A very interesting article on football tactics

[Shack Attack 0]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/nov/19/argentina-napoli

The above article is by Jonathan Wilson and deals with the rise and fall of the 3-5-2 formation. You have to concentrate a bit as it contains an awful lot of combinations of numbers to describe various formations but it''s worth it.

Could Norwich utilise a 3-5-2? Certainly not at the minute as we seem to have a distinct lack of central defenders! But maybe in the future we could ape the Napoli system which is serving them so well at present and provide us with more defensive stability. I doubt it would go down to well with fans at first but if it produces a winning team that would soon be forgotten. Otsemobor and Bertrand seem pretty obvious candidates as wing backs and Hoolahan can play just off Lita for the moment. The biggest problem I can see is that a midfield five of say Otsemobor - Bell - Clingan - Pattison - Bertrand may not contribute enough goals. But if we had more defensive stability maybe that wouldn''t matter as much?

[blahblahblah 2]

An interesting article Shack.

Would Semmy get forward enough to do that role ?  One of the frustrating things about his play seems to be that when he goes forwadr he''s stunningly fast, but he doesn''t get the freedom to do it as often as he might like to.  With the rise of 4-5-1, how are Napoli managing to do so well ?

From the article...

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Imagine Team A is playing 3-5-2 against Team B with a 4-5-1 that becomes 4-3-3," he said. "So Team A has to commit the wing-backs to deal with Team B''s wingers. That means Team A is using five men to deal with three forwards. In midfield Team A has three central midfielders against three, so the usual advantage of 3-5-2 against 4-4-2 is lost. Then at the front it is two forwards against four defenders, but the spare defenders are full-backs. One can push into midfield to create an extra man there, while still leaving three v two at the back. So Team B can dominate possession, and also has greater width."

One of Team A''s central defenders could, of course, himself step up into midfield, but if you''re going to do that, it is surely better to use a defensive midfielder in the role (full-backs are rather more used to advancing than central defenders, so it is more natural for them to function as an auxiliary midfielder). Which is precisely what Chelsea do with Mikel Jon Obi, and Shakhtar Donetsk with Mariusz Lewandowski, a holding midfielder allowing the full-backs greater rein.

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Could Clingan fulfill the Jon Obi role ?  As you say though, we would have to have 3 fit / not suspended central defenders to try this, and that seems a way off...

 

 

[The Fish Seller 0]

Nobody would dream these days of playing a 2-3-5Ah happy days...... Sometimes wonder what would actually happen if you did line up 2-3-5 at 3pm one Saturday. As a shock tactic it would be insurpassable as none of todays footballers have ever played professionally against this formation, any game plan would be straight out the window for sure.

[Joanna Grey 0]

3-5-2, my choice of formation on Sensible Soccer.

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="The Prisoner"]Nobody would dream these days of playing a 2-3-5

Ah happy days...... Sometimes wonder what would actually happen if you did line up 2-3-5 at 3pm one Saturday. As a shock tactic it would be insurpassable as none of todays footballers have ever played professionally against this formation, any game plan would be straight out the window for sure.
[/quote]I was brought up on 2-3-5 and if I remember correctly, the first team to experiment with a ''continental'' formation was West Ham with a very attacking 4-2-4. Didn''t last too long though.

[lincoln canary (& Golden Coppel) 0]

ive said numerous times that a 3-5-2 could work really well for us ( injuries permitting ) we would look somthing like

                                marshall

                kennedy   doc  drury

otsemobor                                bertrand

               bell   clingan  hoolahan

                      lupoli  lita

 

semmy and berty as wing backs gives us 5 in midfield for attack then 5 for defense. wing back is a very hard role to play, attributes include pace and fitness along with defensive and offensive duties, semmy and berty have theses attributes and would ideally be suited, anyone agree?

[Tetteys Jig 851]

I''d rather see Pattison or Rusty played in CM instead of Lupoli for more defensive/ away games though, good tactic tho

[canarytom 0]

That article is an amazing read

[king canary 8,763]

Cant see it working because you need a very specific type of player to be a wing back. The problem we would have is that if Bertrand and Semmy played there they both have naturally defensive inclinations thus leaving us with more of a 5-3-2, which is exactly what happened with England when we tried out this formation. With wing backs you are reliant on them not only being quick, but having quality delivery, positional nous and the stamina to last a whole 90 minutes running the whole line.