• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Sandro, Parker, Modric should be in every starting line up

Had we scored from a set piece, this conversation wouldn't even be happening despite playing exactly the same way. If we had played brick we'd all be crying about how Sunderland battered us, and how we deserved to lose 3-0. We played well, but lacked a cutting edge against a very stubborn tough defence. That is not playing brick. We've played worse than that this season and won comfortably.

I don't know about COYS, but there are normally quite a few of us that have some critical things to say if the team underperforms, but still wins. Normally those discussions have to go on in between "sheesh, you guys are never happy are you, why not just enjoy the win?" type posts, but they are there.
 
I am someone that thought those 3 would work - I thought Sandro and Parker would sit deep and protect the centre backs

Which would allow Modric free reign to link with the front 3 of Bale, Adebayor and VdV

And also allow the full backs to push on, as there are 4 purely defensive players in the middle





It seems I was wrong - Parker and Sandro are incapable of linking play to Modric, and Modric is incapable of being a goal threat

On paper it seems easy - all Parker and Sandro have to do is give it to a footballer, and sit back

But it didn't work at all today, not one bit - mainly because we were so narrow

Ironically it might work better with Modric not in the team.... VdV taking his place... and Lennon playing the right of the front 3 (with Bale staying wide left)
 
I don't know about COYS, but there are normally quite a few of us that have some critical things to say if the team underperforms, but still wins. Normally those discussions have to go on in between "sheesh, you guys are never happy are you, why not just enjoy the win?" type posts, but they are there.

I've been optimistic the whole season, but we've fallen in to second gear, and we can't finish 3rd without being on top form
 
They can change for everyone.

My point is that you are saying we need to drastically improve from our poor form, yet I think we are improving. We are picking up points again, and played very well at Chelsea, and against Swansea.

City could well turn over arsenal, and I think we will beat Norwich. Thats 4pts with arsenal having to go to Wolves on Tuesday.
 
All this proves is you don't play the same formation every game.
What works against an attacking team like Swansea isn't gonna work against defensive team like Sunderland.
 
But we only scored against Swansea when we changed that formation and brought Lennon on, we only scored against Bolton when we brought Defoe on.

All the evidence suggest it does not work.
 
I am someone that thought those 3 would work - I thought Sandro and Parker would sit deep and protect the centre backs

Which would allow Modric free reign to link with the front 3 of Bale, Adebayor and VdV

And also allow the full backs to push on, as there are 4 purely defensive players in the middle





It seems I was wrong - Parker and Sandro are incapable of linking play to Modric, and Modric is incapable of being a goal threat

On paper it seems easy - all Parker and Sandro have to do is give it to a footballer, and sit back

But it didn't work at all today, not one bit - mainly because we were so narrow

Ironically it might work better with Modric not in the team.... VdV taking his place... and Lennon playing the right of the front 3 (with Bale staying wide left)

You're right, it didn't really work. It's not really because we were too narrow either, in my opinion at least.

When a team sits back like Sunderland did and we want to build from the back like we do step one will always be to bypass their midfield (first level of pressure) and get the ball to attacking players in good positions in the final third. Since they are well organized this won't be easy, they won't be giving away much space. Playing two out and out wingers will help, but only to some extent.

What we have to do is to pass the ball quickly, make them run, make them move, change positions and then when some space opens up pass the ball to someone in that space and exploit it. Either you need quick short passing or you need some incisive long balls switching the play from flank to flank. Parker and Sandro, even at the best of days, do not move the ball quickly enough, there are too many sideways and backwards passes and the forward passes aren't accurate enough. What you need are sharp passes that are well weighted, not passes that bobble along and reach their man just in time for the opponents to get organized again. You need passes into space in, or close to, the final third.

And no, we can't just give the ball to the creative players. You simply can't pass through a well organized teams with two passengers in the middle of it all. There aren't enough players in our team.

So I ask again as I have before to those advocating some 4-2-3-1 with Sandro and Parker holding, what team has ever succeeded up at the top of tables with two destroyers in the centre with little to no creativity? I can't think of a single example.
 
But we only scored against Swansea when we changed that formation and brought Lennon on, we only scored against Bolton when we brought Defoe on.

All the evidence suggest it does not work.

We scored 2 goals in the game playing 433 (the 1st and the 3rd one)
You seem to only remember the second goal we scored when we were playing a 4231.
Although what difference the formation made when the Goal was from a corner I dont know.
 
