Why do you think we switched from Valencia's 4-5-1

[Romario]

Was it simply because we were not getting the results early on in the season? Personally I thought we were going to stick with that formation no matter what which worried me a little as I couldn't see where the goals were going to come from.

 

Rafa seems to have made a concerted effort to change his ways somewhat. We are still really hard working and defend and attact as a unit really well like Valencia did but he's thrown caution to the wind slightly by going for two up front for a long time now. Do you reckon he realised he didn't have the players to play 4-5-1 or 4-4-2 was the way to get results in the prem.

[Spion kop]

it's better for the counter attacking fast paced closing down premiership.

[Benitez]

his favoured formation at VCF was 4-2-3-1 not 4-5-1.

 

But really, he doesn't use a rigid formation as it where. 4-4-2 = it's just a tag innit, to make it easy to describe for the loveable media

[Cooldude]

Because 1. We don't have the players to play 4-5-1 and succeed in England. 2. You need two strikers in England. 3. 4-2-3-1 or 4-5-1 or whatever Rafa's preferred shape was, wasn't working, particularly away from home

 

He's a flexible man and always has been, so he changes to a formation that best suits the players he has at his disposal, which is a conventional 4-4-2.

[Gunga Din]

i dont think we have any set formation. the players rafa has bought are flexible, at times yesterday it was 4-2-3-1, at other times its 4-4-2, even 4-2-4 or 4-5-1. its being as flexible as that it allows us to break teamms down, to pass the ball around other teams.

 

opposing managers find it very hard to worjk us out, thats why we dont lose too often

[Romario]

Because 1. We don't have the players to play 4-5-1 and succeed in England. 2. You need two strikers in England. 3. 4-2-3-1 or 4-5-1 or whatever Rafa's preferred shape was, wasn't working, particularly away from home

 

He's a flexible man and always has been, so he changes to a formation that best suits the players he has at his disposal, which is a conventional 4-4-2.

 

It's interesting that he stuck with 4-5-1 (4-2-3-1 whatever) for so long at the beginning of the season though when it was clear to everyone and their dog that a 4-4-2 with Gerrard out wide was the strongest line up we had.

I wonder when he looks at potential players for us is he thinking about our current formation or would he be buying players to fit his 4-5-1

[Cooldude]

I think Rafa was just sticking to his players to see if they can make the lone striker system work, it obviously didn't, other managers might've stuck it out longer than he did. Takes a big man to change your ideas early on in the season

 

I personally think he'll get rid of Cisse and bring in another striker and continue playing the 4-4-2 as the starting formation for 90% of the games, perhaps without Moro and Crouch partnering (Even though those two are doing very well together atm), just to strike a better balance upfront

 

I don't think he'll change much even if he brought new players, if it ain't broke don't fix it and all that. He'll just buy them to expand his possibilities

 

Under Rafa, we can play under numerous different shapes anyway, so we really don't have any set formations, 4-4-2 atm is probably Plan A, but the man has B, C, D, E, and so forth, he's that good

Edited January 15, 2006 by Cooldude

[David Hodgson]

4-5-1. or 4-2-3-1 requires a player to 'play between the lines'. That is the key to the system. In Valencia he had Aimar. He thought he could do it here with variations of Gerard, Kewell and Garcia in that role. Of those 3, only Garcia is a specialist 'hole' player, but he is simply not good enough to be relied upon in THE key position in that system.

 

I think if you've got a Dalglish, a Zola or Bergkamp you can play 4-5-1. Without that player it puts more emphasis on wide men and getting bodies into the box, feeding off their supply. In that system 2 (up front) is obviously more productive than one.

[Frosty Jack]

I think if you've got a Dalglish, a Zola or Bergkamp you can play 4-5-1.

 

Or Fowler. If theres one player that can be relied upon to play between lines its Robbie.

[David Hodgson]

Or Fowler. If theres one player that can be relied upon to play between lines its Robbie.

