I agree. Some of the teams that play the 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 don't use a natural #10. They do however have a difference maker usually in the center of the field(Kjestian, Nguyen). I would argue that the closest team style compared to ours is actually Seattle. The only difference is that their strike partnership(Dempsey/Martins) probably has a higher ceiling compared to ours(Espindola/Saborio). But they have creative wingers who like to pinch in(Neagle/Pappa), two dmids (Pineda/Alonso), and a solid defense. The empty bucket 4-4-2 can certainly work. It's a pretty consistent formation if nothing else.
In effect, with the empty bucket, we're counting on Kemp, Korb & Franklin to be playmakers and on our wing mid-fielders to join in the attack while picking up the defensive slack for our fullbacks as may be necessary. Accordingly, Kitchen and our central defenders have to stay back usually to plug any potential counter-attacks coming down the middle of the field.
Great call. I hadn't thought of that before, but now that I see the comparison, it's obvious. What's interesting to me is that the SYSTEMS are extremely similar, but the strengths and weaknesses within that system are very different. Their strikers are far, far better than ours. Also, while I've never thought that much of Pappa as a player, he's been terrific this year. Neagle is a player I've always liked. So in this system, which has 4 attackers, Seattle crushes our personnel. But we make it up at the other 7 spots where, with the exception of Chad Marshal, DC is probably superior at every position including backups. Marshall is about as good as Boswell. It doesn't show up in GF/GA. We've played 1 more match, have scored 2 more goals and given up 1 more. Pretty much identical on a per game basis. In part you'd explain that by looking at the number of matches Dempsey and Martins have missed. And I think in part you'd explain it by just watching the games and realizing teams fear Seattle so play more defensively against them than us.
Even when playing out on the wing, I think Chris Rolfe plays more like an attacking central mid/withdrawn forward. He moves inside regularly and lets Kemp provide the width.
Korb did pretty well last week, albeit against Philly who are not so good. A friend of mine says he ran into Kemp a couple of weeks ago and asked him about the style of play question and if Olsen has essentially told him to concentrate on defense first and his response was yes, that is the case. I'm not sure I totally believe that since he gets forward fairly often...and then slowly jogs back to play defense.
If your defense is OK with numbers then the best thing you can do is come back wide and be in the open for an outlet pass
He "jogs" back because when he goes forward the left central back (recently, Birnbaum) slides over and provides cover. Kemp is too far forward to defend against the front-running attacker, but he tries to get back to cover the followup attacker on his side.