So far this season we haven't had the same starting lineup twice in a row. In most weeks it's not even close - we usually have multiple changes in personnel and/or positioning of those personnel. Some of these changes were due to injuries and suspensions, many were clearly experimentation by Bruce. Personally I'm not all that critical of all of the changes. Bruce is dealing with a lot of new variables and he wants to get it just right. I do think however that he now needs to start making the hard decisions and to stabilize the lineups as much as possible. If we are going to play like a well-oiled machine the players will need that kind of stability. (The following is based on starting positioning info given by MLS Match Center. Occasionally their graphics are incorrect. I don't remember specific deviations but there may have been a couple so take specific cases with a small grain of salt.) Anyway, here goes: 3/6: LAG 4 - DCU 1, home A 4-2-3-1 with Keane up top, Gio in the hole, Lletget on the right, Zardes on the left, Gerrard and DJ as our defensive midfielders. Nice win to start the season. 3/12: LAG 0 - COL 1, away Back to a 4-4-2 with the main change being Magee replacing Gio and moving up top with Keane. In the back line Van Damme enters and Cole exits, Rogers switches to left back, and DLG moves to right back. We didn't generate much offense this game. 3/19: LAG 3 - SJE 1, home. Biggest change is that Lletget and Magee change places, Lletget moving up top with Keane and Magee dropping back into midfield. In the back line Cole comes back, AJ exits and Rogers moves back to the right side. We continue our pattern of scoring well and winning at home. 4/12: LAG 0 - VAN 0, away Bruce is missing players and giving others a break. Lassiter is brought in to replace Keane, Lletget is up top again but starts on the left. In a somewhat surprising move Magee switches from right to left and Boateng - - normally a left mid -is brought in to play on the right. Zardes out and Husidic in for Gerrard. Back line is unchanged for first time this season. Our defense holds but our offense is extremely anemic. 4/10: LAG 1 - POR 1, home Dos Santos and Zardes are moved up top for the first time this season and Lletget is moved to left mid for the 1st time as well, and Magee is moved back again to the right side. Third game in a row with the same back line! Our first failure to win at home. 4/15: LAG 4 - HOU 1, away Back to the 4-2-3-1 with Zardes now our lone forward and dos Santos back into the hole. Magee and Lletget change sides yet again. Gerrand in for DJ and DLG in for Rogers. Our first away win. 4/23: LAG 5 - RSL 2, home We repeat the Zardes up top and Gio in the hole experiment. Boateng in at left mid, Lletget out, utility man Magee switches back to right mid again (last six games his positioning has been left, right, left, right, left, right in that order), back line unchanged. Great road win, first of the season. 5/1: LAG 1 - SKC 1, away Zardes up top experiment continues (and why not with 9 goals for the team in the last 2 games), Lletget gets back in the starting lineup this time on the right. Magee moves yet again this time into defensive mid to replace Gerrard leaving us a Husidic/Magee defensive midfield pairing (gulp). No changes in back so third game in a row with same defense. A point on the road is always good. To be continued in Part II - have to watch game now.
This season's lineups, part 2. 5/8: LAG 4 - NER 2, home With Keane returning we quit the Zardes alone up top experiment and go to a 4-3-3 for the first time this season (at least according to Match Center). Zardes to right forward and Dos Santos up top on the left. In midfield we try using only one dm for the first time. Larentowicz gets his first start replacing Husidic and only back line change is Rogers comes in for Cole. We win at home but give up two goals, not surprising given the mostly offensive midfield. 5/11: LAG 2 - PHI 2, away We keep the 4-3-3 but and the same three up top but we swap out all three of our second line of midfielders. Magee comes in for Boateng, Gerrard comes in for Larentowicz and Husidic comes in for Lletget. In the back line Cole comes back in, Rogers moves to the right to replace AJDLG, Leo comes in for Steres, and Kennedy replaces Rowe. We get a valuable point on the road but iirc correctly we should have won this one. 5/22: LAG 1 - SJE 1, home Back to a 4-4-2 or 4-1-2-1-2, whichever you want to call it. Dos Santos dropped back to the hole, Husidic out, De Jong comes in. Of course Magee switches back to the right again keeping up our tradition of Mike never playing the same position twice in a row. In theory Gerrard moves out of the defensive midfield and goes out left. Don't think it played out that way though. Only change in the back is Steres replaces Leo and the Kennedy gk experiment is over. Anyway our home offense is blah and we get a tepid 1-1 draw at home. 5/28: LAG 2 - MTL 3, away We stick with the 4-1-2-1-2 (single dm, 2 forwards, With Keane and Zardes gone Magee and Dos Santos become our two strikers and we push Gerrard up as our playmaker for the first time this season. Our start two actual wing midfielders in Boateng and Lletget. No changes in defense. Rowe turns valuable road point into sad loss when he can't handle Drogba free kick in final seconds. 6/2: LAG 0 - SKC 0, home We keep Magee and Dos Santos up top, put Larentowicz in Gerrards place and replace Boarent with Husidic. Lletget moves from right midfield to left midfield. Only change in the back is AJ replaces Van Damme. Our defense gets a shutout but we don't get the home win because our front trio of Magee, Gio, and Larentowicz fail to scare anyone and we go scoreless. Not sure what the theory was with this lineup. 