The Less Defensive Arts

Whilst most of my recent detail has been around the performance of the so-called-defensive 4-1-2-2-1 formation, as I’ve alluded to previously I have been operating with a mixture of tactics – depending on the opposition, home or away venue, etc etc.

For the home tie with Hertha Berlin I decided to go with the 4-2-3-1 that I’ve been tweaking, which I’ve go to the point of operating with a narrow attacking line and (vertically) offset midfielders.  It’s still a work in progress, and I’m looking to use some of the principals of the more defensive formation – i.e. dominating the central third of the pitch (vertically) and encouraging the opposition onto the flanks.

Nosebleed Time

Last time out I covered the new additions to our squad, and then raced excitedly into the new season. After the previous campaign, the big question was whether we'd make a better start this time.

The short answer: Yes!

For the longer answer, read on...

Four-Four-One, Plus One : Settling on a Core Shape.

As well as the issues I was experiencing with width, the other factor in my decision to look at our tactics again was that we were getting a lot of possession with the 4-3-1-2 but not a lot of penetration. I actually got criticised by the fans for a negative approach, which seemed off given that it was our only 2-striker formation, it had an AMC in behind, and I was encouraging a number of players forward. It’s seemed likely that the issue was down to individual roles/instructions though.     

A brief conversation with @RTHerringbone ensued, and he explained how he’d been playing with 4-1-4-1 and 4-4-1-1 shapes, functioning with a lone striker. His outlook seemed to be a combination of ‘back to basics’ and giving players the licence to make their own decisions; it was very light on specialised roles and that appealed to me, although given the personnel at hand I could imagine mixing it up a bit.

  

Looking at the options I had in central midfield positions, I considered my approach to such a formation and arrived at the conclusion that I could look to build a fairly uniform 4-4-1, leaving me a ‘floating’ player to deploy as most appropriate. A DMC would help against shapes like the 4-2-3-1, whilst someone like Coco sitting in the hole behind the striker would add to our attack where viable. If it came to it I could always run with two strikers, although I still have a (completely unjustified) dislike for the bog-standard 4-4-2.

If my wide midfield men, who are mostly more suited to the AM strata, could supply from a deeper position then this could well be the shape for me – and as you can see from the Tweet exchange above, I'd started to see encouraging signs. 

Onwards and... well, not upwards unfortunately.

Frustrations and Patience 

or ‘How not to give up and start a new save just because you’re not tearing up the leagues’.

First let me qualify that title by stating that I’ve never been one to crave success to the point where I just keep flitting between different top teams, but in the past I have had a history of starting various saves that only lasted for a season or two. That wasn’t due to performance, but was more down to my writing on the Stories Forum over at SI Games – and the fact that my imagination and ideas ran far faster than my ability to keep up with them. I used to have at least two saves running at all times, sometimes as many as four, and it wasn’t unusual for at least a couple of them to be very short-lived.

In terms of career games I actually prefer something of a slow-burn to start, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally suffer from itchy feet when things get into a rut. Towards the end of the 2014/15 season I found myself beginning to think that way at times, but more on that later.

WHEELING AND DEALING

Two factors dictated the deals made in December, firstly the concern that we were effectively operating with just two first-team strikers, and secondly the fact that one of them (David Ledy) refused my continued attempts to extend his contract and signed a deal for a summer move to Angers SCO. Even ignoring the potential for injuries, it made no sense to just keep plugging away with David and wait until summer to bring replacements in, so with that in mind I picked out the following players from my scouts’ reports.

Survival? Pfft! Piece of Cake...

PERFORMANCE

After an opening day draw, and the solid Cup win over La Berrichone, we went on something of a run. Nine games undefeated, eight of those in the league, and we were firmly in the top four slots. For the most part I was sticking with a lone striker formation away from home, mainly the 4-1-2-2-1 outlined in my pre-season update, but at home or against poor performing hosts I leaned towards a strike partnership.

Sometimes I would take the same ‘proactive’ approach as I did to the Berrichone game (see below), tweaking things ahead of kick-off, but not always as I wanted to get the squad familiar with my base formations and instructions.

We had a blip in October, taking just four points from six games, but then another unbeaten run took us into mid-December still sitting pretty. That run included four back-to-back away games (two league, two cup) which saw three wins and a draw.