NO SAKHO?????

Was gonna put in Sakho dont know how Lovren got in there.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

I watched a player cam of Sakho on Sunday. He should be the first name on our team sheet every game.

Not for me.

Moreno gets exposed too much in that formation. Johnson is leaving soon and hasn't played to a really high level for quite a while anyway. Last season we had Cissokho and Flanagan left back who are much better natural defenders than Moreno.

Can is better in defence than midfield at the moment.

The only benefit to it is the Sterling/Studge/Coutinho axis, but we can get that back anyway with Ibe back and dropping Lallana.

I'd love to see that system back but for me it's not the time for reasons Righteous has stated.

We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water because of 1 bad result.

This formation has served us well with our players.

We just need to tweak the team to get Sterling back in the final 3rd. We are at our best when him and Coutinho combine high up the pitch.

Revisit in the summer in pre-season depending on signings, a proper pre-season this year too with no summer tournament.

We need to stick to 3 at the back and tweek the formation slightly, With Ibe back I'd go for this!

----------------------Mignolet
----------Can--------Toure-------Sakho
--Ibe---------Lucas----------Hendo-------Moreno
----------------------Coutinho
-------------Sturridge-------Sterling

That's what I'd goes for!

I like Kolos team but as an arsenal fan I would worry more if you play Lallana ahead of sturridge. I know u need to win the game but I think lallana's will unsettle is more than sturridge esp if we dominate posession.

Just think sturridge is not yet 100%

comment by righteous1 (U7048)
posted 23 minutes ago
We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water because of 1 bad result.

This formation has served us well with our players.

We just need to tweak the team to get Sterling back in the final 3rd. We are at our best when him and Coutinho combine high up the pitch.

Revisit in the summer in pre-season depending on signings, a proper pre-season this year too with no summer tournament.
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This, youd swear we hadn't won a game all season or something.

United were decent on Sunday but only really controlled the game for the opening 30 mins, only managed to beat us by a goal when we had 10 for an entire half having a squad who had played far more games this year.

Rodgers is shoehorning too many attacking players in the formation. Sterling isn't a RWB, he was wasted there on Sunday. It's still the right formation for you. Where's Manquillo? He should be playing there, not Sterling. Lallana was crap too, Sterling should've been playing in his position.

Is Ibe fit again?

It cracked me up on motd when shearer literally goes br needs to change the formation again .

If the team xan learn to play two formations that would be really handy as we can then spring surprises on them by changing it sround every now and then

You have to give some credit to your manager. You were pants early in the season, and he changed that formation to one that more suited the available players.

He certainly got it wrong by playing Sterling at WB though. He was your one player that really could have hurt us.

I think in all honesty, although you had some very good results of late, some of them were a bit of a struggle. So Sunday was coming.

Manquillo shouldn't be anywhere near wing back.

He can't attack.

Sterling was the right choice of the players available. Sadly Ibe was injured and Markovic has been poor recently after a bright December/January.

I don't think we lost because of wrong selections or formations.

We lost because in the first half we didn't turn up, and then we wasted our chance to get back into it by Gerrard getting himself sent off.

I was not suggesting this because of Sunday's game. I just think that three at the back cannot be permanent though it seems to work well for now. Top teams and top managers can always pick holes in a formation with three defenders IMO.

A bit silly to change formation after one game. LVG won the tactical battle against us but with a few personnel changes it will continue to work.

Lovren will replace suspended Skrtel
Lucas for Allen
Ibe to play RWB
Sterling to replace Lallana so we can add more pace in final 3rd.

. Top teams and top managers can always pick holes in a formation with three defenders IMO.

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I disagree.

Every formation has weak points.

Ultimately it's about how well individual players play in the formation that matters.

When we play well it works, when we play badly it doesn't.

It has certainly got more out of the squad than any other formations we have tried this season, so why change it at the most important stage of the season?

Our next two games, one to get potentially back in the top 4 race, and 1 to reach an FA Cup semi, are massive.

To change now would be extremely risky.

I have been saying all season we should never sit back with the players we have. We should play Sterling up front with Strurridge. Studge has looked isolated in many games since he has come back. We need to defend from the front and press teams. We gave Utd far to much respect.

Whenever anybody comes up with a game-plan to close down the space in front of their defence, we revert to a diamond, and that works better against that formation.

It's what we did in the second-half against Swansea, and what we intended to do for the second-half against United, with Gerrard at the base of it.

But I don't think Arsenal will do that, so I don't think we need to start with a diamond.

What I would like to see is that we change formation dynamically according to what's in front of us, and not wait until half-time, but that requires a very mature team, and maybe we're not there, yet.

I disagree.

Every formation has weak points.
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I feel three at the back has more weak points

I thought we played our wingback system very poorly against Utd. They set their stall out to crowd the centre of midfield and block Coutinho and Lallana.

If we had used the width better to Sterling and Moreno we would have posed Utd more problems but the passing kept going behind the wingback and by that time Utd has pressed up the field.

Utd fans will find this quite funny but we should have played the ball longer down the wings for Sterling and Moreno to run onto, but we held on to it too long.

It's not just the system at fault but just the way we played it.

Wessie
I'd like to see us not need to change formations and game plans midgame in so many games.

United saw the gaps Moreno was leaving and exploited that for the first goal, excellent piece of movement by Mata.

We did switch to diamond in first half mid way. The Lallana chance we had Hendo operating from the right with Lallana central. It did give us some control but our wing backs were nullified.

Young did a job on Sterling
Valencia had Moreno in his pocket.