Badger 2,389 Posted November 17, 2021 Posted by BYG on twitter. https://www.coachesvoice.com/cv/dean-smith-norwich-aston-villa-brentford/ 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cambridgeshire canary 6,514 Posted November 17, 2021 It's the return of the 4-3-3 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BurwellCanary 208 Posted November 17, 2021 Interesting reading together with some worrying analysis in some places that sounds all too familiar 'Villa struggled to maintain the same defensive resilience following Villa’s switch to a back three. Smith encouraged his wing-backs to join attacks, so opponents had plenty of joy counter-attacking into the spaces they vacated. The centre-backs struggled to get across quickly enough to delay their opponent and allow teammates to make recovery runs. As a unit, the Villa defence proved ineffective at moving across to try and lock play near the touchline. Equally, when they had dropped into a deeper 5-3-2 block, their midfield three struggled against switches of play. Their wide centre-backs had to move out to support the isolated wing-back. This led to the defence being exposed all too regularly'. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ian 1,117 Posted November 17, 2021 Just now, BurwellCanary said: Interesting reading together with some worrying analysis in some places that sounds all too familiar 'Villa struggled to maintain the same defensive resilience following Villa’s switch to a back three. Smith encouraged his wing-backs to join attacks, so opponents had plenty of joy counter-attacking into the spaces they vacated. The centre-backs struggled to get across quickly enough to delay their opponent and allow teammates to make recovery runs. As a unit, the Villa defence proved ineffective at moving across to try and lock play near the touchline. Equally, when they had dropped into a deeper 5-3-2 block, their midfield three struggled against switches of play. Their wide centre-backs had to move out to support the isolated wing-back. This led to the defence being exposed all too regularly'. Sounds very familiar indeed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nora's Ghost 157 Posted November 17, 2021 Hopefully 'zonal marking' will finally be consigned to the bin. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KeiranShikari 1,354 Posted November 17, 2021 5 minutes ago, Nora's Ghost said: Hopefully 'zonal marking' will finally be consigned to the bin. Pretty much all clubs use a mix of both and that won't be changing. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Petriix 2,821 Posted November 17, 2021 It's exactly what I've always said about playing a midfield 3. You need your wingers to defend on the flanks rather than staying forward all the time. Those areas should only be covered by the central midfielders on the occasions where the wingers are out of position. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites