AVB's System, 4-3-3, and the Transfer Window

[Rossi22]

I said Bale doesn't want to move wide and spend half the game tracking back to help his full back and I was met with people saying wide forwards don't do that, but now we're agreeing that 433 and 4231 are 451 when defending? Hmmm.

Bale is a 10 now, there's no 10 in 433 so unless we sell Bale then it's not going to happen. Lennon has played as an orthodox winger for most of his life, probably too late for him to become a "wide forward" now. His goal against Arsenal was a typical wide forward kind of goal so maybe he does have it in hm but those moments have been very rare over his Spurs career.

 

[Jordinho]

I said Bale doesn't want to move wide and spend half the game tracking back to help his full back and I was met with people saying wide forwards don't do that, but now we're agreeing that 433 and 4231 are 451 when defending? Hmmm.

Bale is a 10 now, there's no 10 in 433 so unless we sell Bale then it's not going to happen. Lennon has played as an orthodox winger for most of his life, probably too late for him to become a "wide forward" now. His goal against Arsenal was a typical wide forward kind of goal so maybe he does have it in hm but those moments have been very rare over his Spurs career.

Can't remember seeing that, but I have said that playing wide in a front 3 is different from being a winger in a 4-4-2. They both have to track back when we need to defend though. A 4-3-3 requires the FBs to get forward even more, assuming the role of the wingers.

 

[billyiddo]

Bale playing as the right sided forward, cutting in and supporting the striker centrally, wouldn't have to track back and defend anymore than he currently does. Why does it keep getting brought up :S

 

[Spursalot]

I said Bale doesn't want to move wide and spend half the game tracking back to help his full back and I was met with people saying wide forwards don't do that, but now we're agreeing that 433 and 4231 are 451 when defending? Hmmm.

Bale is a 10 now, there's no 10 in 433 so unless we sell Bale then it's not going to happen. Lennon has played as an orthodox winger for most of his life, probably too late for him to become a "wide forward" now. His goal against Arsenal was a typical wide forward kind of goal so maybe he does have it in hm but those moments have been very rare over his Spurs career.

He's a wide right forward for his country, and scores goals regularly there.


But wait, surely Bale is an egotistical maniac now who plays wherever he wants? So why has he chosen to play wide right for Wales?


I think Lennon would do fine as a wide forward. He hasn't really been that orthodox this season at all, he's cut inside the pitch as much as he's gone wide.

 

[Rossi22]

I watched his last two games for Wales and he played as the central striker.

 

[Spursalot]

I watched his last two games for Wales and he played as the central striker.

Fair cop, previous to that he's been wide right. If he's convinced that he'll be an effective force than he'll play wherever he's told to play. He seems like an intelligent enough guy.


If we were going to stick him back at left back then i'd agree he wouldn't do it. It's not left back though. It's a right forward position. Just point out how Hulk faired there and i don't think Bale would suddenly throw a strop and refuse to play.


Edit: His goal against Emirates Marketing Project was a perfect example of how he could be effectively utilised there.

 

[Wriggly]

Didnt we start horribly bad at the start of the season trying to play a 4-3-3, then AVB saw sense and went to a 4-4-2 in which we started to play better ? And no, it had fudge all to do with not having players that can play 4-3-3 before I start hearing that excuse.

 

[Spursalot]

Didnt we start horribly bad at the start of the season trying to play a 4-3-3, then AVB saw sense and went to a 4-4-2 in which we started to play better ? And no, it had fudge all to do with not having players that can play 4-3-3 before I start hearing that excuse.

In all honesty i thought we started as a 4-2-3-1, with Van Der Vaart/Dempsey/Sig behind Defoe, but i could be mistaken.


Then we switched to a 4-4-2 when Ade was fit/available.


Now we seem to shift between 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1.

 

[Mumorn]

Fair cop, previous to that he's been wide right. If he's convinced that he'll be an effective force than he'll play wherever he's told to play. He seems like an intelligent enough guy.


If we were going to stick him back at left back then i'd agree he wouldn't do it. It's not left back though. It's a right forward position. Just point out how Hulk faired there and i don't think Bale would suddenly throw a strop and refuse to play.


Edit: His goal against Emirates Marketing Project was a perfect example of how he could be effectively utilised there.

not to mention his assist for Dempseys goal too.

 

[Gutter Boy]

Going by your description, which matches with the limited info i have on his porto sides, i think Sandro and Bale are the only perfect fits here really (outside of gk/defence)

Of our transfer targets I think Leandro fits the poacher role quite well, going by the youtube videos i have seen whilst two other players who we have been heavily linked to (Moutinho and Willian) would also fit in very well but it's not likely we'll get either of those this coming window.

Had AVB got his targets i have little doubt it is the system we'd see here :

--------------Sandro
------Dembele Moutinho
---Bale-----Leandro---Willian

So i believe it is the direction we are moving in, even if we haven't particularly played that way much during the season OR have the perfect set of attacking players for it just yet.

