by aCe' » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:18 am
With pennant out of the question, i think our most efficient lineup would have to include 2 upfront which -in my books anyways- would have to mean that one of Alonso/Mascherano would have to be dropped regularly to make room...
id go with:
Reina
Arbeloa Carra Hyypia Aurelio
Benny Alonso Gerrard Riera
Keane Torres
granted this formation/ lineup wouldnt mean that our best 11 players are out on the pitch, it still imo is more effective than playing 2 holding midfielders and a hard working winger with no footballing ability whatsoever... our right side is still a problem and Kuyt isnt a solution regardless of the formation imo..
we dont need to be playing that 4-5-1 to have a good defensive record, just look at manutd... they have a better back 4 and better quality all around but still... they play 4 midfielders who are all better going forward than they are defending (Ronaldo, Scholes, Carrick, Giggs/park), add to that the 2 fullbacks who are probably more attack minded than ull ever see in this league (evra, rafael) and u got atleast 8 players who can hurt opposition when on the ball high up the pitch....
we are too one dimensional... we rely heavily on gerrard (and lets face it, he isnt the most creative/unpredictable player around) and we have somewhat been found out when playing that 4-5-1 formation...
what the 4-4-2 gives us, is more options when going forward... we need to make use of Alonso's passing range... have him spring the passes to the wingers, open up play by bringing the fullbaks into play..etc etc
Have gerrard dictating the game from the middle when opposition try to keep it tight... have him running behind midfieldrs with more than one player ahead of him to pick out, have defenders worry mmore about our forwards rather than him and maybe he'll have more space to hit his long shots and try his little flicks..
with the 4-5-1 we quite simply ave too many players doing too little when we go forward, and it simply wont be enough against some of the sides that will choose not to give us space and time on the ball...