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Tanguy Ndombele

This is true, but sadly part of Pochs demise as he played the diamond a lot but without the prime players being available for it. (Lo Celso and Ndombele either injured or taking an age to get up to speed).

It is the hardest system to get right though. The wide FBs have to be on point.
The diamond formation needs quite a lot of coaching to get right. I think you have to commit to it and accept that you will have some iffy results as the players adapt to it.
 
I agree he certainly liked, and enjoyed, the diamond, but don't you think he was also seriously investigating 4-3-3? I always maintained that he was increasingly of the mindset that Liverpool's 4-3-3 was the most efficient and effective way to play. I always thought that was why he was so keen to bring Dybala in personally...in fact, I have often wondered if we'd been able to pull the signing off whether we'd be in a very different place today with him still in charge?
No, I think he was looking for the formation that could best counter the 4-3-3. I think that Poch knew he was never going to be allowed to compete with the biggest clubs for players so had to do things in a more clever way. I can remember an interview somewhere where Poch was talking about the diamond being the perfect counter to the 4-3-3, ensuring that you can outnumber the opposition in the key areas. I think Dybala was wanted as an option to play the free role in the 2 up front or at the tip of the diamond.
 
But you want your wide player actually occuping some width, Dybala is very much a central player. He's an old school trequista. He can do a job out wide but he wouldn't be out there very often and the shape wouldn't really be a 433.
Indeed. I don't think either Bruno Fernandes or Dybala were signings that signalled us wanting to move to a 4-3-3. I think they were both signings that would've fitted the diamond very well.
 
Indeed. I don't think either Bruno Fernandes or Dybala were signings that signalled us wanting to move to a 4-3-3. I think they were both signings that would've fitted the diamond very well.
Likewise. I didn't understand it at the time, but in hindsight that's what really makes sense with the attempted signings asking with his previous attempts at playing with the diamond.
 
No, I think he was looking for the formation that could best counter the 4-3-3. I think that Poch knew he was never going to be allowed to compete with the biggest clubs for players so had to do things in a more clever way. I can remember an interview somewhere where Poch was talking about the diamond being the perfect counter to the 4-3-3, ensuring that you can outnumber the opposition in the key areas. I think Dybala was wanted as an option to play the free role in the 2 up front or at the tip of the diamond.

Sadly, thanks to an obsession finally fulfilled, we never got the chance to find out what his Mk II was going to be.
 
Indeed. I don't think either Bruno Fernandes or Dybala were signings that signalled us wanting to move to a 4-3-3. I think they were both signings that would've fitted the diamond very well.

I don't see them as the same (you don't either I'm guessing)...but in a fluid front three, especially one where Kane often drops deep, I think Dybala would've enjoyed himself even in a 4-3-3...
 
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I don't see them as the same (you don't either I'm guessing)...but in a fluid front three, especially one where Kane often drops deep, I think Dybala would've enjoyed himself even in a 4-3-3...
But it's not really a 433 without the wide player on the right. Think of how Son plays the left attacker role, sometimes he's high and wide, sometimes he running inwards, sometimes he's towards the centre. That's a genuine inside forward role.

That's not Dybala's game. He he has a left foot but he's a central AM/SS. He won't be out wide taking on the full back, he's not going to be making those outside to inside runs. It feels like we are suggesting shoehorning him into a fantasy system that in reality just wouldn't work.

Dybala would occupy the space that we've often found Kane in this season, so unless Kane was was going to find himself working wide on the right there would be no one there and hence it wouldn't be a 433. If you have a Bale then yes you can 100% play 433 but with Dybala I just don't see how it works.
 
Who actually plays the diamond formation?
I can’t think of a side that does it

I dont think it matters if no-one uses it currently, football over the years has a history of re-hashing old formations and that becoming the norm. Generally people emulate successful teams so if using a diamond formation worked for us other teams would adopt.
 
He's playing in a dysfunctional team that lack just a out everything. Often there are no one to play it to.
Mourinho is not the manager for a cm of his ilk. He's never previously played a CM with his playstyle and I'm fairly certain he would never have bought him in the first place.
 
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