We scored 2 goals in the game playing 433 (the 1st and the 3rd one)
You seem to only remember the second goal we scored when we were playing a 4231.
Although what difference the formation made when the Goal was from a corner I dont know.

Not really the formation, but the players on the pitch, playing with Parker and Sanfro or Livermore is going to cut down the goals we score.

Not playing with JD is also going to cut down the goals we score, not just going to but has. Not starting with Lennon is also going to cut down our chances of scoring.

All about balance . It is important IMO not to get too hang up and the system and formation, not to the point that your most likely goalsscorer hardly gets a look in , or your creative winger is only a late sub.
 
You're right, it didn't really work. It's not really because we were too narrow either, in my opinion at least.

When a team sits back like Sunderland did and we want to build from the back like we do step one will always be to bypass their midfield (first level of pressure) and get the ball to attacking players in good positions in the final third. Since they are well organized this won't be easy, they won't be giving away much space. Playing two out and out wingers will help, but only to some extent.

What we have to do is to pass the ball quickly, make them run, make them move, change positions and then when some space opens up pass the ball to someone in that space and exploit it. Either you need quick short passing or you need some incisive long balls switching the play from flank to flank. Parker and Sandro, even at the best of days, do not move the ball quickly enough, there are too many sideways and backwards passes and the forward passes aren't accurate enough. What you need are sharp passes that are well weighted, not passes that bobble along and reach their man just in time for the opponents to get organized again. You need passes into space in, or close to, the final third.

And no, we can't just give the ball to the creative players. You simply can't pass through a well organized teams with two passengers in the middle of it all. There aren't enough players in our team.

So I ask again as I have before to those advocating some 4-2-3-1 with Sandro and Parker holding, what team has ever succeeded up at the top of tables with two destroyers in the centre with little to no creativity? I can't think of a single example.

Excellent post Braineclipse, I like you.

The thing that I was most disappointed with today was our lack of energy, tempo and urgency. We were too cautious and slow in our passing and movement. Parker was immense against Swansea because we were playing to his strengths - pressing high up the pitch to trying and win the ball back. But against teams who park the bus he is pretty useless (in the literal sense of the word). I think Sandro has the ability to be more positive with the ball (as he showed against Swansea), but he had an off day today.
 
You're right, it didn't really work. It's not really because we were too narrow either, in my opinion at least.

When a team sits back like Sunderland did and we want to build from the back like we do step one will always be to bypass their midfield (first level of pressure) and get the ball to attacking players in good positions in the final third. Since they are well organized this won't be easy, they won't be giving away much space. Playing two out and out wingers will help, but only to some extent.

What we have to do is to pass the ball quickly, make them run, make them move, change positions and then when some space opens up pass the ball to someone in that space and exploit it. Either you need quick short passing or you need some incisive long balls switching the play from flank to flank. Parker and Sandro, even at the best of days, do not move the ball quickly enough, there are too many sideways and backwards passes and the forward passes aren't accurate enough. What you need are sharp passes that are well weighted, not passes that bobble along and reach their man just in time for the opponents to get organized again. You need passes into space in, or close to, the final third.

And no, we can't just give the ball to the creative players. You simply can't pass through a well organized teams with two passengers in the middle of it all. There aren't enough players in our team.

So I ask again as I have before to those advocating some 4-2-3-1 with Sandro and Parker holding, what team has ever succeeded up at the top of tables with two destroyers in the centre with little to no creativity? I can't think of a single example.

Man Utd (Ince/Keane), Arsenal (Vieira plus one of many DM's he played alongside), Chelsea (Makelele and Essien) and potentially, but somewhat unlikely now, Emirates Marketing Project over the last couple of years.
 
Man Utd (Ince/Keane), Arsenal (Vieira plus one of many DM's he played alongside), Chelsea (Makelele and Essien) and potentially, but somewhat unlikely now, Emirates Marketing Project over the last couple of years.

Vieira and Essien were/are much, much more well rounded players than either Sandro or Parker. Ince was a bit before my time
 
I think it was a bit unfair as well. Other than Makelele, the players cited were excellent all-rounders; decent on-the-ball players who were more than capable of adding to their team's attacking threat when it was appropriate, albeit that their roles were nominally those of defensive midfielders.
 
