Kitchandro Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 Now I'm not interested in people having a go at me for moaning so don't start. It's constructive criticism and Claudio has done very well so far but today's starting line up had the all the hallmarks of the tactical naivety that had us bottom of the table for 5 months after starting similarly well last season. Hopefully, Ranieri has learnt something today and this will be a mere blip in a successful time here. But - I'm gobsmacked we actually attempted the ill advised 4-5-1 AGAIN having AGAIN started the season positively. Talk about deja-vu. To me, it is blatantly obvious that we need to go back to 3-5-2. I think we can all agree that today's experiment with 4-5-1 did not work at all. But Ranieri said he wanted 3 in the middle and may also have been trying to compensate for our weaknesses defensively. But 3-5-2 would solve both these issues. Our weakness in the first 3 matches was our full back positions. It's where West Ham, in particular, got all their joy and where we again really struggled today. De Laet is not good enough, clearly, and Mahrez is hopeless at covering and helping him out. Schlupp, as we saw from his second half display today, is clearly a winger/wing back, not an all out left back. He is far better going forward than defensively, where he often does not understand the basics of stopping crosses etc. As for Mahrez, he's a 'man in the hole' player. He played there at the back end of last season and it saw him return to form, see his performance against Southampton when he got two match winning goals. In any case, he's been basically playing there anyway, due to the kind of player he is as he's always going to roam even when he's started out wide. Mahrez did not play well today but he and Albrighton were so deep due to our formation. Neither could link up with Vardy who was ridiculously isolated and they had to beat 3 players when they received the ball to even get into a position where they might cause some danger to Bournemouth. Meanwhile Bournemouth are making simple one-twos between their strikers and wingers and getting in behind us on the wing with ease. Defensively and going forward we improved markedly when we switched to this formation last season and it clearly still suits the players we have. We can play Kante and Inler if needs be to win the ball and keep things solid, whilst allowing Mahrez, Albrighton and Schlupp to do their thing. However, I expect to be back to 4-4-2 in two weeks against Villa and I'm not sure that's the right decision. To make the most of our players we have got to drop the weak link at the back and 3-5-2 would do this without stifling the attacking talent we have. Moving forward, I think this has to be the way to go, though I appreciate we've still done well with 4-4-2 so far. The manager will be judged, by myself anyway, on the same criteria that Pearson was and whilst we can be very happy with how we've started the season, people will quickly get wound up if we make the same mistakes week after week, the sort of thing that plagued us for most of last season. And to be fair to Claudio, he did change things at half time when he realised it wasn't working so fair play to him for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danfox76 Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 352 for me every game.. then change if we need too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unabomber Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 Now I'm not interested in people having a go at me for moaning so don't start. K seeya later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox92 Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 I liked the system Pearson played. De Laet isn't too good defensively, so he gets cover with the three. Wing back is a good position for both De Laet and Schlupp. Not sure who I'd play in midfield though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benguin Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 Didn't read your post because i'm lazy, but I miss 3-5-2 a lot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerrrFox Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 You are correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al-aLondon-Foxile Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 Good post, I agree entirely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank to be Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 Totally disagree regarding Mahrez. He is at his best cutting in from the flank and running at people. I've not seen anything to suggest he's better in the middle and his strengths seem strongly rooted in the inside forward/inverse winger position to me. We were better defensively last season playing 352 but that also coincided with Huth's arrival and him being on form. I can see why three centre backs would offer some cover for your wing backs but that comes at the expense of an attacking player, in this case Mahrez, our best attacking player. 451 shouldn't leave full backs exposed anyway. It's a defensive formation. RDL left himself exposed by being crap today, and other crap individual performances around him didn't help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benpicko Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 I don't understand why he played it pretty much every match in pre-season, repeatedly said that he recognised that it was what contributed majorly to our turn-around, and then goes back to a back 4 and experiments. Why not experiment in pre-season, and then revert to the 3-5-2 when it becomes obvious, not for the first time, that it clearly doesn't work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STUHILL Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 I think 3-5-2 with our squad is still the best formation. If we get a quality RB in then maybe we can play 4-4-2 but I think Mahrez doesn't suit a role which involves him having to help out the RB defensively. He is better given a free role behind the front two and he can pick the ball up from the left or right and cut in. Albrighton and Schlupp were great playing RWB and LWB towards the end of last season. Kante and