I read this interesting article somewhere that explored why 3-4-2-1 doesnt produce as many goals as we would like despite the plethora of attacking talent with us.
For starters, the 2 behind Sturridge - mostly Coutinho and Lallana - seldom make runs into the box and provide our main man some support. Coutinho, for instance, gets hounded by the opposition and can hardly sneak in beyond the center backs, ends up taking a lot of long-range shots. Lallana covers a lot of ground, tracking back and defending, that when we initiate an attack, we dont have enough numbers upfront.
Again, I'm not sure how accurate these deductions are, we might probably understand better from players' heat maps. But the point was to play those guys who would run past the defence and attack the goal, and for us the only other player we have in that category is Sterling. But he is being made to play wing back meaning he never makes those direct runs. On Sunday, United's midfield and defence played close to each other when we had the ball letting our midfield come forward but completely denying space to Coutinho and Lallana to receive the ball. When you see the best chance we had in the first half, it was Hendo's brilliant diagonal ball to Sturridge who touched it down to Lallana but unfortunately he didnt find the target.
I think this is where a 3-1-4-2 would help. Lucas sitting deep; Move Sterling up-top with Danny, I feel the latter can contribute more if he has a partner or a pseudo-partner, play Coutinho in the hole and stretch the defence. Markovic, Ibe, Moreno, Johnson gotto contribute more from the fullback positions. Might be a slight tweak in the system but we need the right personnel in the right positions.
« Last Edit: Mar 26, 2015 02:44:15 pm by Vicks86 »
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