6/18: LAG 0 - TFC 1, away Back to the 4-4-2. We desperately miss Keane and Zardes and have resorted to starting Lletget and Gordon up top. Magee of course switches from right forward to left midfield to keep his string intact and Husidic switches from left to right. We have a solid defensive midfield pairing in DeJong and Larentowicz. Rogers is out and VD is back in defense so AJ goes to right back. Offensively we have only support players other than Lletget and we have almost no speed on the field and we score no goals. 6/22: LAG 0 - COL 0, home Stay with the 4-4-2 but dip even deeper into the pot to pull out McBean as our offensive threat. Move Lletget back to left mid, same two solid dms, and we move Boateng to the right. Romney replaces Cole at left back and we have a sad scoreless home game. 6/25: LAG 1 - SJE 1, away We try a 4-4-1-1 with Gordon as our target man and Gerrard the creator behind him. Dos Santos moves back to right mid and Magee replaces Lletget at left mid and we stick with our L/DJ defensive mids. In the back Cole comes back in for Romney, Romney moves to the center for Steres. We gift a last minute goal again to former LAG player Barrett and get 1 point on the road that should have been 3, iirc. 7/4: LAG 2 - VAN 0, home We get Keane and Zardes back and go to a 4-2-3-1 with Keane as the lone striker, Gerrard in the hole, Zardes on the left, Dos Santos on the right and our usual dm's. Back line move Romney back out left for Cole, Leo in for VD and Steres back in as cb. Keane makes a difference immediately and we look much more dynamic than we have in a while. We pick up a much needed 3 points at home. 7/9: LAG 1 - SEA 0, away This shows the problem with trusting match center -it shows a 4-4-2 with Keane and Dos Santos up top but in reality we played Keane up top, Dos Santos at right mid, Gerrard up high as a playmaker and Larentowicz and Husidic as defensive mids. Defense unchanged. We get an important road win against a rival but have to survive continual second half attacks to hold on. Whew... that's it for this season's lineups to the current time. As you can see there was massive instability for the first half of the season, much inevitable because of injuries and suspensions but also a lot of Bruce's tinkering going on. Not that this is a bad thing necessarily. I was very surprised to see Magee go the whole season, playing every game but never starting in the same position twice. I know he is very versatile but wonder what he thinks of it. Also surprised how many times Bruce switched sides for Boateng and Lletget. I just think both need to play on the right and probably shouldn't play at the same time. Comments, thoughts?
To no one's surprise, having Keane and Zardes makes a difference. Keane, Zardes (5-2-1) W 4-1 L 0-1 W 3-1 W 4-2 D 2-2 D 1-1 W 2-0 W 1-0 Zardes (2-2-0) D 1-1 W 4-1 W 5-2 D 1-1 Neither (0-4-2) D 0-0 L 2-3 D 0-0 L 0-1 D 0-0 D 1-1 Interestingly, we did pretty well with just Zardes too. Can we not sell Zardes?
I also wanted to see how Gerrard's position mattered. I looked at the central midfield pairing (as best as I can tell/remember). Games are listed in order played: Gerrard, deJong (4-4-2) W 4-1 L 0-1 W 3-1 deJong, Husidic (no Gerrard) D 0-0 D 0-0 Gerrard, Husidic (4-4-2) W 4-1 W 5-2 Husidic, Magee (no Gerrard) D 1-1 Larentowicz (no Gerrard, 4-3-2-1) W 4-2 Gerrard (4-3-2-1) D 2-2 deJong, Gerrard or dos Santos (not sure how it played) D 1-1 Gerrard, deJong L 2-3 deJong, Larentowicz (or Husidic) (no Gerrard) D 0-0 L 0-1 D 0-0 deJong (or Husidic), Larentowicz (Gerrard as playmaking forward) D 1-1 W 2-0 W 1-0 Four of our five big wins (3 goals or more) came with Gerrard as a central midfielder. Makes sense as this allows us to put on an extra attacking player. Our other big win was without Gerrard when we played a 4-3-2-1 which is the closest we get to playing our stars at their best positions. Our record with the dual d-mids and Gerrard as a playingmaking forward is also good (2-1-0) but with much less scoring, relying on our defense to not give up goals. It was interesting to me that both systems seemed to work, but the second system has less wear and tear on Gerrard, so I guess it makes sense for us to adopt it.
One last thing. Again, not a surprise, but the number of goals given up when we play two defensive-minded midfielders are: 0 goals: 6 times 1 goal: 2 times We've given up more than 1 goal 4 times. Two of those times, were the two times we played the 4-3-2-1. I guess that's why that formation disappeared.
I just needed to record for posterity Magee's starting positions in the 18 games so far: sub, left forward, right mid, left mid, right mid, left mid, right mid, right def mid, sub, left mid, right mid, left forward, right forward, left mid, sub, left mid, sub, sub. So he's finally getting some consistency - in the last two games he started on the bench two games in a row!
I love this board. Quality posts. I thought the constantly changing lines ups were due to injury, so if Bruce is really experimenting I wonder if it's due to the depth we finally have. He also seems MUCH more willing to pull players from games in the last few weeks with players back. Hmm...so is his coaching game going to another level as a result? Kinda curious. After many many years in the league, it makes sense for him to start doing something different. Very curious as to where we'll go.
It may be a philosophical change but I think the increased experimentation is likely due to pragmatics as well. We started the season with some pretty talented players who weren't producing -- Gerrard, Lletget (after his torrid start), and Gio. Likely Bruce was hoping he could find some positional change that would get them unstuck. Plus Boateng was an unknown so he was an experiment unto himself. Finally every coach seems conflicted about Zardes best position - forward or midfield - so he goes back and forth for both club and country. Add in the luxury of having Mr. Utility Magee and Bruce has both the opportunity and impetus to try all kinds of things.