Phoenix playing formation

Phoenix playing formation

Well we have seen two preseason trial games so we should be able to sumise what Ricki's playing formation might be for 2008/2009.

I thhink the idea will be to adjust the formation according to who we are playing, much like last season where at home we played an attacking 4 - 4 - 2 and away we played a little more defensively. My preference is the attacking 4 4 2, we look a lot better with someone up front with Smeltz, especialply as this season he is likely to be quite heavily marked.

in essence your 4-1-4-1 is 4-3-3 which is quite attacking really when you consider gao and bertos wide, and daniel and ferrante giving a bit of freedom with dodd in the holding role, but it could also be construde as 4-5-1 which can leave the target man isolated and see to many players caught behind the ball when going forward, also makes it hard for your full backs to bang on. So in summary if we dont get another quality striker we will be 4-3-3 in possession and 4-5-1 out of possession - ricki is a fan off this system and no one knows it better than him after smalley forced it down his throat for years at NZ Soccer. 4-3-3 allows the likes of lochead and lia to join and offer somthing going forward as well

You are right kilted_kiwi, we do need a ballwinner, and that is where Ronaldunno's second formation is good, because not only is there a genuine physical player there, he is also sitting just behind the midfield and he can clean up for them.  Having said that, I think Ferrante, despite being somewhat small, could easily be aggressive enough to be a good ball-winner.

Personally I prefer Ronaldunno's first formation, the only ammendment I would make is I would play Costa Barbarouses as opposed to Coveny.

[QUOTE

Could have Ferrante as slightly deeper lying playmaker, which would see a 4-2-3-1 formation. Some variety of a 4-3-3 would seem the way to go, unless we sign another gun striker and hopefully are better at fitting him in than Chelsea.

Brown/Dodd would be the ball winners.

Edit: I agree wholeheartedly
Bullion2008-05-29 16:08:20

Well said.

I think if we went 4-4-2 with gao and bertos as the wide players you would be looking at a combination of either Daniel/Ferrante with either Dodd/Johnson/Brown and i think you would probably see them play more of a diamond with one holding and one getting on a bit more or a 60 40 split between them eg. Daniel Ferrante a little bit more attacking and dodd/johnson/brown a bit more defensive.

4-4-2 at home and 4-5-1 away from home probably

Just no bloody 3-5-2's again!!


valeo2008-05-29 17:01:06

i got a feeling hearfield might figure in the starting 11 felipe2008-05-29 17:15:40

I'd use McKain as the ball winner  - he's palyed as a DM before - Dodd doesn't have the pace to play there - use him at the back next to Durante

a point in favour of mckain staying at Cb is that it gives us a bit more fluency than dodd in that position - whilst dodd did occasionally push up in to space in midfield last season, mkain looks even more suited to that role

Yeah I think that with Durante playing at the back Dodd can be the big ugly lump who will chuck his at everything and Durante can tidy up with his extra pace

Sorry but that's a really silly comment. Pace is completely unneeded in the holding role, what you have to have is positional sense and the ability to read the game well. Does Makalele have any pace? No, he's probably the slowest player in the Chelsea squad. Is he the best holding midfielder of his generation? Probably only Gattuso (and he's not too quick either) could come close.

Frankly I'd rather have pace at CB, that's a huge reason why we were exposed defensively so regularly last season. We would over commit going forward and then constantly be punished on the break because our defense weren't organized and lacked the pace to keep up with the opposing forwards. Additionally, McKain is quite a lot taller than Dodd, another attribute more useful at the back then in the middle of the park.  Dodd also has some experience at DM I believe from his time in Scotland, he certainly has the distributional skills and the physicality. Whether he can read the game well remains to be seen.

Man_utd_fan2008-05-29 17:55:41

Here's what I'd go with:

                          Moss

You may have a valid point re/- Makele but recently his pace has seen him exposed and he does pick up yellow cards more than he used too. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of Dodd in the midfield period.

He's not a striker.


That is why the club is on record as saying they wish to sign two more forwards.
Hard News2008-05-29 17:59:44

I'm not comfortable with him in defense! I'd just like to see him have a go at the DMC position, especially as Brown still has fitness concerns and Lia looks like he's going to be at right back. We MUST have somebody playing in that position, especially for away games.
KTBW2008-05-29 18:07:10

As things stand at the moment, any formation I can think of is almost completely toothless up front. If we don't sign at least one more half-decent striker, Smeltz will really struggle to make the kind of impact he did last season.
The McBreen guy is completely useless btw, can't see us signing him.

Dodd did look quite good in the first preseason game playing DMC. He looked composed and well organised plus he wasn't afraid to bark out instructions. We were a bit timid in midfield last season...he could be the person for that role.

Such harsh words, hope they're not reading!

Anyway, I think given how much variety we've had in the 2 games so far, it's too early to predict what formations will be used.
Looks to me like Ricki is experimenting for now.

Wouldn't mind trying Gao up front. He has the pace, and uses both feet effectively.

Having seen the training regimes and things they have I can pretty much guarantee they are as fit or fitter now than they have ever been before... they were all wearing heart monitors last night from what I could see and multiple layers because of the cold.

Lia at right back worries me. I know there's not a hell of a lot of choice at the moment but his defensive midfield play didn't impress at all last season, although he certainly did improve with his ball distribution.

4-3-3 for life.

without signing some more strikers the squad looks best balanced by 4-3-3 or 4-5-1

well unles you throw in coveny or costa we don't really have any options for a striking partner for smeltz, and because those two probably aren't up to the required standard our current prefered formation could look like this : Oska2008-06-01 17:54:07

What about Tony P?

His performance today in the charity match was pretty good...two goals if I recall correctly.

Mc "Big Daddy" Kain needs to be starting IMFHO