well, most of the year so far we have used the 4-3-2-1 for obvious reasons, but now with ronaldo back and soon to add pato, it seems the 4-4-2 is going to be the way to go. one thing i found interesting in this, though. we went for about the last hal-hour with a true 3-4-1-2 when bonera came in for ambrosini, and cafu came in for the lackluster oddo. we had 3 cb's and two fullbacks playing as almost wingbacks with pirlo and gattuso in the center and kaka beind the two strikers. it worked, and we were more dangerous. so, question, considering once janks gets back and if we still keep simic until the summer, we have depth at cb, fbs who are better going forward than defending, and not much playmaker depth, yet two strikers so hence more bodies in the box which increases the danger from balls out wide, my question is, should we play this a little more often in the serie a? maybe channel the formation that brought the serie a title home around 9 seasons ago? just a thought.
I liked the makeshift 3-5-2 we had when Bonera came on, and I thought it worked well. We've always had fullbacks that can get forward and attack, and even though Serginho and Cafu are good options when we have a healthy Jankulovski and an Oddo that's in form we can be even more dangerous, as Jankulovski at Udinese used to play left-midfield, and Oddo when in form is one of the best crossers in Italy. Then like you said we'd have strikers in the box like Gila and Ronaldo who can get a head on the ball. Gila is a little stronger with his head than Ronaldo, and I'm pretty sure Pato's greatest strength is not his heading ability, but I think it would be more dangerous. Plus we open up the play a bit more instead of constantly going through the middle with Kaka. Pirlo could play long balls to the wings instead of having to always play a long ball to a striker. I think it can work.
yeah, i was careful to say "more dangerous" and leave it in relative terms, as there is no doubt that even though ronaldo has gotten better over the years with his heading technique, that is not his strength, though with respect to pato, i think his heading ability is quite good, even if it is not his strong suit and he is not the most physically imposing figure. this would be a no-brainer imho if we had a toni-esque target man and a healthy janks and on-form oddo as you mentioned, but i think it a good way to open up lay and allow kaka and seedorf to rotate (seedorf is better behind the striker anyways), as kaka is playing too much, and he needs to be rested more if possible the next part of the season or his form will drop or he will get injured. granted, i am not advocating going to this full-time, just something to add to the arsenal, along with the 4-5-1 albero di natale ancelotti used successfully in europe and the 4-4-2 diamond used at the end of last season. i think this might be able to be out in the rotation of systems possibly.
IMO, when Seedorf comes back we will have even more creativity as he can push forward and support both Kaka and Gila/Ronaldo/Pato/Inzaghi. So it seems that it would be sort of 3-1-3-1-2 with Pirlo being the lone FB and Seedorf with Gattuso helping Kaka, while Oddo and Marek make their runs forward. It could be very creative offensively, but we know that we often get caught on a counter thus we need to make sure all our CBs are healthy and can run a lot. Havig Kaladze, Serginho and Cafu would help as well.
are you saying like this? dida kaladze--nesta--maldini ----gattuso oddo---pirlo---janks -----------seedorf -----kaka ---------ronaldo/gila that is a very interesting formation to fit all the players in, but with seedorf and kaka i would rather go with the more traditional 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 (versus bigger teams), and play kaka and seedorf both behind the strikers, though this could work i believe as a variant of the 3-5-2, but as i said i really prefer the 3-5-2 as a way to be effective while not having to play kaka (who was quite poor today because of fatigue and shouldn't have been playing so soon after the two qualifiers anyway, but seedorf was hurt so it was moot) and seedorf so much given the second half fixture congestion (which won't be helped by the atalanta game being re-scheduled in the middle of it). If pato was really struggling to adjust, or some striker injuries hit, then i would be more inclined to think of this as an option in and of its own right, but probably more so if gila is in there, cause if we are going to play two guys as wingbacks, as he gives the best aerial target of all.
All good points - Kaka would need rest and so would Seedorf. I just think when what we can do to give Kaka more room to roam against small er Serie A teams and by opening up the flanks and having an extra plyer in the middle would probably take some heat from him.
i rly enjoy how we r swtichin up our thinkin n tryin sumtin dare i say funky? sounds like a lotta fun....heres how we look now ----------dida-------------- -----nesta-maldini-kaladze odd0--------pirlo---------janks -----------gattuso-------- --------------kaka------------- ----ronaldo--------------gila this is fact takes ambro/seedorf outta the game...say we start the game or end the game wit this technique depending on game...we start our traditional way but swap out ambro/seedorf/even gila/ronaldo for a cb n move around...play the wings instead of the ball possession we been playin...i think we need to switch things up to win the CL this year...barca have so much firepower we need to play weird against them....when we played liverpool last yr in cl it was not pretty but we won...maybe this yr we gotta do the same but different style
what makes even less sense to me is that if kaka was tired and seedorf injured why didnt we give gourcuff a run... i will never understand why we underplay him all the time... but i guess ancelotti think he knows what he is doin... and i like the 3-5-2 idea... i wasnt able to watch the game and i havent seen a torrent around but now i am curious to watch this 3-5-2 you speak of...