Four defenders leaves plenty of cover at the back, whilst the team should have no trouble in dominating the midfield with five midfielders (wide-men in Keon and Ming and a trio of any of the following: Derek, Jason, Siang, Poay, Au, Benni, Max). Yet with only one striker, usually Brown or Heng, it can be difficult to finish off any attacks and this lone striker ma
y find it a little tricky to carry the team on his own up front. So when teams play this formation, they'll often make one of the midfielders go up and support the striker when the team is attacking so that in effect he simply ends up playing off the striker for some of the game. However, our central midfielders are rarely running into space or playing off Brown/Heng for that matter, which ends up with either 2 of the following scenarios:
1. the strikers are dispossessed by the opposition Stopper and Sweeper
OR
2. they are forced to play the ball out wide to the wide midfielders (Keon or Ming)
The first ending will eventually tire out our striker and the midfielders as they regroup to regain possession time-and-time again. Even passing it out wide for our wide-men to get a cross-in would logically yield little results as usually the opposition defence will crowd out our threat of only 2 men in the box! Central midfielders must take the initiative to run into space or be ready to attack the ball as it's floated in from out wide. A reason why this is important is because opposition defenders will be caught by surprise from the attacking midfielder as he is charging into the area.
This formation, if applied with Zonal Cover tactics (i.e. players are assigned and are responsible for their zones), should serve us well as we will have a balanced midfield that's (theoratically) organized and is rarely out of shape... maintaining adequate cover when attacking and defending while not tiring out our midfielders easily. One other point to note is that the wide midfielders will have an option of passing the ball back to a central midfielder while running into space behind the full-back or just dragging the full-back wide to stretch the defence.
(some parts of this article was taken from www.how2playsoccer.com)
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3 comments:
It seems that this is the favoured tactic of the management so it should be something that it is worked on consistently in every match. You need to play the players in their regular positions AND then get them to improve there. If the coach sees a lot of mistakes, maybe they shouldn't be there. If he thinks there's promise, you need to iron out the mistakes (altho Sat's team talk was a good start :) )
For instance, we need to get Ming on working on his defensive duty if he's going to be on the wide right - he doesn't have to hurtle back but even if he jogs back at 60% of his speed, he'll still distract the opposing wide midfielder.
But to an extent, I think Ramblers need to work on interplay between players now (I call it "pattern play training" - a little bit like what they do in the NFL). There's plenty of endeavor in the team but players don't seem to be totally sure where the next player is going to be so they always take 5 seconds longer to pass that they should be taking.
Can we see pictures of the new kit and match balls? I hear Santa bought a late, great gift...
Hmmm... Agree with you on this one Dez. We really need to work on interplay, but it's also difficult when we have different sets of players turning up every week. Hahaha... The new kit, huh? Erm... altho we have the pic (modelled fashionably well by Chard), management will keep it under wraps til our matches officially starts.
i havenT c the new kit!! can post here?
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