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Is it time to change formation?

Capt. Awesome

Well-Known Member
I'd like to discuss our formation in terms of:

Should we try and make our players suit a formation or should we change our formation to suit our players?

I raise this because we seem to have a lot of front third players and they aren't playing in their ideal position.
ie. Duke isn't quite suited to the wing.

One suggestion might be to try the 4-2-2-2 formation. It might look like this:

Roux - Sainsbury - Griffiths - Rose
Monty - Hutch
Flores - WeeMac
Duke - McBreen

Let us know your thoughts and other formations that might suit our players better.
Or maybe you totally disagree and we should sick to our current method of conforming players to the current system.
 

12th player

Well-Known Member
4-3-3 . One permanent DM only and the other two mids (ball players) with good work rate and technic that will have the freedom to push forward to support the front 3 in attack.

...........................Reddy..........................
Roux........Trent..........Tren/Zac........Rose
........................Monty...............................
........Caceres................Weemac...............
.......................Flores............................
...........Duke.....................Fitzy.....
 

dibo

Well-Known Member
I posted at some length about this yesterday:

McBreen looks a helluva lot sharper than Simon. Duke looks lost out wide. Could a fairly radical shift isn't in order?

When we had Amini, we'd play a diamond but it really worked out in attack more like a 4-1-3-2. In defence it flattened to our familiar 4-4-2. We could change things around to look a little like that now:

Reddy
Roux-Sainsbury-Griffiths-Rose
Hutchinson
McGlinchey-Flores-Caceres
Duke-McBreen
Alternatively, I talked about this last week as a bad idea because it doesn't suit Flores at all, but when you're not playing particularly well there are no bad ideas.* Switch to a 4-2-2-2 like Melbourne Victory?

Reddy
Roux-Sainsbury-Griffiths-Rose
Caceres-Hutchinson
Flores-McGlinchey
McBreen----------------Duke​

It doesn't particularly suit Flores, but it's a way to change it up.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM:
a lot of our options don't particularly suit Flores because of the way we defend. Our 4-4-2 in defence sends Flores high. That works if we're playing 5 nominal midfielders and 1 nominal striker.

It doesn't suit us if we play with two strikers, because we're not going to rotate so that one of the strikers goes to a flank so Flores can sit out up top. We're also not going to chuck Flores deep in the scrum and ask him to brawl it out.

It's a bit of a dilemma...

For this reason, I think we're actually *very* unlikely to change shape massively, especially to something with two strikers ahead of Flores. My best guess:

Reddy
Roux-Sainsbury-Griffiths-Rose
Monty-Hutchinson
Duke-Flores-McGlinchey
McBreen​

Alternatives -​
  • Caceres could go wide left, McGlinchey to the right, Duke up top, McBreen to the bench
  • Simon to the top instead of McBreen
  • Caceres for Monty (I'd rather have Monty this weekend)
  • Griffiths out for Seip or Anderson - seems unlikely
Really hard to know, but I don't think we've hit our best combination yet. We're a little unbalanced and out of sorts. Hopefully the training track is helping us to iron out the kinks.

*This is a massive, massive lie, but it suits my argument for the moment.
If someone can work out a way around the elephant in the room, let me know.
 

priorpeter

Well-Known Member
I'd like to see what Caceres could do on the wing. He has mad ball skills.
Looks class, real class, out there in pre-season against blacktown... though there's an obvious gulf in class between state league and A-League. Even pellers looked good in state league.
 

eenfish

Well-Known Member
Looks class, real class, out there in pre-season against blacktown... though there's an obvious gulf in class between state league and A-League. Even pellers looked good in state league.

I didn't get to any of the NSW league matches, but wasn't Pellers rated by a million miles the best player on the Mariners Academy side? Which is saying something considering I honestly don't recall once seeing him doing anything that was proper A-League quality for us.
 

scottmac

Suspended
I think the 4132 option suits Flores the most out of those options. If we play very close lines them if doesn't force him to track back so much in defence. Also if our strikers play forward & wide it gives room for Cacearas, wee mac & Flores to play off each other in the middle. We need to do something because atm we are very soft going forward.
 

Ancient Mariner

Well-Known Member
In answer to the original question, no. I a subtle variation in the way we attack is needed. See my post in CCM v Smurfs thread.
 

neverwozza

Well-Known Member
I think the issue is that we have one of the competitions best up and coming central striker playing out of position wide on the right. Bernie adapted last year because even when he was supposed to be more central in earlier seasons he always naturally drifted out wide to the right but dukey is clearly struggling.

Anyway I'd love to see us go back to the 4-4-2 narrow diamond. I like victories 4-2-2-2 as well but I'm not sure if it would suit our strikers to be hugging the touch line like theirs.

I'm not sure if anyone remembers but victory also played a 4-3-1-2 before finkler got injured last year. They had broxham, Milligan and celeski all anchoring the midfield and it seemed to work quite well for them playing on the counter.
 

