Our tactical set-up next season

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I think sometimes the tactic needs to reflect the qualities of the personnel.
Poch, like so many managers, seems to like 4231 I would suggest largely due to its versatility to change easily into a 433 or a 442 depending on the situation.

I swear the diamond was purely to give Sissoko the only role on that right side which suited him perfectly.
It's not a formation I like.

433 is a pretty 'in vogue' formation right now, but jut not sure it suits our players. The front 3 would seem much more fluid with Son Kane Moura, than it would with Eriksen, Kane, Dele for example, and feel both Dele and Eriksen would be a bit wasted in a deeper 3 man midfield. They are attackers really.

I don't think NDombele is going to have much influence in that regard anyway. To me it seems like a blatant lack of central midfielders last season forced our hand a bit, but also trying to find something that gets the best out of our 2 best play makers, having them both on the pitch at the same time. And the way things have kept being tinkered with, I just don't think Poch is completely happy with how this squad compliments each other going forward, regardless of how good they are individually.

I could see us looking at 4231, Dele behind Kane, then fucking off Eriksen as a left sided attacker, going for more natural width from 'wingers' and full backs rather than a bit of a drifting free role attacking midfielder that we have in Eriksen.

You can look at tactics how you want. I'm sure some clever cunt will probably tell me something like, Poch plays a 2211211

Can't fucking wait, 2 weeks on Sunday get to see NDombele playing for us against Juventus.

COYS
 
I think we will go back to the 4231 or 352, the 442 diamond last season was a pragmatic selection due to our midfield shambles but we don’t have the quality to use it properly. Sissoko is too technically limited and Winks not physically robust enough to play like that, even swapping one of them for Ndombele will not fix the problem.

Ideally we should be trying to move to a proper 433 and start giving Dele more responsibility as a midfielder, his game has stagnated in the last 2 seasons and he needs to be given a more important role in our build up play. He used to play almost like Gazza but now you rarely see him starting plays, now he just does a limp impression of Thomas Muller. I want to see him getting on the ball in the centre of the pitch and using his quality and power to affect the whole game, not just playing as a forward.

Winks Ndombele Alli
Lo Celso Kane Son

That’s what I’d like to see as our front 6 next season.
 
I think we'll use our newfound tactical nous required last season with a paper thin squad and use the experience hugely to our advantage.

I see us changing formation and style mid game frequently based on probing oppositions areas of weakness as the game goes on. We have a team full of multi-positional players who have plenty of experience workto g with each other in a 3-5-2, 4-2-3-1 etc and a lot of flexibility.

We have a target man in Kane, the two footed style of Sonny, Lucas with his direct running, Winks can keep things ticking over and if we need muscle in midfield we can throw Sissoko and Ndombele together. If we need to win midfield battles three thrown in of Sissoko, Ndombele and Winks would have a lot of quality.

We will start games in 4-2-3-1 I think but if we need directness on the flanks we will switch it up, if we get offered space out wide we should hopefully have the likes of Clarke and Sessegnon long term to maximise that, leading to a less stifled look in the middle for the boys getting stuck in congested spaces.

4-2-3-1 - Lloris, Foyth, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose, Winks, Ndombele, Eriksen, Lo Celso, Dele, Kane with impact quality such as Aurier, Sissoko, Lucas, Lamela and Son and long term if we ever need to switch it up players like Clarke and Sessegnon as potential wing backs could be fierce.

I also see us, with bigger numbers rotating a lot more and reverting back to our more pressing style we saw in the early Poch days. It's only possible if we have a bigger squad Ike we've seen with Man City etc.
 
Having secured our primary target and looking at the other players, we're heavily linked with got me thinking about our set-up next season.

I cannot help feel, we might just see a major shift in our base tactics, and I'm curious to the thoughts of you guys.

My sneaky suspecion is, we might go something along the lines of 3-5-2, which is enough of a hybrid to see one of the CB's stepping into midfield making it more of a 4-4-2 with a diamond in the middle. I'm basing this on a few things. Oh, and I'm basing it on Toby and Eriksen being here. The reasonings doesn't change much at all, should they leave, especially if we replace Eriksen with another centrally-minded mid as all the talk is on. Finally, humour me in my assumption that we'll sign Sessegnon, as it seems nearly a given at this point.

- Last season saw us play a lot more matches than previously under Poch with no clearly assigned defensive mid. Key is that if NDombele is all he's cracked up to be, then this should be possible even more so this season in this sort of formation.
- Last season saw us play a lot more matches than previously under Poch with two strikers, or at the very least a secondary striker role who stayed forward a lot when out of possession.
- We're not very well suited for what we've seen most under Poch in a 4-3-3 and varitions of five at the back, with very few players ideally suited for wide positions, as well as Poch seemingly insisting on playing both Eriksen and Dele when fit for important fixtures, when they're both best starting centrally. My personal take is even Lamela (as the player he is now) and Son are, marginally, better starting centrally and then maybe drifting wide at times, rather than starting wide and then invariably drifting in. Which, disregarding def mids, gives us six mids who're better as an 8, 10, or as a secondary striker than out wide, plus two, arguably, equally effective in both.
- We have four CB's who Poch clearly trusts and wants involved. Plus Dier.
- Three of four fullbacks are vastly better going forward than defensively (four of five if you want to count KWP, and five of six if taken one step further and counting Sessegnon), which will be better utilised in a hybrid five at the back.
- It would accommodate bringing in Sessegnon, with the best of all worlds. Given that Poch can give him minutes, without tying ourselves down to having him as number two LB, and keep both Rose and Davies (who I believe strongly Poch both value highly as squad members) since Sessegnon is well better suited in a five than a four, plus Davies can get minutes as the LCB in a five.
- It would make signing a striker an easier sell to potential incomings, as they won't be forever behind Kane as the one and only striker. Still would have to displace Son and Moura as the secondary, but an easier sell all the same.

This comes now, because NDombele is/could be the key cog in the machine that could make all this click. It'll give us a big up in dominating the middle of the park, plus plenty of versatility to create overloads out wide as all of our mids plus Kane can drift with no problems.
 
I think we will go back to the 4231 or 352, the 442 diamond last season was a pragmatic selection due to our midfield shambles but we don’t have the quality to use it properly. Sissoko is too technically limited and Winks not physically robust enough to play like that, even swapping one of them for Ndombele will not fix the problem.

Ideally we should be trying to move to a proper 433 and start giving Dele more responsibility as a midfielder, his game has stagnated in the last 2 seasons and he needs to be given a more important role in our build up play. He used to play almost like Gazza but now you rarely see him starting plays, now he just does a limp impression of Thomas Muller. I want to see him getting on the ball in the centre of the pitch and using his quality and power to affect the whole game, not just playing as a forward.

Winks Ndombele Alli
Lo Celso Kane Son

That’s what I’d like to see as our front 6 next season.

For me, Dele is at his best getting in and around the box doing the fancy stuff he loves so much.
Really have no interest in seeing him on the ball in the middle of the pitch. In fact, it's almost worrying.
My post above agrees with a lot of what you're saying though, just really don't feel Dele in a 433, 3 man midfield is a wise use of his abilities.

433 for me would be;
Sissoko Winks NDombele
Moura Kane Son

Just wouldn't want Dele in there really, so expect a formation that suits the personnel.
 
Right now...

Foyth Toby(Sanchez) Jan Rose
Winks Ndombele
Dele
Lucas Kane Son

Or get back to the 3-4-3. Some of the sexists football I remember was in this formation. Son couldn’t even get a start

Dier - Sanchez - Jan
Foyth-NDombele-Winks-Rose/Sess
Dele - Son
Kane
 
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