Why oh Why oh Why are we STILL persisting with a 4-2-3-1 formation, 5 goddamned seasons after it was introduced and 4 seasons after every man and his dog saw through it? Is it something that was put in writing when Martinez was around that it must be used? Koeman was never known to play that way at Southampton yet still used it, Unsy never did and hasn't since at U23 level but felt the need to for the first team and now Fat Sam is persisting with it, even making it worse by playing 3 DMs in one game
Do we really need to be playing 2 DMs in any game, surely one should suffice (preferably Gana when fit) with a more central midfielder in front of him or even a back to basics 4-4-2 with two actual wingers and 2, yes two, strikers. Can't make thing any worse surely?
Martinez had the 2 in Barry and Mccarthy who would sit in if/when Coleman and Baines moved forward, a strength we had actually developed under Moyes in years previously. Martinez recognised this as our key strength and set us up in such away to exploit it. Because of this, we were often on the front foot in the 1st season. Unfortunately, the 2nd season, we started conceding more in the early games and looked vulnerable. While I still believe it was a bad patch and we were suffering from a combination of individual errors and bad luck (Chelsea game being a prime example), there was a mad panic to fix it, while it wasn't necessarily as broken as some thought, as backed up by the stats that Martinez 2nd season was actually out best defensive performance from an expected goals perspective in any of the last 8 years.
But regardless, the panic set in, and In response to that, it seemed that we stopped pushing our fullbacks on as often, and certainly not as effectively, in an attempt to tighten up, and in doing so, we lost a lot of our attacking impetus, which caused us to go through a period where we struggled for goals. It was largely put down to the possession based football we were playing, although we had used that tactic effectively the year before as well. The main difference was the alteration to the tactics we used with our fullbacks.
Under Koeman, his 1st and lasting principle was to prove that everything Martinez stood for was wrong, and the most obvious way of doing this was to make us more compact and direct. He did this by continuing to pick 2 or more defensive midfield players, and still restricting the forward movement of the fullbacks (see the drop off in goals and assists from these positions under him, and the frequency of the fullbacks, notably Baines, going backwards to Williams every time he received the ball on or beyond the half way line).
The problem in Koemans 2nd season, which we all know, is that rather than building on the solidity but increasing our goal threat, he managed to make us less solid by refusing to to upgrade an aging defence, selling and/or falling out with the majority of our quick/creative players, and replacing them with expensive inferior players with seemingly no idea how they would fit into the side. Simply, he had no plan and got found out, and after removing or alienating the remainder of all the Martinez signings, had noone left to blame.
Allardyce is then left in a situation where he has a team that cannot score and concedes lots of goals. He is entirely right to tighten up in any way he can, and early on, the obvious organisation, shape and game plan he introduced helped us gain some important points. But then came the inevitable negativity from the fans, like the purple patch we just had means any drop off in performance proves he is the wrong man.
He has been here 2 months and is still to see all of our players in a competitive scenario, or in some cases, even train.This is not his squad, it is going to take time. He's not a magician.
And yes, it's disappointing that we have dropped off again recently, but he is lumbered with a terribly unbalanced squad full of some of the worst professionals and characters we've ever had at the club.
At what point does it stop being the managers (4 and counting) losing the players, and become the players just not being good enough or having the right attitude?
This squad needs a massive overhaul, and there's not a manager in the world or the history of the game who could turn this around in this space of time.
In the meantime, get used to multiple defensive mids, because they are literally the only players we have to pick from.