Leicester used 4-4-2 as recently as 2015/16 to win the title

[Thingy 36]

How about we try it as 4-4-2 could suit us. The full-backs can then focus on defending. We would have wide players further forwards and 2 up front to aim for on the break.

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Thingy

[Dean Coneys boots 1,531]

But it isn’t fashionable any more  (I agree by the way) 

[Don’t be Krul 452]

Mike Bassett

[TeemuVanBasten 3,328]

25 minutes ago, Thingy said:

How about we try it as 4-4-2 could suit us. The full-backs can then focus on defending. We would have wide players further forwards and 2 up front to aim for on the break.

Burnley play 4-4-2 under Sean Dyche most weeks, and stay in the division.

 

[Yella Army 57]

'The fullbacks can then focus on defending'. Straight away that's an issue for us as all of our fullbacks bar maybe Williams are great going forwards but terrible at defending! 

[Capt. Pants 5,008]

4-3-3 is the new 4-4-2.

[Aggy 944]

No reason why it can’t work and to be honest it’s not a million miles away from the 4231 we used a lot last year. We’d get overrun badly in midfield, but we’re getting stuffed every week anyway so what harm will it do, and we might at least pinch a goal the other end.

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 4,616]

Do we have the squad for it? We have lots of wide attacking players but I'm not sure how well they'd do as wide midfielders, and we have tons of central midfielders. Also, the squad has been set up to play possession football and 4-4-2 is generally a system for direct football, so would involve a complete U-turn in philosophy which doesn't suit the squad we have built.

[Aggy 944]

23 minutes ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

Do we have the squad for it? We have lots of wide attacking players but I'm not sure how well they'd do as wide midfielders, and we have tons of central midfielders. Also, the squad has been set up to play possession football and 4-4-2 is generally a system for direct football, so would involve a complete U-turn in philosophy which doesn't suit the squad we have built.

Is it overly different though to the 4231? Out of possession that virtually becomes a 4411, so not sure it would make too much difference, and don’t think it would necessitate a change of style. 

And despite having loads of central midfielders, I’m not convinced we’ve got three who are prem standard. One or two injuries and we definitely havent. 

Lees-Melou and Normann in the centre, then just let the front four do what they want almost/tweak personnel depending on opponents. Possession? Maybe you go Pukki up top, Rashica as your second striker dropping into the 10 role, plus Cantwell and Tzolis/Placheta. Counter? Maybe you go more traditional 442, Pukki playing off Sargeant, Placheta and Rashica on the wings.

Yes we’d concede, but we are doing anyway.

[norfolkngood 1,174]

the Reason why it would not work because Burnley / Leicester  Defenders Clear the ball then it is all about the second ball 

Burnley have wood to hold it up / rough up defenders clearing the ball 

Leicester have vardy either to hold it up or race through if behind the defenders with lightning speed 

i think it would suit our CB instead of playing around the back Hanley is not built for that rio / john stones he is not ! 

i think it would and could work but Farke would not have a solid defence that clears danger anywhere and snappy midfielders winning the second ball not his style 

Edited September 28, 2021 by norfolkngood

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 4,616]

35 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Is it overly different though to the 4231? Out of possession that virtually becomes a 4411, so not sure it would make too much difference, and don’t think it would necessitate a change of style. 

And despite having loads of central midfielders, I’m not convinced we’ve got three who are prem standard. One or two injuries and we definitely havent. 

Lees-Melou and Normann in the centre, then just let the front four do what they want almost/tweak personnel depending on opponents. Possession? Maybe you go Pukki up top, Rashica as your second striker dropping into the 10 role, plus Cantwell and Tzolis/Placheta. Counter? Maybe you go more traditional 442, Pukki playing off Sargeant, Placheta and Rashica on the wings.

Yes we’d concede, but we are doing anyway.

I do get the point, but the 4-4-2 systems you're describing end up as a 4-2-3-1 by the time you've explained it anyway.

Also, it's the style of play as well with a genuine 4-4-2. It's a system that's set up for direct, usually counter-attacking, football with the aim of bypassing the midfield and hitting the striker early. The two teams mentioned in this thread have been Leicester 2015/16 and Burnley, which is how they play(ed). Our squad wasn't built for this, so it would make little sense to try and play it now.