MagpieMariner

Well-Known Member
No, I'm not serious, but I have fantasies about seeing this formation:
Reddy
Sains Griff
Storm Boy Hutch Rose
Wee Mac Macca Flower Duke Matty

It sure would scare the crap out of some defences. :D
 

Muppet

Well-Known Member
It is funny that in all the formations that people are suggesting that there is no sign of Seip on the sheet. This raises the question of whether a 3 year deal on a visa player who doesn't look like making the team sheet was the smartest thing to do? Would we have been better having that spot taken by a local player or offering a short contract.
 

VicMariner

Well-Known Member
Capt. Awesome said:
Should we try and make our players suit a formation or should we change our formation to suit our players?

It's a good question.
Seems sensible to me to play players in their preferred positions. If you want to play a certain formation buy in or develop players to suit that formation.
Players don't come of a rack though so that is not always possible.
In our situation it might be best to build a formation that gets the best out of our best players.

We are equal with WSW with the lowest amount of losses so our defence is good, it's scoring goals that we need to improve on.
 
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Capt. Awesome

Well-Known Member
It's a good question.
Seems sensible to me to play players in their preferred positions. If you want to play a certain formation buy in or develop players to suit that formation.
Players don't come of a rack though so that is not always possible.
In our situation it might be best to build a formation that gets the best out of our best players.

We are equal with WSW with the lowest amount of losses so our defence is good, it's scoring goals that we need to improve on.


It's funny that we started the year thinking our defence would suffer and we have a wealth of attacking options but we are weak in attack and good in defence.
 

eenfish

Well-Known Member
It's a good question.
Seems sensible to me to play players in their preferred positions. If you want to play a certain formation buy in or develop players to suit that formation.
Players don't come of a rack though so that is not always possible.
In our situation it might be best to build a formation that gets the best out of our best players.

We are equal with WSW with the lowest amount of losses so our defence is good, it's scoring goals that we need to improve on.

I don't think we can rest on our laurels in defence. Sains is looking as good as ever when it comes to individual acts of brilliance, clearances, tackles etc, but we are relying on Sains' immense talent as well as reflex saves from our keepers. Haven't we voted a keeper MOTM like three or four times this season, and Sains once? Not a good look. Compare to last year, Maty would have zero saves some matches because our defence snuffed out chances before they even looked like shooting.
 

VicMariner

Well-Known Member
eenfish said:
Haven't we voted a keeper MOTM like three or four times this season, and Sains once? Not a good look. Compare to last year, Maty would have zero saves some matches because our defence snuffed out chances before they even looked like shooting.
Good point.
We are missing Zwaanswijk. :( Seip needs to improve - and everybody needs to sting some passes together without losing the ball.
 

Wombat

Well-Known Member
I posted at some length about this yesterday:

McBreen looks a helluva lot sharper than Simon. Duke looks lost out wide. Could a fairly radical shift isn't in order?

When we had Amini, we'd play a diamond but it really worked out in attack more like a 4-1-3-2. In defence it flattened to our familiar 4-4-2. We could change things around to look a little like that now:

Reddy
Roux-Sainsbury-Griffiths-Rose
Hutchinson
McGlinchey-Flores-Caceres
Duke-McBreen
Alternatively, I talked about this last week as a bad idea because it doesn't suit Flores at all, but when you're not playing particularly well there are no bad ideas.* Switch to a 4-2-2-2 like Melbourne Victory?

Reddy
Roux-Sainsbury-Griffiths-Rose
Caceres-Hutchinson
Flores-McGlinchey
McBreen----------------Duke​

It doesn't particularly suit Flores, but it's a way to change it up.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: a lot of our options don't particularly suit Flores because of the way we defend. Our 4-4-2 in defence sends Flores high. That works if we're playing 5 nominal midfielders and 1 nominal striker.

It doesn't suit us if we play with two strikers, because we're not going to rotate so that one of the strikers goes to a flank so Flores can sit out up top. We're also not going to chuck Flores deep in the scrum and ask him to brawl it out.

It's a bit of a dilemma...

For this reason, I think we're actually *very* unlikely to change shape massively, especially to something with two strikers ahead of Flores. My best guess:

Reddy
Roux-Sainsbury-Griffiths-Rose
Monty-Hutchinson
Duke-Flores-McGlinchey
McBreen​

Alternatives -​
  • Caceres could go wide left, McGlinchey to the right, Duke up top, McBreen to the bench
  • Simon to the top instead of McBreen
  • Caceres for Monty (I'd rather have Monty this weekend)
  • Griffiths out for Seip or Anderson - seems unlikely
Really hard to know, but I don't think we've hit our best combination yet. We're a little unbalanced and out of sorts. Hopefully the training track is helping us to iron out the kinks.

*This is a massive, massive lie, but it suits my argument for the moment.
If someone can work out a way around the elephant in the room, let me know.


I don't think Flores is the Elephant in the room. Another player is.
We play a defensive formation to accommodate him.
I think the solution would be to switch him back to the wing.
 

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