No Luke, we can't always start 44+2, as soon as we're up against a decent 5 man mid we're overran, with 2 of our mid4 supposedly wide, there's far too much room in the middle of the park.
i did mean VDV...its a tricky one actually...he needs to be behind a front 2 but we cant afford that luxury i suppose. they are all quite similar...and we probably go to and fro these formations in a single game..
That's why I like to talk of a 'front 6', as quite often one person's 4-3-3 is another's 4-5-1 and so on.
In some ways this is always going to be a matter of opinion. We've got enough quality to beat half the teams in the PL with almost any combination of our best 20 players playing but we are always going to have a much tougher time against Man U/City/Arsenal/Chelsea. I don't rate footballers' ability to be flexible so I'd prefer we played essentially the same formation all the time. The key to me is getting Modric, Bale and Van der Vaart into their best positions. I don't think Modric is good enough defensively against the very best team so I want to play him in front of two holding players. He plays centrally, Bale plays wide and VdV can do whatever he wants. I think this is the only way of competing against the likes of City. Luke is right that we look great with two wingers against the poorer teams, but we are going to beat those anyway. Lennon should be seen as the cover for Bale.
If you treat Lennon like that, he won't be around long. He is too good a player to be perm on the bench. If Harry rotated so that Modders missed a few games and VDV moved centrally and rested VDV and then rested Bale so that Lennon is part of this rotation, then it might work. But keeping him for when Bale is missing (and that is rarely unless Charlie Adam assaults him) then Aaron would be rightly pissed off.
Against a certain level of opposition or above, (factoring in home/away somehow), we need Sandro and Parker to fight for the ball in midfield. Below that, Lennon and Bale wide.
I prefer Livermore to Sandro ATM, but agree with the basic premise of playing two DMs v the better teams. The 'weaker teams', I think each team on its merits. Are Stoke a 'weaker team', becuase I think there it's good to beef up the team against their set pieces and style of play. Wolves surely are a 'weaker team', but we threw away two valuable points by not defending a set piece properly, yes it wasn't a corner and 'we wuz robbed', but galling nevertheless. We won at Wolves without Lennon, but drew at home with him. Hard calls to make as ever. Sometimes we are better with two pacy wingers in Bale and Lennon, at other times it's too open and not so good against set pieces, compared to having a Sandro or Livermore in for Lennon.
Harry seeming to favour 3 CMs in this article. http://www.london24.com/sport/tottenham/spurs_boss_hints_at_permanent_change_in_tactics_1_1338574? I hope we start 4-2-3-1 at Sunderland, a front six of modric bale livermore ade vdv parker
We won the last game 3-1 luke, just incase you've forgot. I'm not advocating either as a hard and fast rule, don't know a team that does, so not sure why you are??
