Discuss your thoughts on our recent adoption of the 4-1-4-1 formation? Yay? Nay? Faults? Strengths? Suggestions, etc... IMO this system is killing us in the midfield defensively on the counters. Itâs wrecking the spine of our team. We donât or we shouldn't play with one defensive midfielder. Arteta/Flamini canât defend in front of the Back 4 on their own, theyâll get outnumbered and then itâll leave our defense in a precarious situation every-time. We play our best with a holding one and a central one. 4-2-3-1 was our thing there was no need to tinker with it Arsene. There is a reason our poorest performances have coincided with us using the 4-1-4-1 formation. That being said some of our players are definitely off form and IMO should get a spell on the bench for a bit in order to rediscover their form.
Defensively it depends massively on the situation. If we're sitting deep, there is very little to no space in between midfield and defence. But we rarely sit that deep. If the whole team presses it works, but if they get past the 4 in midfield, arteta is just too slow and is massively exposed. Attacking wise it would work, except that ozil is our best player and he doesn't fit into the formation properly. Agree we need to go back to 4231, with ozil/cazorla as CAM, whilst wilshere/Ramsey rotate as CM.
4-3-2-1 for me, as above with Ozil/Cazorla in the middle at CAM, Walcott and Sanchez wide with Welbeck/Giroud up front and rotate Wilshere/Ramsey alongside Arteta.
Would really like to see narrow diamond... 4-1-2-1-2 with Ozil at no. 10 but the problem is that it leaves us with a lack of width. I rate a return to 4-2-3-1 is in order. Was the most balanced of the formations we played and it's no coincedence our defence improved with 2 players sitting in midfield.
The change to a previous formation will help but there are more issues than that. He needs to realise that playing against certain opposition requires certain changes and tweaks. He just doesn't see it anymore and is too rigid in his approach. The result against Dortmund wasn't a surprise and it won't be a surprise when we lose against other top teams this season. What will be different now is he won't be able to hide behind the poor squad/lack of funds excuse. He has three world class players (including Kos), plus a load of very good players. We should be playing better than what we are doing at the moment and the buck stops at the manager, whether we like it or not.
-------------------Sczezney----------------- Debauchy---BFG---Koscielny---Gibbs ------------Wilshere----Ramsey----------- ---------------------Ozil------------------------ Sanchez---------Wellbeck--------Walcott 4213 it's hard to decide between Wilshere and Arteta. Wilshere at his best offers more though. Also Walcott on the left.. So he can cut in onto his right. I believe he would score more from this position. (And it also suits Sanchez better to be on the right)
Ramsey will have to stay back more if Wilshere plays, this will curtail Ramsey's attacking prowess however. If both attack then we will have a Song problem with gaps in front of the defence. How about having a Rosicky and Wilshere/Ramsey combination? This will offer us more defensive cover and ball retention. Also, Walcott plays a lot better on the right wing than on left. Sanchez is naturally more skillful and versatile and can play on either side without major sacrifice in quality.
Wilshere Ramsey together will never work that well, in the same way lampard Gerrard never did. Both want to attack too much. Also, rosicky could never be a dm. His only defensive talents are pressing and slide tackles. Hes also too lightweight
Wouldn't mind seeing us put two strikers up front once in a while, especially in the 4312 formation. Anyone notice the difference it made for Dortmund the other night when they put Aubameyang upfront with Immobile in the second half? In the first half they were just creating chances, but in the second half they were carving us wide open and made us look like a Sunday league team. The only thing that would bother me slightly is the personnel, as it has to be right. Looking at Dortmund and Liverpool, two teams that use that system, they have the two strikers, but then behind the strikers they have hard working, quick goal scorers that are also highly capable of making chances for others, Mkhitaryan and Sterling. A lot of people would expect Ozil in this position on paper but it just wont work, he isn't suited to a role like that at all. The suitable option we have is Sanchez, who is actually an incredible option for that position, and maybe Chamberlain at a push. The only thing that would worry me then is Welbeck up front with Walcott, which may or not work, it's really yet to be seen if Walcott could play up front but perhaps with a partner he could do it. We could make the midfield work as well, if I compare it to Liverpool's, Ozil could provide the creativity (Coutinho), Ramsey could provide the engine (Henderson) and Wilshere could play the defensive role (Gerrard), at least until next summer when we hopefully sing some a lot more suitable. Dortmund played it safe against us with their midfield, they skipped the creative outlet in favour of another defensive minded engine (Bender), with Grosskreutz the other and Ginter in the defensive role. This way, with a lack of width, Wenger's decision to send his full backs high up the pitch is actually justified with this formation.
It's obvious they don;t spend much time working on defensive shape in training. It's been a problem for years now but we still keep seeing both full backs caught too far up field at the same time, and how often do we see any of our midfielders drop back into LB to cover Gibbs when he pushes forward? I don't think there's another team in Europe so open to counters as Arsenal..
It can be done they just need coaching IMO. Look Bayern managed a clean sheet against City last night with Alonso and Goetze in midfield. No defensive mid. They did it by having the whole team press whenever city had the ball. Much like Dortmund did against us. This is what we need to do better - press when the opposition has the ball then break with pace.
