thebigbangtheo wrote:Hmmm. The main reasons why 4-4-2 stopped being the stock formation of choice for almost every team in the world prior to the early 2000's, is that some clever bugger figured out that 3 average players in midfield will usually overpower 2 good players simply by sheer weight of numbers.
And I think it is commonly accepted that if you dominate control of midfield you win the match 9 out of 10 times.
Without factoring in all the nuances of individual quality of players, 3 Kante's in midfield chins 2 Kante's in midfield. By the same token, if you had 4 Patrick Vieira's then yeah, by all means go for it, but no doubt you see the problem with that.
Bring in one or both of your wide midfielders to address the problem and you unbalance your own formation to play in an unfamiliar set-up that not only sacrifices the gains of 4-4-2 but actively counters it by leaving it wide open down the flanks.
Not much point in having a brilliant strike force if your midfield and wide players are too busy chasing back towards their own goal to be supplying them with the through balls and crosses they need to feed off.
Hence why 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 and 3-4-3 against 4-4-2 can be like garlic and crucifixes to a vampire, whilst 4-5-1 and 3-5-2 will stifle the life out of it and give scope for the 90th minute sucker punch.
I am not saying you can't play 4-4-2 any more, only that it has to be dependent on the opposition and their formation, and setting up like that from the off is easy for the opposing manager/coach to counter and force you into plan B.
You make all correct points but you need to mention one determining factor and why 4-4-2 is making somewhat of a comeback in certain teams.
The traditional 4-4-2 was always seen as an offensive formation, Utd Treble winners, our own Invincibles and practically every team in the prem all used 4-4-2.
Then as you said, it began to get dominated by teams using 3 in midfield and possession football became more rampant.
However today's 4-4-2 pioneered by Atletico is used quite different to its predecessor, 4-4-2 now is actually a defensive formation.
The two banks of four are compressed when you attack them, they have a nice field wide double bank to absorb an attack, when they do attack they hit hard on the break and counter with the two wingers and two forwards making a four on 2 or 3 situation unless the other team gets back quick enough.
Atletico have done remarkably well with it, and I've noticed more prem teams are using this model because they know their 4-3-3 cannot dominate a better teams 4-3-3 simply based on bought talent so they concede possession and use the two banks of four to soak up the attacks.
Now the issue is you're sacrificing possession for end to end play, which is why I'm not sure it will suit our players in the main, we have lots of creative players, I'm not sure we have the parts in midfield to have 4-4-2 as our default formation?