Will be interesting to see what direction we go in the summer

-----------Sandro
----Dembele---Clasie/Holtby
---Bale---Osvaldo---Lennon/Dempsey

maybe more what we are looking at now.

Asked in the transfer thread, would AVB/Anybody go for Remy now QPR is down?

Hope not - a poor man's Dempsey with an injury record that makes Anderton look healthy.

 

[Rossi22]

That midfield wouldn't create anything, it's basically just saying "we'll hold the fort and hope Bale does something to win us the game".

 

[Spursalot]

-----------Sandro
----Dembele---Clasie/Holtby
---Bale---Osvaldo---Lennon/Dempsey

maybe more what we are looking at now.

All your front three are going to be trying to move inside. You'll just end up with an extremely narrow point of attack, and you won't stretch their defence.


Either Bale or Lennon/Dempsey need to be keeping the width. None of them will on those sides.


Bale - Striker - Townsend would be a more theoretically sound front three, but not sure whether Townsend would be good enough.


This won't be popular, but i would not be surprised if Lennon was either sold or a bit part player next season.

 

[DMac]

-----------Sandro
----Dembele---Clasie/Holtby
---Bale---Osvaldo---Lennon/Dempsey

maybe more what we are looking at now.





Hope not - a poor man's Dempsey with an injury record that makes Anderton look healthy.

Problem though I think is that Dembele doesn't really suit that position. He's extremely left footed and from what I've seen looking at AVB's previous teams, he expects that player to be able to bomb forward into the area between the left back and striker. But that suits a right footed player a lot more than a left footer. I'm not sure how AVB would solve that problem.

I do think Clasie would be an excellent player for that other midfield position though.

 

[braineclipse]

I said Bale doesn't want to move wide and spend half the game tracking back to help his full back and I was met with people saying wide forwards don't do that, but now we're agreeing that 433 and 4231 are 451 when defending? Hmmm.

Bale is a 10 now, there's no 10 in 433 so unless we sell Bale then it's not going to happen. Lennon has played as an orthodox winger for most of his life, probably too late for him to become a "wide forward" now. His goal against Arsenal was a typical wide forward kind of goal so maybe he does have it in hm but those moments have been very rare over his Spurs career.

Any basis for saying that bale doesn't want to track back? Or that he wouldn't want to play as a wide forward in a 4-3-3?

If he actually said something like that to AVB I think he should be sat down and watch the four CL semi final games that were just played, paying attention to the defensive work of Robben, Ribery, Muller, Götze, Kuba and Reus in particular. If he's still refusing to do the job being asked of him defensively I would seriously question his mentality.

Too late for him to become a "wide forward" now? 6 months ago he wasn't thought of as a number 10 at all, but now a position between that number 10 role and his winger role is impossible for him?

He's a fudging superstar, he can do well in several positions.

Wingers/wide forwards in 4-3-3 usually will have less defensive responsibility than wingers in 4-4-2. How teams defend vary, 4-5-1 is an option for sure, depends on game dynamics.

 

[Rossi22]

He said he enjoys playing centrally most and in his POTY speech he said "I used to play wide" suggesting he doesn't want to move back there.

As for the second part, my post quite clearly says Lennon so I suggest you read it back.

 

[braineclipse]

He said he enjoys playing centrally most and in his POTY speech he said "I used to play wide" suggesting he doesn't want to move back there.

As for the second part, my post quite clearly says Lennon so I suggest you read it back.

My bad about Lennon

I think he can work fine a 4-3-3 if given the chance, you don't need both wide men in a 4-3-3 to be cutting inside scoring loads of goals, there's room for a winger.

 

[elltrev]

Bale playing as the right sided forward, cutting in and supporting the striker centrally, wouldn't have to track back and defend anymore than he currently does. Why does it keep getting brought up :S

Does that mean you're proposing the three central midfielders defend as a 'bank', shifting horizontally across the pitch to cover opposing full-backs?

 

[Spursalot]

My bad about Lennon

I think he can work fine a 4-3-3 if given the chance, you don't need both wide men in a 4-3-3 to be cutting inside scoring loads of goals, there's room for a winger.

The issue being if you play Bale on the right, so he cuts in on his stronger foot, then you can't play Lennon there to keep the width.


I wouldn't be that surprised if Bale was the central player in the front three either really.

 

[Rossi22]

I don't know why we can't just keep Bale central where he's killing it, keep Lennon in the team and just buy a creative playmaker on the left and a striker. Rather than shoehorning players into a system that doesn't fit.

 

[Spursalot]

I don't know why we can't just keep Bale central where he's killing it, keep Lennon in the team and just buy a creative playmaker on the left and a striker. Rather than shoehorning players into a system that doesn't fit.

Like we kept Bale out on the left when he was killing it? You move him because you think he can do an even better role. It's pretty simple really.


We've been through this before. It's not shoehorning. We have the players to play 4-3-3 in the squad.


Ok well maybe not the striker to play 4-3-3, but we don't really have the strikers to play any formation.