Inler in the middle and Vardy and Shinji the two up top. This is the formation I thought Claudio would play from the start. We can't complain too much as we are unbeaten, but that doesn't mean we cant't improve our formation and tactics too. Hope to see this at Villa or at least a new RB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentFox Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 It gets my vote. We are so much more than just Mahrez. To lose all of that just to maximise one player, (if that is what CR really meant) seems odd. Schlupp is a massive threat playing LWB. We lose that with him at fullback. Personally, I think it makes the most of our strength and minimises our weaknesses. If Was is out of favour, RDL is good enough at RCB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozvaldo Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 I need 352 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitchandro Posted 29 August 2015 Author Share Posted 29 August 2015 Totally disagree regarding Mahrez. He is at his best cutting in from the flank and running at people. I've not seen anything to suggest he's better in the middle and his strengths seem strongly rooted in the inside forward/inverse winger position to me. We were better defensively last season playing 352 but that also coincided with Huth's arrival and him being on form. I can see why three centre backs would offer some cover for your wing backs but that comes at the expense of an attacking player, in this case Mahrez, our best attacking player. 451 shouldn't leave full backs exposed anyway. It's a defensive formation. RDL left himself exposed by being crap today, and other crap individual performances around him didn't help. I can't see how it would be at the expense of Mahrez. He'd be able to be more involved, closer to the strikers and closer to the goal. Certainly more so than today. Surely we put him where he can cause the most damage? Besides, it's a hole role, not stand in the middle role. The point is for him to drift and be involved, it doesn't mean he can never go out wide. Vardy plays as a central striker yet is always drifting out wide during the match to cause trouble. RDL will always be exposed because he is always crap. The idea is to take him out of the equation. BTW, Huth was with us from January and we didn't start playing well until April apart from the odd performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spicer Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 Now I'm not interested in people having a go at me for moaning so don't start. It's constructive criticism and Claudio has done very well so far but today's starting line up had the all the hallmarks of the tactical naivety that had us bottom of the table for 5 months after starting similarly well last season. Hopefully, Ranieri has learnt something today and this will be a mere blip in a successful time here. But - I'm gobsmacked we actually attempted the ill advised 4-5-1 AGAIN having AGAIN started the season positively. Talk about deja-vu. To me, it is blatantly obvious that we need to go back to 3-5-2. I think we can all agree that today's experiment with 4-5-1 did not work at all. But Ranieri said he wanted 3 in the middle and may also have been trying to compensate for our weaknesses defensively. But 3-5-2 would solve both these issues. Our weakness in the first 3 matches was our full back positions. It's where West Ham, in particular, got all their joy and where we again really struggled today. De Laet is not good enough, clearly, and Mahrez is hopeless at covering and helping him out. Schlupp, as we saw from his second half display today, is clearly a winger/wing back, not an all out left back. He is far better going forward than defensively, where he often does not understand the basics of stopping crosses etc. As for Mahrez, he's a 'man in the hole' player. He played there at the back end of last season and it saw him return to form, see his performance against Southampton when he got two match winning goals. In any case, he's been basically playing there anyway, due to the kind of player he is as he's always going to roam even when he's started out wide. Mahrez did not play well today but he and Albrighton were so deep due to our formation. Neither could link up with Vardy who was ridiculously isolated and they had to beat 3 players when they received the ball to even get into a position where they might cause some danger to Bournemouth. Meanwhile Bournemouth are making simple one-twos between their strikers and wingers and getting in behind us on the wing with ease. Defensively and going forward we improved markedly when we switched to this formation last season and it clearly still suits the players we have. We can play Kante and Inler if needs be to win the ball and keep things solid, whilst allowing Mahrez, Albrighton and Schlupp to do their thing. However, I expect to be back to 4-4-2 in two weeks against Villa and I'm not sure that's the right decision. To make the most of our players we have got to drop the weak link at the back and 3-5-2 would do this without stifling the attacking talent we have. Moving forward, I think this has to be the way to go, though I appreciate we've still done well with 4-4-2 so far. The manager will be judged, by myself anyway, on the same criteria that Pearson was and whilst we can be very happy with how we've started the season, people will quickly get wound up if we make the same mistakes week after week, the sort of thing that plagued us for most of last season. And to be fair to Claudio, he did change things at half time when he realised it wasn't working so fair play to him for that. You make some good points. Any formation with 3 cm's we don't look good in for some reason. This may be because the midfield becomes conjested and our players are not technically adept enough in small spaces like for instance the Barca midfield 3. Our midfield looks best when they have more space to work in. We play better when there are 2 cm's. With a 3-5-2 we look good when we have an CAM instead of a third cm. I think we look good with 4-4-2 and 3-5-2. Happy with either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank