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Keep dreaming 12:10 Mon Sep 28
541/343

Has Moyes finally found a formation suitable to our team?

But who else than a redbull injected Antonio can lead the line in such a high intensity attacking formation?

BillyJenningsBoots 5:16 Wed Oct 21
Re: 541/343

To be fair to Balbeuna they are very fine margins.. Son's goal is a case in point if he takes one step less to his right Son's view of goal is much reduced and he probably doesn't score.. So it wasn't pace that beat him as such just his speed of thought, show him wide and he can't shoot, stand him up and his shot goes wide..

Football is easy.. Just in the heat do you remember who he is which is his good foot, where's the goal... Blah blah

daveyg 4:35 Wed Oct 21
Re: 541/343

Quite often Antonio was out on the left attacking the left channel,both Bowen and Fornals would be central. Coufal and Soucek attacking down the right. Rice's main runs nearly always stem from the left too. Both our wing backs are tucked in and that's why the re is a lot of space especially down the right.
Cresswell is still poor at defending the left hand side. But he now crosses from 5 yards in from the left hand touch line rather than the touchline itself. His crosses are more dangerous as he's that much firther inside, the curl starts to go away from defenders from the penalty spot outwards.

Westside 11:40 Wed Oct 21
Re: 541/343

Let's not forget, that despite a shocking first 15 minutes defensively against Spurs, although it pains me to say it, they are actually a decent attacking threat. Witness 6 goals away to Man United and they are currently, the highest scorers in the premier League this season

Currently, only two teams have conceded fewer goals than us in the Premier League, thus far this season.

Notes, that we made a similar start to last season results/points wise and it all went tits up quickly.

jack flash 11:25 Wed Oct 21
Re: 541/343

Mex Martillo 8.24 ~
Good post. I think you've hit the nail on the head there
Our defensive Achilles heel seems to have shifted from the left to the right!
As you say Coufal is having to cover an awful lot of ground on his own
Balbueno isn't a bad defender and he's been playing well of late but his lack of pace was cruelly exposed by Son for their opener
Perhaps with Diop instead of Balbueno that might go some of the way to solving the problem?
Diop has been badly off form this season so it would be a gamble. Incidentally, I think Diop should be far better in the air than he is, both attacking and defending. He's a tall lad but nowhere near as good as Balbueno (who's about a foot shorter!) in the air
As was said in the original post, who do you replace Antonio with when he gets injured?
It's a pity we didn't manage to get King as he would have been ideal
Haller doesn't fit into this high intensity attacking system at all. He just slows everything down, can't hold the ball up and gives away too many free kicks
He might be a threat in the box at set pieces but that's about it
I don't think Moyes would or should have brought him on even if he was available from the bench against Spurs when Antonio came off

Fortunes Hiding 11:18 Wed Oct 21
Re: 541/343

That comment about Cresswell and Arthur doubling up works.

In the wolves game, Traore (sp) was doubled up on, interesting to see average positions of that game.

Manuel 11:14 Wed Oct 21
Re: 541/343

Always thought Cresswell has got a bad rap on here. Okay he's no Julian, but overall he has been good value for us and has been a successful purchase, and he got that winning goal at Chelsea! Would just like to see him be more aggressive and not worry about his hair so much, but doubt he'll change now.

fraser 9:19 Wed Oct 21
Re: 541/343

Fornals and Bowen were definitely not hugging the sides, both all over the place

Hardly saw Fornals wide.

LeroysBoots 9:12 Wed Oct 21
Re: 541/343

Explains their 1st goal, food for thought

Mex Martillo 8:34 Wed Oct 21
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A quite interesting graphic on the BBC assessment of Kane and the Spurs v Hammers game.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/54567950

It shows the average position of all the touches of the ball made by our players.
If we take it literally it makes the formation 3-4-2-1.
It also suggests that Cresswell and Masuaku are both playing on the left doubling up and quite close together. Then Ogbonna and Balbuena are CBs and poor old Coufal has to defend the right wing on his own. Coufal is being asked to do the same job as two on the left, which perhaps explains why our right side was a bit poor and Spurs goals came down the right.
Also shows Fornals and Bowen play very centrally right behind Antonio, supporting his attack.

Darby_ 6:04 Fri Oct 9
Re: 541/343

The other thing that’s interesting is that other sides haven’t quite been able to cope with Cressers playing an unconventional role. He always seems to have a lot of space when he receives the ball. Case in point the Antonio goal.

Cressers is moving up from CB to an attacking fullback role and is in miles of space. Antonio sees this, so sends the ball out to him. Cressers then has plenty of time to put in the cross, with three attackers also having plenty of time to get into the box.