I have always hated that line up. The only times it has "worked" were against Manchester United but that was with Livermore in Sandro's place. (He showed some decent passing that day.) We lost, but the tactics worked. SAF made a mistake in the first half by trying to contain instead of press and he admitted that. The other time people might say that it worked was at home against Swansea, but we looked far better later in the game in our usual shape. The midfield did well, as did the rest of the team pressing and making sure they only had it along their back line. (Sound familiar?)


The formation is horrible. Our best team is:

.........................................Friedel

Walker................Kaboul.....................King................BAE
....v........................................................................v
....v........................................................................v

...........................^
...^......................^............................^
Lennon................Parker.....................Modric..............Bale
...v.....................................................v....................v
...v...........................................................................v

...................................^
..................................VDV
....................................v
....................................v

............................................Ade




4-4-1-1. The full backs are extremely offensive and cause 2v1s against teams that don't have wingers that track back, Parker doesn't go forward and helps cover in the event that we lost possession. King has exceptional passing ability and great positional sense. Kaboul has very good pace. The combination of the two center backs means if a full back is too far forward to defend a counter attack, we have a lot of cover for this.

Our Wingers create the space for the middle. They stop teams from defending entirely through the middle because no team can afford to leave Bale and Lennon in acres of space, with help from our full backs our extremely fast wingers are a major threat in normal play or when we counter. As for Bale, he doesn't track back quite as much as Lennon against most teams because we leave him forward to counter, I think Harry likes to make defenders think of Maicon's nightmare but if a team doesn't allow their full back and possibly 1 other player to be pegged back by Bale just standing there, they leave themselves open to devastating counter attacks.

Parker is closer to the typical defensive midfielder most teams have at least one of. He stays back, this allows at least one of our full backs to get forward at all times, it also stops a counter attack from being our biggest weakness. He is more like a terrier than a Hudds/Romeu/Xabi Alonso/Busquets, but he doesn't fill in at the back in the manner that a lot of DMs do. He isn't a huge guy in the air like Barca tend to use for their DMs. With 2 CMs, he knows to stay back. He is more disciplined than Sandro when started out and he is far less prone to doing something really stupid. You can also usually trust him when he's been booked to not get another. (Arsenal was the exception, not the status quo.)

Modric, he is a deep playmaker, he can tackle, defend and make things difficult for opponents but he is the one of the two CMs that is encouraged to go forward at times, especially when we camp on the edge of the opposition box. Hudds is more like Xabi Alonso than Modric, I'd say Modric is Xavi's style of play but in Xabi Alonso's position. Or maybe Xavi's position 10 years ago. Modric is like a wall that'll redirect the ball to a team mate. You all know what he does, anyway the point is to say that he is slightly more offensively inclined than Parker in this formation.

VDV: We come to the best thing about this formation and the reason for the formation. In this formation VDV is half midfielder, half striker. He gives the impression that we have 3 men in CM or 2 strikers. Goals, assists and more running than he gets credit for, one of our best passers and one of our best finishers. This is his best position. Hell to mark and is in a position to work with Modric in the middle of the pitch to pass their way through a team. Technical players in the middle and pace out wide.

Ade: The reason we can play this formation. I know Saha has come in now, but at the start of the season Ade was our only Striker that had even half of what was required to be the lone forward in this system. I think this is the position made for Ade. To begin, we'll focus on his runs. The opposition has 2 CBs, our wingers are so scary that no team will trust their wingers to mark them, especially with our full backs likely to support our wingers too... So the opposition has 1 or 2 men on Bale, with the second wide man having an eye on BAE. Lennon has one man on him and the other wide man has his eye on Walker. VDV is wandering around somewhere between their midfield and defence, if the opposition has a DM, chances are he's keeping an eye on VDV, it would be extremely dangerous to make a CB do it.

At this stage, you should have a general idea of where all their players are lining up against our players, say Modric has the ball on the edge of their third, one midfielder is closing him down...


When we're in possession like this, when we're in our shape, when they're in their shape. Ade has the potential to make a run that drags one CB completely out of the way. The rest of our attacking players now have space, Ade makes extremely intelligent runs, he is a real team player.