 

[Thingy 36]

We were able to win a lot of possession and matches in the Championship as we had players that were technically better than the opposition.

We haven't got that advantage in the Premier League so we need to become a lot more effective at counter-attacking. 4-4-2 would help.

4-4-2 would also help us win the ball in a high press. The opposition wouldn't push wing-backs forwards.

Another consideration is that 2 banks of 4 can be good to reduce the opposition to long range shots.

As others have said, 4-4-2 would be similar to the 4-2-3-1 we had been playing so not a massive change required. Mainly it would be to protect our full-backs and help us on the counter attack.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Thingy

[1902 1,167]

It really wouldn't help. We don't have the strikers to play it. Sargent isn't small, but he wasn't winning the majority of his duels the other day. We also don't have an out and out ball winning midfielders in Kante or a Drinkwater whose job it was to quickly gain possession and then get it up field ASAP, (I would argue this is closer to Normann's skillset though).

When you watch Leicester from their title winning season, the speed at which they broke was truly incredible, they hit teams fast and hard. Nothing in out squad suggests we can do that in the same way they did. 

It is possible to play fast counter attacking football with our squad, but it I'll have to be quick ball which is played through the midfield that does that, not the Leicester way or Burnley way.

[king canary 8,757]

1 hour ago, 1902 said:

It really wouldn't help. We don't have the strikers to play it. Sargent isn't small, but he wasn't winning the majority of his duels the other day. We also don't have an out and out ball winning midfielders in Kante or a Drinkwater whose job it was to quickly gain possession and then get it up field ASAP, (I would argue this is closer to Normann's skillset though).

When you watch Leicester from their title winning season, the speed at which they broke was truly incredible, they hit teams fast and hard. Nothing in out squad suggests we can do that in the same way they did. 

It is possible to play fast counter attacking football with our squad, but it I'll have to be quick ball which is played through the midfield that does that, not the Leicester way or Burnley way.

Exactly this.

Your average Leicester XI that season was Schmeichal, Simpson, Huth, Morgan, Fuchs, Albrighton, Kante, Drinkwater, Mahrez, Vardy, Okazaki.

That is a solid and workman like back 4, two solid defensive midfield players who keep things simple while winning the ball and pace/workrate up front. I'm not sure we've got any of those. 

 

[Ward 3 484]

Play the 41212 diamond like we did under lambert. Worked well 🧐

[ROBFLECK 134]

37 minutes ago, king canary said:

Exactly this.

Your average Leicester XI that season was Schmeichal, Simpson, Huth, Morgan, Fuchs, Albrighton, Kante, Drinkwater, Mahrez, Vardy, Okazaki.

That is a solid and workman like back 4, two solid defensive midfield players who keep things simple while winning the ball and pace/workrate up front. I'm not sure we've got any of those. 

 

Nail on the head, that's what's essentially missing from this team. I like Normann , but he does not seem to be the hard grafting DM in the style of Drinkwater, Kante ,... 
Just think back to the seasons under Lambert , where  Holt was our Focal point up front. This was a comfort for the midfield as he could hold up play as the midfield got themselves organised.

That's why I think there's not much use in even contemplating this kind of system , we don't have the players for it...
 

[ROBFLECK 134]

6 minutes ago, Ward 3 said:

Play the 41212 diamond like we did under lambert. Worked well 🧐

I understand...but do we have the players for this? I 'm not convinced we do

[king canary 8,757]

Just now, ROBFLECK said:

Nail on the head, that's what's essentially missing from this team. I like Normann , but he does not seem to be the hard grafting DM in the style of Drinkwater, Kante ,... 
Just think back to the seasons under Lambert , where  Holt was our Focal point up front. This was a comfort for the midfield as he could hold up play as the midfield got themselves organised.

That's why I think there's not much use in even contemplating this kind of system , we don't have the players for it...
 

I do think the back 3 system is the best system for the players we have- it frees up our fullbacks to attack and overlap to give width, it covers for our lack of solid defensive midfielders and it would allow our attacking midfielders to have less defensive duties.

I'd like to see us set up something like this...