Other teams will probably work this out and start paying Cresswell more attention, but it’s working for now.

Mex Martillo 9:25 Thu Oct 8
Re: 541/343

Cresswell appears to have found his crossing boots as well. He has put some delightful crosses into the box and we actually have players there getting to the ball!
Amazing change of events!

TopGun 6:16 Thu Oct 8
Re: 541/343

Yeah great going forward, linking up well. Masuaku making opposition players look stupid, long may it continue.

Also helps to have Fornals in front, pressing ferociously.

the exile 6:01 Thu Oct 8
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Absolutely. Good going forward too.

TopGun 5:36 Thu Oct 8
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The best thing about this formation is that Masuaku + Cresswell = 1 decent defender. So our LB woes are no more.

the exile 5:21 Thu Oct 8
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One other thing - it might make sense for Ashby to go out on loan now that we've got Coufal. He's got Fredericks and Johnson ahead of him.

the exile 5:18 Thu Oct 8
Re: 541/343

daveyg - agree with most of that. I would add Longelo to your list - thought he looked very promising in the pre-season and EFL Cup games. But there's probably no way he would be called upon unless both Cresswell and Masuaku were out at the same time.

As for Nathan Holland, now that Anderson has gone I would keep him as cover. No idea when he is expected to be fit, but it can't be long.

daveyg 1:19 Thu Oct 8
Re: 541/343

Looking at the U23's I can't see much in there to step up.
Anang
Ashby
Baptiste
Alese
Longelo
Rosa
Coventry
Lewis
Chesters
Afyolayan
Dju

add Cardaso and Holland (Where is he ? )to that 11.

Only Alese,Holland,Ashby and Coventry would make any kind of impact . I think Holland will be off before the window shuts and possibly Cardaso onloan.

We're going to have to rely on Yarmolenko and Lanzini in front positions along with Halller. That's scary as I don't think either are up for a 90 minute challenge.
At least 2 or maybe 3 signings from the Championship who are willing to sit and wait for a place. The best have gone already.

the exile 11:38 Thu Oct 8
Re: 541/343

I don't really care what you call this system but the main thing is that it seems to work a treat. The slightly peculiar thing about it is that it's slightly lopsided, in that Cresswell seems to be the only one out of the back three who has license to regularly push forward and join in the attacking play, which might mean that we could get caught out if the opposition breaks at pace down that side, but it hasn't been a problem yet.

As for the front three, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, so forget about Haller breaking into the side. The interesting questions arise when we get injuries. Antonio would obviously be the biggest loss. I think we can forget about him ever playing the wb role again, but part of what makes him such a special player is that he could comfortably play anywhere across the front three, whereas Haller could only play as a central striker. So if Antonio is injured, the obvious thing to do is bring in Haller - not quite a like-for-like because Fornals and Bowen would have to work a little bit harder to support him, but he brings other strengths, particularly his finishing. If either Fornals or Bowen are injured it's a more interesting dilemma. You could bring in Yarmolenko or Lanzini, but I would be tempted to move Antonio to the support role and bring in Haller in the middle. Easy to change if it doesn't work.

But all in all I'm absolutely loving the way we are playing in this formation. It seems to be bringing out the best in all the players, particularly the ones we were always moaning about - Cresswell, Masuaku, Balbuena and Fredericks before he got injured. The way Coufal also hit the ground running was also brilliant. Long may it continue.

Darby_ 10:59 Thu Oct 8
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Well, we took the lead early, so we were probably happy after that to play counter-attack and let them have the ball.

Other than that, Stubbo was right that in attack Cressers moved into a fullback position and Arthur got forward.

Moyes seems to have done a good job fitting our best players into a system that suits them.

Mex Martillo 7:46 Thu Oct 8
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Against Leicester the formation was very clearly 5-4-1.
Leicester had us pushed back defending a lot, but they did not get through the defense much and had petty poor attempts on goal.
We were good and fast going forward and really exposed that Leicester were overstretching to try and get through our 5-4 defense. However, I would not compare it to a park the bus approach. We attacked a lot, early in the game every time Leicester lost the ball we were streaming forward. Later in the game we were not so efficient and did a bit of clear it up the field to no one in particular, which was a bit disappointing. Our midfield and front man Antonio also did a lot of closing down and Leicester often had trouble to get the ball from their defense to their midfield, which was good.
Definitely 5-4-1.

4ever-blowin-bubbles 5:33 Sat Oct 3
Re: 541/343

He may of found a formation now all we need is for him to find a way of using subs earlier than he does

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