As an old fart what is the difference when people refer to 6's and 8's, is this is footie manager thing ? It's been confusing me for a while now
Most of the time when talking about 6's and 8's people (or at least I think they do) refer to the positions in the traditional 4-3-3 that was used by Johan Cruijff and the "Dutch football school". It's how I've always learnt the positions.
This should help visualise it:
On the left is the traditional 4-3-3.
6 is the most defensive / deepest midfielder. It doesn't have to be a certain type of player, this could be a Mascherano type of player, Xabi Alonso, ...
8 is the box-to-box player, both Gerrard and Lampard are the best examples of real 8's in the traditional 4-3-3.
10 is the playmaker. Coutinho / Firmino is closest to that in the current squad.
On the right is the 4-3-3 which we currently use. We don't have a traditional 10 (playmaker) in that set-up. In our formation, it's Firmino who plays as the 10 (which is why we call him a 'false 9' and why people shouldn't call him a striker). Instead of a 10, we use two box-to-box 8's (Wijnaldum and Lallana). So when people use 6's to refer to players / positions, they refer to the position Henderson plays in and when referring to 8's, it's the positions Wijnaldum and Lallana play in. When Robby The Z mentioned Chamberlain as an 8, that's the position Klopp has brought him in for (Lallana's position, the 8 on the right).
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