                      Krul

       Kabak    Omo     Gibson

Aarons                                  Gianoulis

             Gilmour    Normann

                     Cantwell

             Pukki       Sargent

[keelansgrandad 6,680]

Many joked about it when I suggested it not long ago. Almost dinosaur accusations.

Thing is, we copy others anyway. DF didn't invent 4231 or 433. He looked at what others were doing and brought in some players who could play to that system.

If Pep all of a sudden went 442 with long balls from the back, they would all be doing it. Including us.

We could play out from the back in the Championship because we were the best. Unfortunately we are currently the worst in the Prem and there isn't much we can do with 442. Our back four are bad enough with cover. If they relied on the full backs then I fear we would be demolished. Burnley have Mee and Tarkowski at the back as well as Wood and Barnes up front.

However, it is clear that we aren't going to score many goals at the moment. We are pinning our hopes on Normann being able to glue everything together and allow us to push more men forward. But I'm afraid our ball players aren't combative enough.

Watching the UCL the last two evenings, I have seen talented ball players prepared to kick lumps out of each other if necessary and bully where they can. As much as I love Todd and think he has great skills, he hasn't the presence to bully anyone. The same with PLM and to an extent, Gilmour.

I fear we have missed the boat when it comes to being able to do anything apart from stick with our current systems. Although I would like to see 433 ditched and go back to 4231.

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 4,616]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

I do think the back 3 system is the best system for the players we have- it frees up our fullbacks to attack and overlap to give width, it covers for our lack of solid defensive midfielders and it would allow our attacking midfielders to have less defensive duties.

I'd like to see us set up something like this...

                      Krul

       Kabak    Omo     Gibson

Aarons                                  Gianoulis

             Gilmour    Normann

                     Cantwell

             Pukki       Sargent

Yep, that's what I think too. I'd probably use just one of Pukki and Sargent as a centre forward though, and bring in either Tzolis or Rashica so it becomes a 3-4-2-1 rather than a 3-4-1-2.

[cambridgeshire canary 7,798]

2 hours ago, king canary said:

I do think the back 3 system is the best system for the players we have- it frees up our fullbacks to attack and overlap to give width, it covers for our lack of solid defensive midfielders and it would allow our attacking midfielders to have less defensive duties.

I'd like to see us set up something like this...

                      Krul

       Kabak    Omo     Gibson

Aarons                                  Gianoulis

             Gilmour    Normann

                     Cantwell

             Pukki       Sargent

Poor Tzolis and Rashica, forever out of the squad due to a wingerless formation

[Ward 3 484]

2 hours ago, ROBFLECK said:

I understand...but do we have the players for this? I 'm not convinced we do

Not for the 41212 we don't no, 4231 we do. All bit of a mess what to do and where to go from here formation wise. 433 isn't us at all. 352 we just look equally as bad

[hogesar 10,763]

53 minutes ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

Yep, that's what I think too. I'd probably use just one of Pukki and Sargent as a centre forward though, and bring in either Tzolis or Rashica so it becomes a 3-4-2-1 rather than a 3-4-1-2.

Yeah agreed.

[Thingy 36]

Just a reminder that I might have got it right again😉

[Petriix 3,219]

We really aren't playing a 4-4-2. Maybe it's a 4-4-1-1 but it's essentially the same 4-2-3-1 we played under Farke. Tonight Pukki played mostly in the number 10 role and did a lot of defensive work when we didn't have the ball (which was most of the game).

[nutty nigel 7,902]

Who on earth was Leicester's assistant manager when they did that?

Edited January 21, 2022 by nutty nigel

[Fiery Zac 1,066]

5 hours ago, Petriix said:

We really aren't playing a 4-4-2. Maybe it's a 4-4-1-1 but it's essentially the same 4-2-3-1 we played under Farke. Tonight Pukki played mostly in the number 10 role and did a lot of defensive work when we didn't have the ball (which was most of the game).

Yes we really were playing 4-4-2, Smith even alluded to that in his post match comments, about giving up possession in midfield. It’s also clear on the match heat maps and average player positions. The ‘wide’ players (Rashica and Sargent) were playing quite narrow but Pukki and Idah were definitely a strike partnership. Yes Pukki did some tracking back (though nothing like he did vs Everton) but in any decent 4-4-2 that will happen.

I don’t see it as a formation that will last for us, but against certain opposition it will work.