to be Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 I can't see how it would be at the expense of Mahrez. He'd be able to be more involved, closer to the strikers and closer to the goal. Certainly more so than today. Surely we put him where he can cause the most damage? Besides, it's a hole role, not stand in the middle role. The point is for him to drift and be involved, it doesn't mean he can never go out wide. Vardy plays as a central striker yet is always drifting out wide during the match to cause trouble. RDL will always be exposed because he is always crap. The idea is to take him out of the equation. BTW, Huth was with us from January and we didn't start playing well until April apart from the odd performance. Mahrez in the free role could work but for me it would work best if he spent most of his time wide and cutting in, in which case you might as well start him on the wing. I'm also not convinced by his decision making at times, I'd prefer to give him a tightly defined role that concentrates purely on his strengths, ie stick to the flank and then cut in to cross or shoot. I think if you give him too much freedom he will end up making more bad decisions like shooting from distance when there are passes on or trying to take on the whole of the opposition team on his own. Don't get me wrong, 352 isn't a bad shout but I don't think we're at such a crisis point after one away draw that we need to start rethinking everything, especially not Mahrez's role after he has been our most dangerous player, in fact one of the most dangerous players in the league, from the wing. Granted he didn't have a great game today but perhaps he took a knock in the opening seconds under the challenge from what's his name, Graymel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cc_star Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 We've lost more tempo with each passing game this season A return to 352 or 343 when needed will see us with some unplayable stuff again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raw Dykes Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 I think we'd be better off with 3 at the back. It would mean we could bin off RDL and Schlupp and Mahrez would have less defending to do. It clearly suits the players very well, and now we've got a few upgrades, we could be a top half side before long. If CR insists on 4 at the back, then I think he should get a good RB in first. Full back is definitely not Schlupp's best position, either. He's so much more effective as a wing-back or winger. He was awesome second half today going forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Doctor Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 Mostly fair but you're wrong about Mahrez. Yes he cuts inside a lot, but a wide role is far better for him because it provides him with more space to get up and running, to drive at defenders and to force tackles like Clattermoles on the opening day or Vertonghens last weekend. Give him a completely free role, allow him to position himself out wide to start with and then do his thing and you're fine, but playing him down the centre will stifle his flair a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEBIGJOHNSTEADER; Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 And I miss 3-5-2, oh, like the deserts miss the rain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzell Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 3-5-2 is obviously our strongest formation for our current squad. We should atleast go for the system that worked a treat last season for the next game. Forget playing defensively and reverting back to the 4-5-1. I'd like to see this for the Villa game. Gk: Kasper LWB: Schlupp CB: Morgan CB: Huth CB: Wasyl RWB: Albrighton CM: Kante CM: Inler/Drinkwater AM: Mahrez ST: Vardy ST: Okazaki/Kramaric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benpicko Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 3-5-2 is obviously our strongest formation for our current squad. We should atleast go for the system that worked a treat last season for the next game. Forget playing defensively and reverting back to the 4-5-1. I'd like to see this for the Villa game. Gk: Kasper LWB: Schlupp CB: Morgan CB: Huth CB: Wasyl RWB: Albrighton CM: Kante CM: Inler/Drinkwater AM: Mahrez ST: Vardy ST: Okazaki/Kramaric We only conceded 5 goals in 9 matches with the back 3 at the end of last season as well, and we've already conceded that amount in these first 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzell Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 We only conceded 5 goals in 9 matches with the back 3 at the end of last season as well, and we've already conceded that amount in these first 4. So let's stick to the setup that we know worked an absolute treat last season, 3-5-2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corky Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 Schlupp doesn't convince me as a left back in a 4, would rather we played a three with Schlupp and Albrighton as the wing backs and Mahrez just behind the strikers. Would have Wasilewski, Huth and Morgan as the three, Kante and Inler in the middle with Mahrez roaming in front of them and behind Vardy and Okazaki. De Laet is really struggling so taking him out of the firing line might be beneficial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Socks Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 Agree. The players seem more happy playing this formation that to what we played today.. im sure CR will know that too now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MONreborn Posted 29 August 2015 Share Posted 29 August 2015 We have gone pretty backwards in every successive game since Ranieri became manager. The Sunderland game was so Pearson, and in each successive game we have become worse. Going back to 3-5-2 would be a good start... Although I fear that this is the beginning of our demise. Instead of fine tuning our 352 with additions and reinforcements, it appears that the whole attacking impetus is disappearing. The performances in the last 2 games have been nothing short of a disgrace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.