toffeetower
Player Valuation: £1m
Gone are the days of Moyes' rigid 4-1-4-1 formation. It seems to have led to Louis Saha's rich vein of scoring form, which is what we all wanted to see, and on average we seem to be creating a lot more opportunities for our attacking players.
However I can't help but notice the lack of discipline down the middle of the pitch, namely in the centre of midfield, now that there is no 'pivote' sat in front of the two central defenders.
Further to this, we have in Heitinga and less so in Distin, two ball-playing central defenders, who have become heavily relied upon as an outlet for the players further up the field.
This seems to result in us being much more competent in possession, but can lead to the defence being sucked into the game in the middle of the pitch a bit more, which in turn can catch us out either with good pressing or a misplaced pass.
At 2-3 yesterday, I was having real doubts about this new ethos we have adopted. Leaking goals at home will more often than not result in a loss, and our gung ho approach in the final stages is what salvaged the three points.
It is no coincidence that Marouane Fellaini has excelled in recent weeks, certainly when considering it is his primary duty to break attacking play in the opposition. I've become concerned by the lack of positional discipline by the team now we have emancipated more midfield players to supplement the attack.
This has resulted in more space directly in front of the defensive third for the opposition to make use of.
We showed a great deal of spirit yesterday to eventually win the game, but really to concede three times at Goodison against any team would be poor, and I attribute the lack of positional discipline in the new formation as the main reason, which raises a tough question. Should we continue with what we are doing and employ the 'outscore the opposition' approach, or tweak things slightly to make the system a bit more sturdy?
Is there a middle-ground between how we are playing now and how we used to play, i.e. stifling the opposition and winning games by the odd goal?
However I can't help but notice the lack of discipline down the middle of the pitch, namely in the centre of midfield, now that there is no 'pivote' sat in front of the two central defenders.
Further to this, we have in Heitinga and less so in Distin, two ball-playing central defenders, who have become heavily relied upon as an outlet for the players further up the field.
This seems to result in us being much more competent in possession, but can lead to the defence being sucked into the game in the middle of the pitch a bit more, which in turn can catch us out either with good pressing or a misplaced pass.
At 2-3 yesterday, I was having real doubts about this new ethos we have adopted. Leaking goals at home will more often than not result in a loss, and our gung ho approach in the final stages is what salvaged the three points.
It is no coincidence that Marouane Fellaini has excelled in recent weeks, certainly when considering it is his primary duty to break attacking play in the opposition. I've become concerned by the lack of positional discipline by the team now we have emancipated more midfield players to supplement the attack.
This has resulted in more space directly in front of the defensive third for the opposition to make use of.
We showed a great deal of spirit yesterday to eventually win the game, but really to concede three times at Goodison against any team would be poor, and I attribute the lack of positional discipline in the new formation as the main reason, which raises a tough question. Should we continue with what we are doing and employ the 'outscore the opposition' approach, or tweak things slightly to make the system a bit more sturdy?
Is there a middle-ground between how we are playing now and how we used to play, i.e. stifling the opposition and winning games by the odd goal?
