Your midfield thoughts and ideas, and mine.

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Sandro
Paulinho Eriksen

Lamela Soldado Townsend
​
I think Sandro is great at that anchor role. Sitting behind, intercepting and winning the ball back then distributing it to Paulinho or Eriksen who can begin to create and bring the ball forward. Paulinho has shown he is skilled in driving past people and creating chances and we all know Eriksen thrives when he has the ball at his feet and people are making smart and intuitive runs.

Lamela needs a forward role too.. he doesn't work in a 442. He needs freedom and not having to worry about defending and once he has that space on the wing he can cut in or go wide or play the overlap to Walker. There's a lot to be said about inverted wingers this season by our fans (mostly negative) but I think this would really work once it is given time and patience. Townsend is quick and his major skill is beating people off the dribble.. once he does this he needs to work on his final ball and find Soldado in the box. Lamela and Townsend can both swap wings too which means they could be swapping roles too which gives us a different dimension.

There is a lot of work to be done but we need to stick to a system and work with it and it WILL pay off. This team is full of so many young and promising players for it not to. Keep the faith
 
Dutchy

Dutchy

After today’s match I philosophized (if that is a correct English verb) about our midfield, thinking of possible formations with different players. Our midfield has been subject to much change and much inconsistency, especially and understandably now with a new manager in charge. What would be your ideal and realistic answer for our midfield? ‘In short’, I myself came to the following conclusion:

I think the key to better results and, almost as important, better football is Eriksen. I say Eriksen and not for example Holtby because i think he is destined for bigger things than him, and not our wingers because they are dependent on the creativity of our midfield. We should not burden him with defensive tasks like today playing him in a two-man midfield (with Holtby ffs). The way to go with our midfield in my opinion, looking at our current set of midfielders and to let Eriksen, our (potentially) best midfielder, excel is to use him and construct our midfield like Ajax did and still does.

One 'defensive' (or 'constructive', as Cruyff and de Boer don't like that word) midfielder whose task should be to boss the opponents' attacking midfielder and as soon as he has the ball should pass it to one of the two other midfielders, preferably the more creative one. The second midfielder should be our, nowadays hot term, box-to-box midfielder, whose task should be to defend ánd attack, possessing technique, stamina, power and the ability to score a goal. The third and final midfielder is the most important one of the three and should, in an ideal situation, be your best player. Eriksen should be this player, in a free roll, free of any tasks. De Boer recognized his class and talent at Ajax and gave him this role, Eriksen in turn paid him back with smart passes, through balls, goals, assists, vision etc.

I know this is a different league and different football is played here, but I think considering Spurs strive for attacking football, our midfield options and most importantly Eriksen’s qualities, a midfield three sketched as above could well be the answer to our midfield inconsistency and lack of creativity.

What do you guys think about our midfield? Should we go with three in the middle (and thus three up top, classic 4-3-3) or not? What do you guys think is our best option formation wise, and who should play? Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.
 
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Arjun said:
The main fault with AVBs 433 is that the players were restricted. They didn't play with freedom and were more worried about defensive duties than their attack.
Click to expand...

and the main problem with Sherwood's 442 so far is that it's been far too indisciplined and gung ho

we need to find a balance between the two, Sherwood seems too concerned with being the 'anti AVB' at the moment - but in reality he isn't even achieving that as the midfield is still too narrow and failing to open teams up
 
Dutchy said:
After today’s match I philosophized (if that is a correct English verb) about our midfield, thinking of possible formations with different players. Our midfield has been subject to much change and much inconsistency, especially and understandably now with a new manager in charge. What would be your ideal and realistic answer for our midfield? ‘In short’, I myself came to the following conclusion:

I think the key to better results and, almost as important, better football is Eriksen. I say Eriksen and not for example Holtby because i think he is destined for bigger things than him, and not our wingers because they are dependent on the creativity of our midfield. We should not burden him with defensive tasks like today playing him a two-man midfield (with Holtby ffs). The way to go with our midfield in my opinion, looking at our current set of midfielders and to let Eriksen, our (potentially) best midfielder, excel is to use him and construct our midfield like Ajax did and still does.

One 'defensive' (or 'constructive', as Cruyff and de Boer don't like that word) midfielder whose task should be to boss the opponents' attacking midfielder and as soon as he has the ball should pass it to one of the two other midfielders, preferably the more creative one. The second midfielder should be our, nowadays hot term, box-to-box midfielder, whose task should be to defend ánd attack, possessing technique, stamina, power and the ability to score a goal. The third and final midfielder is the most important one of the three and should, in an ideal situation, be your best player. Eriksen should be this player, in a free roll, free of any tasks. De Boer recognized his class and talent at Ajax and gave him this role, Eriksen in turn paid him back with smart passes, through balls, goals, assists, vision etc.

I know this is a different league and different football is played here, but I think considering Spurs strive for attacking football, our midfield options and most importantly Eriksen’s qualities, a midfield three sketched as above could well be the answer to our midfield inconsistency and lack of creativity.

