Today is WAY more important. Its how football is. 3rd/4th is the new 2nd so to speak. Finishing 3rd not only would it be a massive achievement but would also go a long long way to getting the players we need to go for the title etc. It will also go a long way to keeping the players we have.
Finishing 3rd gives double the TV money from the Champion's League that 4th gives, it gives 775kish extra prize money from the Premier League placings and means you don't have a potentially tricky extra round before the Champion's League.
To the people that said we needed Gallas, he is short. His passing, work on the ground and stuff is great, but he's short. Norwich had the most headed goals in the league a couple of months ago when I last checked, their goals usually come from crosses or set pieces. They are a crossing side with good wing play. Harry started King and Kaboul because of this. He couldn't know King would have such a bad day. Norwich have big strikers and don't usually pass teams to death.
To the people that cheered 4-4-2, we were forced to go long for much of the game and that played into Norwich's hands. They have been used to that for ages and can defend against it, especially when we had Saha and Defoe up top.
People complaining about the formation and we should have stuck to our old one. Last match people were complaining about the formation and should go back to 442...
It's not the formation. It's the confidence, the belief. It's been drained and it should be harrys job to instil it.
The confidence and belief are indeed Harry's job. He's a motivator, not a master tactician. But the fact Harry is happy to play a 7-2-1 against a park the bus team and a 3-4-3 against a team that won't give us the ball to attack them all match is not a sign that formations don't matter at all, it's a sign that he turns up to a match unsure how it will play out until half time, by which time it is usually too late. (See Arsenal matches for this mindless optimism.) Team selection matters and Harry seems to only know extremes. He could have played the Sunderland formation with Kranj and Livermore instead of Sandro and Parker and the entire team dynamic changes (I'm not saying he should have). In a match against a team trying to outplay us, trying to press, trying to win in an open match, Harry put out Livermore and Modric with Defoe and Saha ahead of them, that's extremely light on the defensive side, but against Sunderland he was insanely heavy on defensive play. The away match was against a team parking the bus, we had insane possession. The home game was against a side really going for it, we had meh possession. It's not as simple as playing one way in home games and one way in away games. Know the team you play against, know their tactics, know our own team.
I totally agree with you about confidence and belief being important. If tactics were everything then AVB would have taken our league by storm, but Harry seems to always overcompensate for previous mistakes in totally different matches. (For example, Defoe should have played more than 8 minutes against Sunderland, so today he started with Saha.)
To the people mentioning the Norwich game at Old Trafford, that's exactly why some people wanted a solid setup with a good strong team. We should win our home games, especially those against 2nd half teams (which they were when we kicked off). If Harry had seen a DVD or it, maybe he'd have prepared for a team that try to win in an open attacking style. I know he knows about the way they score, but why does he always assume we'll control the midfield regardless of our team? If we'd have set up 4-4-1-1 we'd have been able to outnumber their midfield and we'd have had a tactical advantage. It is so disappointing to see BAE look for about 5 seconds for someone to pass to before having to play it long because our CMs weren't free. You can tell when he's looking for people to pass short. As for our defending, we got into a slugging match with Norwich, their defending looked suicidal for the first 5 minutes because they were trying to attack so much, our defending turned out to be really bad and later in the match, passing quickly to avoid pressing ended up being the only way we created chances.
We should be able to control a game more than Man United, even at Old Trafford. That's what we do. Man United score more goals and stuff, but possession and passing are our things. So with preparation (especially at Man United had no way of knowing that was coming), we could have done so much better.
The formation isn't at fault. It's the team selection he fudged up on. He went squad rotation mad and left us unbalanced. Livermore should not have started. Ade or VDV needed to have started alongside Saha OR Defoe.
The team selection is the reason the formation failed hard. With a 4-4-2 without Livermore and with Ade or VDV starting (it has to be Ade, VDV doesn't play in a 4-4-2 except on the wing, which would have been madness), he'd have started alongside Defoe instead of Saha (best case scenario, Saha was bad today and Defoe scored (from a Livermore assist though), that's still not great. With Sandro instead of Livermore we'd be a bit more solid, but we wouldn't have had a tactical advantage.
If we allow squad rotation and switch up the formation, we could play a 4-3-3 with a Livermore, Modric, Kranj triangle in midfield for extreme rotation (think Emirates Marketing Project triangle, Modric and Livermore deep with Kranj at a point a little bit ahead of that) then Lennon and Bale as wingers with Ade in the middle (Just like Modric, I won't rotate Ade without a good reason)... Because Norwich use wingers it means our wingers would have to track back (although because of the deep 2 being in a triangle we would have our deepest, most defensive CMs in a position to help our full backs out too.) Kranj at the point of the triangle helps Modric and Livermore get the ball forwards and Livermore is more than capable of passing the ball in an attempt to imitate Hudds, so going forward we'd be fine. Norwich are weak attacking through the middle, so Kranj wouldn't have to do much defending either.
Now that's an extreme example, but even simply playing our best 11 in a 4-4-1-1 with a like for like Sandro for Parker change would have given us a tactical advantage. That's not even hard. What Harry did was rotate and fudge with our formation, he ended up playing the same formation as Norwich. Norwich got their pressing right, their tactics right and we ended up having to play long balls and not being able to defend for brick. Harry did what he always does, he just expects us to be better without giving our players a helping hand tactically. By the time it got to the 44th minute and Kaboul went off, he couldn't change everything to what he should have started with.