As far as Ade's other qualities, his passing and link up play, his knock downs and general qualities as an assist machine make him ideal for this position, he does score goals too, he's not a Zamora/Heskey, but he's not the most clinical striker by a long distance. He is a tall, strong guy that's very good in the air and the most vital thing about him is he is capable of using his gigantic ass to shield the ball from a bunch of players in order for our players to get there and support him. He has very good ball control and he's not slow either.
 
Last edited:
Believe it or not, that's the short version. Anyway, that's our formation. The Sandro + Modric + Parker midfield completely destroys that.


Before I get into exactly why the midfield combination destroys it, I'd just like to remind you that City were boring boring City for playing 2 strict DMs (De Jong and Barry), even playing Milner and Yaya Toure as deep midfielders would make a 2 DM system much more dynamic than that 3 deep midfielder system. I'm not saying Modric is deployed as a strict DM but he is a deep CM. Emirates Marketing Project like a 4 3 (2 deep 1 offensive triangle) 3, it lets both of their full backs get forward at the same time, they play 3 forwards and when they don't play 2 pure destroyers, they do have a sort of balance.

With those 3 midfielders Harry plays a 4-5-1. VDV is out of position on the right, it is madness to expect Bale, VDV and Ade to be able to create anywhere near as many chances in that system, even with Modric trying to find them with passes. Walker ends up having to provide all the width on the right and Bale removes all our width on the left when he roams. Our entire attack has one added step to it.

Usually our build up is quick and focuses on unleashing a winger or a quick pass/flurry of passes through the middle. We also have an incredible counter attacking threat. Switching Lennon for Sandro does not add to that counter attacking threat, moving VDV from his best position to the right wing is a downgrade defensively and is unbalancing offensively. But that step this formation adds is simple: CB > Parker or Sandro > Modric > Winger or Ade. Finding Modric is now a key step. Sure, Sandro or Parker might be able to pass to a full back that might be able to pass to a winger, but that's still one extra step. Not to mention VDV is not a "winger" in the same sense that Lennon is. He isn't going to fly down the pitch at light speed... If we want a right sided player to fly down the pitch at light speed, it has to be Walker, so he has to run a hell of a long way to get to where Lennon would be, then has to run even more after already having ran a ton. The time lost and the fact Walker doesn't have Lennon's control/crossing ability and won't have VDV overlapping all the time means this is much harder than it needed to be.

If the opposition don't give Modric space, our entire strategy is screwed unless Sandro and Parker are capable of making a run forward (with or without using passes), in that situation it's got to be asked what they are there for. If we wanted an offensive midfielder, we could have played one. That extra step of having to find Modric and hoping he isn't marked is going to cost us if the opposition manager has even the slightest bit of tactical awareness. (Even if he doesn't, Modric is on the radar of everyone that plays against us, so a lazy way of playing against someone is to try to stop their best players and hoping for the best, this formation even comes apart against even the weakest opposition tactics.)

With the exception of King, putting 2 CBs alongside Sandro and Parker means that 5 of our 11 players will rely on someone else to get our attacks started.

I will slightly exaggerate something in order to get my point across:

..........................Friedel
.....Walker........Dawson.....Dawson....BAE
.......VDV...Dawson...Modric...Dawson...Bale
.............................Ade


What is that team supposed to do? It's a formation set up to try and win the ball back but why give it away so much to begin with? When that team gets the ball back, it isn't going to keep it and it isn't even going to have the meaningful possession of a stronger technical side.


To further illustrate my point, here are two extremes:

.......................Dawson (GK)

Dawson.....Dawson..(C).....Dawson...Dawson

Dawson....Dawson...Dawson...Dawson...Dawson

..........................Dawson



.........................Xavi (GK)

..Xavi.............Xavi..........Xavi..........Xavi

..............Xavi.......Xavi..(C)......Xavi

........Xavi...............Xavi................Xavi



As much as I love Dawson and think he'd make a better goalkeeper than Xavi, I think the second team would be far harder to play against. If you're thinking "that's not fair, Xavi is a better player", you're right, that's sort of the point. Sandro and Parker are good players, but they're not world class passers, against the weaker teams, we don't need that kind of destructive power. Against the stronger teams, we need people that can play the ball. 1 Destroyer is fair enough, they can usually find a safe pass, but don't rely on destroyers to form the core of your midfield, if a team presses Parker, Sandro, Kaboul, Gallas and Friedel, Gallas is the only one that wouldn't panic. Freidel would play it safe at hoof it (long, not to a winnable aerial battle with a short full back or something, but to one of their CBs), but we wouldn't have possession. If they tried to contain instead of pressing, we'd have to find Modric in order to play the ball forward meaningfully.

