You beat me to it, Old5. I was just about to remind him of Ronnie Rees. He and Willie made a great combination of wingers.a couple more to add to your list Peter Hill and Ronnie Rees
The 532 is generally considered (by greater tactical experts than me) to be "tactically outmoded". My only real practical experience of this is that it means the formation tends to fail in most computer games, although I did get it working pretty well with Grays Athletic in FM06. I had Gary Hooper and Freddy back at his spiritual home up front though
When the formation did work well it was when it featured not only great attacking wing-backs (Ziege, Lizarazu) but also a libero, ball-playing defender of the likes of Sammer, Matthaus, or...Mark Wright
The Venables Euro 96 formation was a modern take in that it employed wingers as wing-backs, but the unique bonus in that squad was having two full-backs who could do a job at CB in Neville and Pearce. That helped cover the FB positions and brought some additional distribution quality to the back line. Could Cranie and Keogh fulfil that role for us?
The big ingredient that both formations had that we don't is fierce, ball-winning, grafting midfielders to cover yards.
We should give the original "Ajax Formation" a go next: mega-attacking full-backs, one out-an-out forward who can hold the ball up (Lukas or Platt), Gael and Thomas in central attacking midfield roles but dropping deep to cover the full backs, McSeffrey and Bell or possibly Lukas as attacking wide men with freedom to roam but who tuck in when the full-backs bomb-on, Sammy in the anchor role dropping in for Keogh in the Libero role, with Deegan (if fitter than last game!) in front of him and between the two more attacking CM's. Maybe that was the Plan B Thorn has been working on in the past few weeks?
Or we could just go 442 and hoof it up to Platty
i think this is a terrible idea due to the fact it's to defensive and it's there's a big gap between thomas/bigi and the forwards and there young players.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Murphy - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - Cameron - - - Wood - - - - Cranie - - - - - - -
- - Christie - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Hussey - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- Sammy - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - Thomas - - - - - - - - - - Bigi - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - Juke -- Cody - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Like that
Trying to visualise this...
-------------Murphy
Christie Keogh Cranie Hussey
------------Clingan
----Bigi ------------ Thomas
Bell ------------------------Sheff
--------------Juke
Like that?
EDIT: Missed the bit about Deegan, so obviously not. help me out here?
But would our players be intelligent enough to take in all that information?Kinda like this:
---------------Murphy-----------------
Christie--Keogh---Cranie----Hussey-
---I-----/------\----------------I---
---I--Thomas---Sammy---Bigi----I---
Bell-----\-----------------/---Sheff--
----------\------Juke----/---/------------
Now you mention it, it's basically a 433-but a version that was employed years before the modern version and with a few continental twists.
Deegan doesn't fit in at the moment,mainly due to fitness, but you could use him instead of the younger guys in the attacking CM roles. Only he offers more rigidity and less pace-I can't see him bombing on constantly, he's better at breaking from deep unexpectedly.
Now if you imagine it in Football Manager, Thomas, Sammy and Bigi are all on the same "line", but Bigi/Thomas have a forward arrow (Farrow) going all the way up to either side of Lukas: they start deep and bomb-on, a bit like the 3 players in the central 3 for England in the 433. The principle is overloading that central area but still having numbers getting forwards. It also brings more width and better protection for the full-backs than the diamond. You sacrifice the "hole" player (ineffective this season and a luxury we can't afford) and a striker; in reality, all the best sides play with one up front. Some (Barce) play with zero! We don't have many strikers...we have two that are excellent target-men options, which is why I'd consider Platt in the middle and Lukas as the wide-left man: just give him more license to drift inside. He certainly has the workrate to cloe down the full-backs. I think Bell does too based on recent efforts. Sheff and Cody...well, that's very much up for debate!
Similarly, if it's FM, there would be Farrows on the full-backs, and they'd be on "forward runs often", as would Bigi and Connor. Bell and Baker are interchangeable in 4 of the positions and could be used as subs or as starting options if you want more experience-for all his faults, this is the closest we've got to the Stockport role for Baker:there he had ONE striker ahead of him in a 4411 and plenty of stability behind him. He could have creative freedom, sharing the role of protecting the full-back with the wide man.
For those who might want to try it on FM, Juke is obviously holding the ball up but doesn't have too much creative freedom (STAY IN THE MIDDLE!) . Of the two centre-backs, Keogh has a slightly more attacking mentality and creative freedom and is the one who goes forwards for corners. I'd even let him have the odd forward run-with Sammy "dropping in", we have scope for a double-overlap with Keogh and Christie. Sammy has "forward runs rarely" and is set to the same mentality as Keogh-possibly a notch lower-to make him "drop in" like Dieter Eilts did for Sammer (ah, now I'm conjuring with names..didn't Dieter go into coaching? Hire him now!).
Bell and Sheff are the tricky ones to get right..they are deliberately positioned high up the pitch, and occupying full-backs in their half is vital (at present they gallop forwards unhindered when the balls on the other flank, leading to cross-field balls constantly exposing us). But in the old Ajax formation, Bigi and Connor should be the dudes getting forwards and supporting Juke. Maybe give Sheff more forward runs and cross from byline, even more so if you play Juke there, whereas have Bell slightly wider and crossing from deeper/feeding Cyrus on the overlap. That way Sheff can get on the end of attacks from balls from the right-something he used to do to great profit.
Incidentally, this formation was absolute killer in CM93 (I think it was that one..).
But would our players be intelligent enough to take in all that information?
I say we just hoof it up to Platt.
i wouldnt play bigi and thomas, i would bring in deggan for tohmas as id dont rate him from what i've seen but he can feel free to prove me wrong where as bigi has impressed me alot! buti dont see us playing one striker!
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