442 does seem to be working for us in most matches. I'd say the difference with it against Arsenal is that both our fullbacks let us down to gift them soft goals(not their only chances, I know) and too many players generally underperformed. Like, Eriksen really has to perform if we're to make it work and so does at least one of the strikers and when they were letting us down it's very difficult for the others around them to pick up the slack. 442 at Arsenal isn't necessarily suicide but I agree it's more of a risk and we'd probably have been better off going 4231 or 433. Sherwood didn't have a lot of options to him playerwise though, did he?
As for Soldado, I don't think it's confidence, you have to be confident to score penalties and he does that everytime. I do think he needs to relax a bit though, everytime he takes a shot he seems to be trying to bury it in one of the 4 corners of the goal when he could probably do with just trying to get a few on target and see what happens. Fabianski isn't exactly a great 'keeper so make sure he's kept busy and we might get lucky with him spilling a shot or missing it altogether. It was a crime how little we tested him on Saturday.
As for Soldado, I don't think it's confidence, you have to be confident to score penalties and he does that everytime. I do think he needs to relax a bit though, everytime he takes a shot he seems to be trying to bury it in one of the 4 corners of the goal when he could probably do with just trying to get a few on target and see what happens. Fabianski isn't exactly a great 'keeper so make sure he's kept busy and we might get lucky with him spilling a shot or missing it altogether. It was a crime how little we tested him on Saturday.