Just to compare with my opening 4-4-1-1 here is the 4-5-1.



.........................................Friedel

Walker......................Kaboul...............King...................BAE
......v.........................................................................v
......v.........................................................................v

.............................^..........................^
.............................^..............^..........^
............VDV........Sandro........Modric....Parker..........Bale
...............\..............................v............................v
................\...........................................................v


..........................................Ade


No counter attack is going to hurt us, this might be a nice "shut up shop" formation but VDV isn't going to track someone like Baines, Lennon would and he'd add width too, but with personal changes you could throw Hudds in the middle and this formation wouldn't suck as bad either. Still, with these players, the major pro is that the middle of the pitch is packed. (That's the con when we attack btw.) If a team uses wing play, our 4-4-1-1 wing play, they rip this team apart by bypassing the middle of the park. This formation is easy to defend against, Bale, VDV and Ade are the goal threats. Modric, Walker and BAE are the secondary threats used in build up play (but not actually likely to directly assist often as the goal threats), Sandro and Parker are the stand out weak links offensively. This team includes King because the 4-4-1-1 included him, I want to be fair, having King will strengthen this team when pressed and will offer one fast ball in front of BAE, and one ball in front of either winger.

VDV will come inside, our right side is narrow, Walker has to do a lot more work to make us look like we have two wings. If Modric wants to play a one-two through midfield he must use Sandro or Parker unless Bale is inside (if he is, we have no wings).... We're wasting a position. VDV is going to play just in front of Sandro, Sandro will defensively cover for him on the right wing and will try to defensively cover Walker too.

You don't even need many defensively minded outfield players to stop this. I know RBs and LBs tuck inside and offer cover for CBs against a 4-4-2, but Bale and VDV are too dangerous to be left to wingers, this formation uses 1 striker, so the 2 CBs should be able to take care of him. RB and LB look after VDV and Bale, 1 midfielder makes sure Modric never has space, make wingers aware of Walker and BAE as they are the only other attacking players in this system.

It's not an offensive formation, it is a defensive one. Defensively, it's good if you need to dedicate 1 DM to man marking Messi and 1 DM to destroy or mark the space in front of your box. If we were playing Barca and used all three deep midfielders for something defensively (which would make sense, Modric doesn't have to be able to tackle as well as Sandro or Parker, but he can tackle well anyway), you have a system that would offer some pros defensively. I think it'd have some serious flaws, Alves would make Bale track back and would remove all our counter attacking threat, VDV would have to come inside to make up for Sandro marking Messi, or because when Messi drops deep, they have 4 men in the middle of the pitch, which they also have when Pique joins the midfield.

To be honest, I feel that the 4-5-1 wouldn't hold out defensively against Barca for a ton of reasons, but I can only see its use as a defensive formation, so I'm trying to highlight the few good points I can see. I know this has been a long post, so I don't want to stray too much, but we believe we can beat everyone in the Premier League, we believe we can beat them relying on our offense rather than our defence. So what is this 4-5-1 for? Harry doesn't play VDV and Bale as forwards, so it's not a 4-3-3, the fact that Sandro + Modric + Parker in the same team have never given us a good offensive performance in this formation leaves me wondering if Harry plays this purely because Sandro is one of our better subs. Hudds is injured and earlier in the season people were debating Parker vs Sandro, so perhaps Harry considers him our 12th best player?
 
Last edited:
Man Utd (Ince/Keane), Arsenal (Vieira plus one of many DM's he played alongside), Chelsea (Makelele and Essien) and potentially, but somewhat unlikely now, Emirates Marketing Project over the last couple of years.

Like Richie already said, Essien and Vieira were a lot more box to box and a lot better going forward than Sandro and Parker. Vieira was also a lot more dynamic and better going forward, he often played alongside Petit, who I at least remember as a very good passer, that could be wrong though.

Keane at least was a very good passer, Ince was also very much thought of as a two-way player, wasn't he?

City did employ two defensive midfielders quite a bit last season, as a result they were boring, and really depended on Tevez to win them games. This season they have changed it, De Jong has gotten a lot fewer games as a result and they try to play at least one good passer in that deep duo. They look a lot better.
 
Back