What do you guys think about our midfield? Should we go with three in the middle (and thus three up top, classic 4-3-3) or not? What do you guys think is our best option formation wise, and who should play? Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.
Click to expand...
Fucking hell son ,dont you celebrate xmas in holland
 
You described a 4-3-3 midfield. This is what AVB was working with. Notice how we only played Dembele and Paulinho when we didn't have a CAM or a CDM available, yet he got faulted constantly for playing both at the same time. Our team is set up for a 4-3-3 and I'm a huge fan of the system, that is why I mainly want de Boer. Hopefully he can piggyback on everything AVB did and go straight into working with the offensive third because AVB, when with healthy players, had us dominating the back two thirds.
 
Arjun said:
The main fault with AVBs 433 is that the players were restricted. They didn't play with freedom and were more worried about defensive duties than their attack.
Click to expand...

I don't want to become Sammy for Avb, but we played a completely different system last year than this year. Last year focussed on Bale, and Bale alone. This year it was a system which each player had their own roles. Avb was fired 1/3 of the way into the year after having seven new players, two returning loanees, and a completely new system. I can't get over that he was fired... I don't want to discuss this more on a random thread and fill this thread with AVB/Sherwood. So I'll leave it at that.
 
For me, if you are going to play a 4-4-2, you MUST have at least one disciplined holding player, you also need to ensure that your weak-side winger is instucted to protect the full-back should the other team break quickly.
 
Dutchy said:
I see what you mean, but i don't really mean next game. I think it is important to create some sort of vision or philosophy. All succesful teams in history (bar champions league winning Chelsea) have had clear ideas about how to line up and play their game/style. I feel we miss such an own style. Like Arjun pointed out above "we need to stick to a system and work with it and it WILL pay off".
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Hi Dutchy, I take your point. But I don't think we have any clear vision or philosophy ATM, and don't see one emerging, so I just concentrate on game by game.

If I knew enough about football, I'd give you mine in detail. But I don't.

FWIW, I believe in talking about a 'front 6' a la Jol. I think one winger is normally enough. I like a lot of height and power in the team, where possible. Most of all, where players play well they keep their place as much as possible and winning is the key part of any philosophy.
 
If we're going to persist with 442 I'd like to see something like this given a shot

Soldado Ade
Eriksen Sandro Paulinho Lamela
​
With Eriksen drifting in ala Modric and Rose bombing down the wing. Same deal on the other side with Walker and Lamela. One things for sure one of Sandro or Capoue always need to be playing.
 
Lukeyn17 said:
Sandro, Capoue, Eriksen and Lamela

Our four most naturally gifted midfielders.

Fuck knows how that would work, literally no width
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With Rose and Walker we really don't need much width from the midfielders we just need quick intelligent link up play to set them away. Ohh yeah and for them to learn how to cross worth a feck.....
 
Greaves357_bestever said:
For the next game Lamela Paulihno Eriksen Bentaleb, if it's felt we only need one striker then Cap/whoever in for one of the strikers. But I'd rather keep the two strikers for the Stoke game.
Click to expand...
I see what you mean, but i don't really mean next game. I think it is important to create some sort of vision or philosophy. All succesful teams in history (bar champions league winning Chelsea) have had clear ideas about how to line up and play their game/style. I feel we miss such an own style. Like Arjun pointed out above "we need to stick to a system and work with it and it WILL pay off".
 
until we have a medical team that can speed up the recovery, or minimise injuries and correct any weaknesses, be it training methods, physio etc, then we will never get that consistency, and we'll forever be fucking abaaht changing players, player roles etc.

:vdvcry::vdvdive:
 
LLB Part Deux said:
I'd certainly be going with a 4-2-3-1 formation, still pressing in midfield but nowhere near as high up the pitch as AVB liked to play and with a focus on fast distribution from central midfield to the forwards. In an ideal world I'd have liked to keep Huddlestone for that formation (given a lack of evidence that Sandro / Capoue / Dembele / Paulinho are masters at spotting a forward pass) but given the players we have I'd go with:

DM/CM: Sandro (Capoue) / Dembele (Paulinho)
LM: Townsend (Chadli) / Eriksen (Sigurdsson) / Lamela (Lennon)

The only thing I'm unsure of is whether Lamela has the direct pace to exploit that system or whether he'd be better as an alternative to Eriksen in the middle, in order to provide a more direct threat on goal and 2nd forward when breaking fast (otherwise I doubt Eriksen would be bursting into the box to provide an option for the crossing wide player).

Playing infront of that line-up I think Soldado could flourish if we attacked forward with enough pace. He was absolutely the wrong player for AVB's team (as I may have mentioned at the start of the season) but for a fast breaking attack he could be devestating.
Click to expand...

No place for Holtby in there yet people want Bentaleb to start in a 4-4-2
 
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