and can purchase the right players for each position. Not many teams around the world successfully deploy this shape and Tottenham are no exception. We've had our most success with the 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 with Harry Redknapp and even Tim Sherwood.
Spurs represent a certain brand of football and the 4-2-3-1 does not encourage an open, attacking commitment. If Pochettino had lower points than the last two years but Spurs were entertaining and consistently winning 5-4, 3-3 or 4-1 then there would not be blame cast in his direction. A midfield containing true wingers or even Eriksen on the left with a true winger on the right rather than the narrow inverted wingers would be a start. In a 4-4-1-1, Lamela would flourish in a central attacking role behind Kane where he can freely roam and attack as he pleases. Eriksen has shown his class when playing on the left of a 4-4-2. A central midfield of Bentaleb and a new signing could compete and push the attack forward.
The pieces are there for our formation to be much more flexible. I prefer the 4-3-3 system but Spurs have not been committed to the 4-3-3 in a long time. We need to address the isolation of Harry Kane in the one striker system, the lack of width or rather the dependence of width on fullbacks and a full commitment to attacking football.
Whether that is with Pochettino or not, it remains to be seen but we need to be entertained, winning or losing.
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If we can just get a cm that absolutely controls that position (im looking at you schneiderlin), a 4-3-3 with bentaleb schneiderlin and eriksen, with a forward line of kane chadli (or someone better) and lamela could be lovely.
ReplyDeletelets face it, our team simply DOES NOT have the personnel for a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 these days. you see, what that system requires is traditional wingers. we only have townsend and lennon. hardly a star pairing. furthermore, that would waste the fullbacks that we have - walker, yedlin, rose: their main strengths lie in the attacking sides of their game, yet all are quick enough to get back to recover. The problem hasn't been creating chances at all this season, but rather conceding too many goals. I place a lot of the blame for this on an unsteady CB pairing, and total lack of experience from our double-pivot CMs because they're the ones who should be in position to hold our shape when we lose the ball and the opposition counters. Not to mention, ideally we would lose the ball a whole lot less in dangerous positions if we had someone like scheiderlin in there with bentaleb and eriksen.
As for lamela, he's certainly picked up his game of late, his decision making and passing seems much improved when compared to the rest of the season.