 

 

No, I think you'll find, if you read Robbie's book, that he never ever played between lines. That was someone else in his family...or something...

[Logic]

I actually think we are playing rafa's 4-2-3-1 at the moment. Look at where Morientes plays. He plays a lot deeper than Crouch. At times it looks like he's actually a midfielder instead of a forward.

 

Also notice how most of time when Cisse comes on he comes on for Crouch. Not Morientes. And in the last two games where Cisse and Crouch played together Crouch dropped a lot deeper than he usually does.

 

But then, at times it looks like we play 3-6 different systems in one match. Which is amazing.

 

 

 

 

disclaimer: I could be seriously wrong about all this.

[David Hodgson]

I actually think we are playing rafa's 4-2-3-1 at the moment. Look at where Morientes plays. He plays a lot deeper than Crouch. At times it looks like he's actually a midfielder instead of a forward.

 

Also notice how most of time when Cisse comes on he comes on for Crouch. Not Morientes. And in the last two games where Cisse and Crouch played together Crouch dropped a lot deeper than he usually does.

 

But then, at times it looks like we play 3-6 different systems in one match. Which is amazing.

disclaimer: I could be seriously wrong about all this.

 

 

I think if you have a pair of strikers one is always the fulcrum of an attack and the other slightly withdrawn. They never literally play parallel to each other. However, just because one is more withdrawn than the other doesn't make him a 'hole' player. That's a very specialist position.

[Earl Hafler]

If you lived in Pigeon Street

Here are the people you could meet

[crisps]

think he saw we didnt cause enough threat to the opposition goal and we dont have a striker capable of playin that role and banging in lots of goals

[Maldini]

Rafa has said before that he played 4-2-3-1 at Valencia because of the players he had. He had two good wingers in Vicente and Rufete and an exceptional playmaker in Aimar, so he built the formation to get the most out of them.

 

I think last season he thought Gerrard might be able to play similarly to Aimar, but he's probably realised that he's better when attacking from deep.

 

I seem to remember something from Balague's book about this too, that because of the players we had he felt 4-5-1 would suit us better, think it was something to do with us not being able to hold the ball up.

[PLY]

Rafa has been quoted as saying a formation is just where you stand at the kick off. Players should be able to move during a match as long as they know what job is expected of them in each case

[madaboutlfc]

we are tactically very flexible.. If there was an overhead camera it could be very interesting to see the different formation we employ within the 90 minutes

[fyds]

i dont think we have any set formation. the players rafa has bought are flexible, at times yesterday it was 4-2-3-1, at other times its 4-4-2, even 4-2-4 or 4-5-1. its being as flexible as that it allows us to break teamms down, to pass the ball around other teams.

 

opposing managers find it very hard to worjk us out, thats why we dont lose too often

Spot on - hence the infamous 'defend like you did under Benitez' - -but we had at least five ways of defending under Benitez!'

 

You could say the same for attacking and midfield play. We're now a very fluid, mobile team.

[Ombudsam]

We went from scoring lots of goals and winning in pre season with two strikers, to not scoring any and not winning with one striker then back to winning and scoring plenty with two strikers

[yellow jumper]

not sure how morientes/crouch constitutes 442, while aimar/mista doesn't, other than in people's perceptions of who and what a striker is. think what benitez asks that second forward to do is generally the same in terms of the space they occupy and defensive work they're expected to do.

 

perhaps we just had a string of easier games, many of them at home. morientes got fit. crouch got intergrated.

[Maldini]

not sure how morientes/crouch constitutes 442, while aimar/mista doesn't, other than in people's perceptions of who and what a striker is. think what benitez asks that second forward to do is generally the same in terms of the space they occupy and defensive work they're expected to do.

 

perhaps we just had a string of easier games, many of them at home. morientes got fit. crouch got intergrated.

Because Aimar used to go everywhere on the pitch, you'd see him pop up at full-back to collect the ball on occasion, he had more of a free role than Crouch or Morientes has