I normally wouldn't have hesitated Spurf but the discussion would probably have gone down the same road as this one anyway so its all good Anyway, I see what you're saying there TJ, about it being a risk for Bale's reputation. However I think a few bad games playing as a centre forward aren't going to knock him really, you don't get to his level of sport without a thick skin and he was widely slated in the press last year for diving anyway so its not like he's unused to criticism from that quarter. The recent news about us potentially being in for Soldado (LOADS of Twitter stuff about Baldini being in Valencia as we speak...yes I know its Twitter but lets speculate eh?) maybe shunts this discussion to one side..I dunno. Apparently just now the Valencia president has been on Marca radio and stated that we've offered not far from the asking price of around €30 million. Who knows..... Whats clear is that with the amount of strength in depth we have in the squad, certainly in midfield now at any rate, we have the ability to play a number of formations and styles. I agree with what one poster said a week or so ago (can't remember who, sorry), basically that we may well have a standard setup - say 4-3-3 - that will switch to a 4-2-3-1 for certain opponents or in game situations. Like a 4-3-3 pushing Paulinho forward into 'the hole', dropping Dembele and bringing on another purely defensive option, say Parker, to close the game out, making a 4-2-3-1. The lines between those two formations are pretty blurred anyway, the differences are in how hard certain players work in certain areas and how wide they draw off etc. In my opinion anyway. I'm a big fan of Holtby and Sig and I really, really hope that with the new signings of Paulinho and Chadli looking like they're taking up a deeper midfield position and a more advanced position respectively, those two get a chance to continue their development with us because we have two talents there and the last thing any of us want I'm sure is for their development to stagnate and their talent to be wasted.
I think we'll play a 4-2-1-2-1 Sort of like your typical 4-2-3-1 but the wide 2 in the 3 are pushed further up leaving your 3 midfielders (Paulinho, Sandro and Dembele) in a triangle formation. Stupid editor isn't letting me do the formatting
It's interesting to see so many different ideas of how and who to set up. There's a lot of strength in the squad right now which makes for a lot of dilemmas, as well as a lot of opportunities. Dilemma 1: our marquee signing, who has to start, really, plays in more or less the same spot as the player who was the key to our fortunes last year. When Dembele started last year, we won with great regularity, and when he didn't we dropped points regularly. Problem 2: To get out of problem 1, and arguably because it's the direction we should be going, we could go 4-3-3. The problem there is that Bale lit up the league the last third of last year mostly in a 4-2-3-1 with Ade in front, and Lennon and Gylfi alongside. Why change a winning game, especially when you're not going to start any kind of a playmaker, which successful 4-3-3s tend to rely on? On a related point, our two bad spells happened due to injury to all our "2" players and to Lennon. The straightforward solution would be to do more or less what we did last year, but get suitable replacements for the 2 and for Lennon, and we seem to have done the latter two things Dilemma three: what about Gylfi and Holtby, not to mention Carroll? They're all young players, and any or all of them could really shine if given a chance. Gylfi was given half a chance last year, and convinced me he has what it takes to be our #10. Holtby's a good shout there as well. And Carroll did very well, I thought, as a playmaker in limited playing time. Dilemma four: start without a playmaker, a creative central midfielder, or both? As it stands, our two playmakers, Carroll and Hudd, will start on the bench or somewhere else, while our two best central midfielders, Gylfi and Holtby, probably won't start in central midfield. If you ask me, Hudd, Carroll and Gylfi have the best potential to find Bale with a key pass, and it would seem less than ideal to see them all on the bench. Given all our dilemmas, I'd take my chances on the idea that we ended last year on a very good run, and there's no great reason to make major changes. By all means, though try out different players and formations at appropriate times to see if something else or someone else will work better.
