From memory Petone had very energetic strikers with lots of lateral movement . I think one played slightly deeper. Their wide midfielders, while ok, didn't look for balls into the corner. Their defence also ok. Petone's strength was their center midfield along with their strikers.
The conditions on Saturday will be wet, muddy, and Nairnville like, which means that it will be tough to turn, running in heavy boots, hard for defence to combat strikers with the ball in 1-0n-1 situations.
Against Marist we changed our formation in the 2nd half to a 5-3-2 to sort centre D issues. I think a similar but more attacking formation might be required this week - something like a 4-1-4-1 or a 4-2-3-1 depending on how attacking we want the wide players to be (and as a result how much responsibility they have to get back to defend).
A 4-1-4-1 would look something like this (us in yellow).
The main talking point is that the spare man is likely the DCM who will be sweeping in front of the defence, intercepting passes to strikers or supporting the central D if the ball gets past him. If a striker drops deeper (a la Messi or Rooney) he picks up the striker and a CB sweeps. The only other thing of note is that the wide midfielders will tend to get forward more often to try and link with the striker.
A 4-2-3-1 is only different in that the wide midfielders become more attack focused - almost like wingers. To compensate two central midfielders play holding roles. The wide defenders play further forward, almost as man-markers on the wide
midfielders. A 4-2-3-1 formation would look something like this.
The advantage of both formations is they provide depth which is important when the ground is heavy and players start getting tired. Also it adds more players into the centre midfield, which is a strength of theirs, while still allowing us to attack through our wide players. Also playing 4 lines deep should result in quick transitions from defence to strikers without needing to hit long balls.
We kind of did something similar to this late in the 2nd half the first time we played them. One of our wide midfielders ended up playing centre midfield. This was due to them having a very strong centre midfield but not so strong wide players. The problem with this is that it reduced our attacking ability with no pressure on the right. One of the above formations should have the same effect defensively but with more attacking potential.
The conditions on Saturday will be wet, muddy, and Nairnville like, which means that it will be tough to turn, running in heavy boots, hard for defence to combat strikers with the ball in 1-0n-1 situations.
Against Marist we changed our formation in the 2nd half to a 5-3-2 to sort centre D issues. I think a similar but more attacking formation might be required this week - something like a 4-1-4-1 or a 4-2-3-1 depending on how attacking we want the wide players to be (and as a result how much responsibility they have to get back to defend).
A 4-1-4-1 would look something like this (us in yellow).
The main talking point is that the spare man is likely the DCM who will be sweeping in front of the defence, intercepting passes to strikers or supporting the central D if the ball gets past him. If a striker drops deeper (a la Messi or Rooney) he picks up the striker and a CB sweeps. The only other thing of note is that the wide midfielders will tend to get forward more often to try and link with the striker.
A 4-2-3-1 is only different in that the wide midfielders become more attack focused - almost like wingers. To compensate two central midfielders play holding roles. The wide defenders play further forward, almost as man-markers on the wide
midfielders. A 4-2-3-1 formation would look something like this.The advantage of both formations is they provide depth which is important when the ground is heavy and players start getting tired. Also it adds more players into the centre midfield, which is a strength of theirs, while still allowing us to attack through our wide players. Also playing 4 lines deep should result in quick transitions from defence to strikers without needing to hit long balls.
We kind of did something similar to this late in the 2nd half the first time we played them. One of our wide midfielders ended up playing centre midfield. This was due to them having a very strong centre midfield but not so strong wide players. The problem with this is that it reduced our attacking ability with no pressure on the right. One of the above formations should have the same effect defensively but with more attacking potential.
