Oh £#%&! off with your 4-2-3-1 Rooney on the wing

Originally Posted by red red robbo

Sorry, that's %@#$&!s.

If we have 4 defenders, 4 midfielders and two strikers (whether one is withdrawn or not) then it is 4-4-2. 4-4-1-1 is just a more detailed description of the formation.

What is wrong with paying attention to detail?

Anyway,I don't agree...for the reasons detailed in my very long post (which you clearly only read the opening line to and then immediately posted your persuasive 'it's %@#$&!s' argument).

However,even if I were to concede that you're correct* it doesn't change the fact - indeed,it merely heightens it - that people can form the erroneous view that we played a traditional 4-4-2 and not a 4-4-1-1 that frequently led to five men being in midfield and the formation actually being 4-5-1 at specific times - and for prolonged periods of play.





* you're not, in my opinion, because the role of the hole player leads to huge changes in formation and the general style of play during the course of a match.

didn't like the formation, Giggs in the middle instead of Rooney is a joke

but for 83 minutes it looked like it was going to work, it was a freak result in the end just like the C**** game and the West Ham game, and the Newcastle game, but these freak results could cost us very dear in the end

was almost impossible to tell from where we were in the ground but it looked like a clear foul on Evra in the build-up to the equaliser, was it????


Neville cost us the first goal, Heinze cost us the game, although you can blame the entire defence for the winner they all had some part in it


and wtf was var der Sar doing, the header was right at him by Henry, a player who has all the heading ability of a headless chicken

still £#%&!in gutted and not impressed by Fergie's attempts to shrug it off

I should just say that I do echo the sentiments of most of the people on this thread.

I am certainly not an adovcate of 4-5-1/4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1...or any of the incarnations we've been witnesses to since the night Madrid took us apart at Old Trafford with an unmarkable,interchanging three behind Ronaldo.

I have argued for years that Ferguson's strength - and it's a formidable one - is in playing 4-4-1-1 with two wide men that love to attack and two midfielders, both with superb fitness and workrate. He did this at Aberdeen and he did this at United and the trophies flowed in. 'You're going to play 4-5-1 against us?'.. 'fine,we'll work harder than you' ..'you're going to make it a dirty streetfight?'...'fine,£#%&! you,we'll kick you harder'.

This is Ferguson's great secret - he gets his talented players to work harder than other manager's. The moment he moves away from his bread and butter he stops being Fergie.

The issue I have is with the reaction to yesterday - I thought we played well and were extremely unlucky - and with the assertion that in the glory years we never played with five men in midfield,or played more defensively - ie..Butt for Scholes.

Otherwise,I'm with you. I was yawning through those 0-0s at OT with the best of em...'The best form of defence is attack' and all that - but let's not forget that we also came a cropper playing that way at crucial times. We did reach a point in Europe for example where mediocre teams were packing five men in midfield and ripping us apart as we attacked them with 4-4-1-1/4-4-2.

It's clear that what Fergie is after - and what we would all want in ideal world - is a team that can effortlessly switch between 4-4-1-1 (for the staple diet of matches) and an effective 4-5-1/4-3-3/4-2-3-1 (for the really tough away matches). So far it's not really working. The players appear to be uncomfortable switching between formations and positions.

Do we push on with this philosopy in the hope that further down the line it delivers the ultimate team capable of excelling at both or ditch it once and for all ?

We've got into top spot by returning to our old ways. The problems seem to crop up when we go back to 4-5-1. I would say ditch it and take our chances losing the odd match in a blaze of glory.

However,the fact remains that we could easily have lost at the Emirates whatever formation we played and 4-4-1-1 attacking has seen us ripped to shreds by clever teams who counter attack with lethal precision.

^^ that is just so £#%&!ing long you know that no one will read it.



I wouldn't read anyone's post if it was that huge.


10 minutes of my life lost..'like tears in rain'

Originally Posted by Lazarus

^^ that is just so £#%&!ing long you know that no one will read it.

I did.

Originally Posted by Lazarus

I have argued for years that Ferguson's strength - and it's a formidable one - is in playing 4-4-1-1 with two wide men that love to attack and two midfielders, both with superb fitness and workrate. H

We can not play that type of midfield, at least in the managers head, in tough away games, because Scholes does not have superb fitness and workrate. He needs to play because he is our key playmaker, but he does not fit naturally into his traditional 4-4-2. Even when at his peak it needed Keane who was a beast of a player to make it work, and at times we dropped Scholes for Butt to give us a solid shape.

Maybe one of the reason that Rooney plays out wide in these games, his ability to get up and down the pitch takes some of the physical strain of both Scholes and Giggs.

Originally Posted by King Schlong

I did.

Yeah, me too.

Keep 'em coming Laz, what you're saying is bang on the money.

Originally Posted by Lazarus

IDo we push on with this philosopy in the hope that further down the line it delivers the ultimate team capable of excelling at both?

Yes. Rooney has nearly sussed it. Hurrah. I knew he'd get there in the end

We need to sharpen up the passing though, that's the key. It looks dodgy when we lose the ball (give it away as we did too often yesterday) because it takes longer to win it back than in a standard United set-up. United let Arsenal play in front of them in text book fashion. But the passing when we got the ball wasn't great - just simple lay-offs linking plays went astray too often. Get that right and this bunch of players could be devastating even the best opposition.

Originally Posted by Tiberian

We can not play that type of midfield, at least in the managers head, in tough away games, because Scholes does not have superb fitness and workrate. He needs to play because he is our key playmaker, but he does not fit naturally into his traditional 4-4-2. Even when at his peak it needed Keane who was a beast of a player to make it work, and at times we dropped Scholes for Butt to give us a solid shape.

Maybe one of the reason that Rooney plays out wide in these games, his ability to get up and down the pitch takes some of the physical strain of both Scholes and Giggs.

All good points. This is why a Hargreaves or Gattuso would only bolster the midfield. People speculate that it might mean a fulltime return to 4-5-1 but I think it would enhance what he have.

Hargreaves has amazing fitness and workrate. If he'd come on yesterday he'd have covered every blade of grass and helped close the game out. Signing him would allow Scholes or Carrick to be slightly more adventurous. At the moment Scholes has to be disciplined,guard the defence and make sure he doesn't get too far forward as he won't have the pace to get himself back from the edge of the opposition box everytime it breaks down.. He has to pick his moments to go forward as his body ages,of course he does this fantastically because of his experience and intelligence.

Carrick is a good midfielder (despite the constant arguments) his ability to read a match and intercept passes is very good and often prevents him having to put a tackle in. He also seems reluctant to get too far forward and isolate Paul. At the moment it's working brilliantly - we're scoring goals and not conceding many. We are using our passing expertise to defend and as TT points out ..when the passing is sub-par,we can hit difficulties.

When you consider that we've got ourselves in this position,mainly playing 4-4-1-1,with Scholes and Carrick as the central duo,it's an amazing feat and one that I for sure doubted was possible.

But as Scholes ages he will need to rest more - either by a Hargreaves type doing more donkey work beside him,or being on the bench as Carrick and Hargreaves play (I think that would be an interesting partnership).

Scholes is no slouch though..he may not have the fitness and workrate of a Keane or Hargreaves but he has made a career out of being a central midfielder - despite experimentations with him in the hole that held him back imo - and even though he isn't a tackler,he damn well tracks back,closes down space and will always worry about the defence as much as being Hollywood man.

DP