4-5-1 and Life without Twiggy

Could Bradley tranfsorm from one of our most frustrating, to most important, players in 2010?

T-minus 5 days.

After an off-season that dragged on, pre-season seemed to fly through, leaving us now in the week of the first game of the season. Later on in the week I’ll be posting a more general preview of the season, featuring some input from fans of other clubs, but now its time to focus on Rovers.

MON’s shopping seems to be done and the squad put together seems a lot stronger than the last years, however there are still some big talking points. The defence is uncontrversial. We have a lot of very solid players, and plenty of cover, to the point where we don’t have to worry about losing Sives or Sullivan in the early weeks of the season due to suspension, every position is well backed up, although for me some doubt remains as to the quality of Enda Stevens.

It’s in midfield and up front that questions remain. We seem to have a host of wide midfielders, but very few out and out strikers. Twigg of course will lead the line, and I’ve no doubt he can  re-produce the displays he did last year. With him though only Dessie Baker and Graham Barret have first team experience, Baker is getting on and has missed pre-season, while Barret has had many injury problems himself.

With just 3 established strikers in the squad we might have to get used to playing without the fantastic Twigg a bit more this season, but just how would Rovers cope without the Scot? How exactly can we expect MON to work with the squad he has formed? The LSC game with Wexford Youths gives us some idea, and here’s how Rovers lined up without Twigg to lead the line.

On paper this looks rather defensive, five in midfield to stifle the meager threat posed by Youths. Fullbacks played rather deep and didn’t bomb forward, Barret was up top as the lone striker. But in play it was far more offensive than it seems.

Rovers aimed to get Bradley on the ball in the middle of the field. Bradser often struggled last year, failing to ‘get stuck in’ when required and giving the ball away too often. That contributed to Rovers often being overrun in the middle in important games. The 4-5-1 formation seeks to rectify that, but also to make the most of Bradley’s ability to pick a killer ball on occasion. When any of the three central midfielders picked up the ball, the two wide players would race on and join Barrett up front on the flanks, dragging the Youths defence out of position and creating more space and time for Bradley on the ball. Similarly, Chambers and Ollie would push on a bit. Often Bradley would fail to pick a killer pass, but unlike last year when the ball was lost Rovers had much more cover to deal with that situation; the defence was in a more set position, whilst the two advancing centre mids could quickly retreat to help slow down an opposition attack. This will be crucial given our lack of pace at centre half, as will cover from the full-back area to sweep in behind the back two.

So what looks on paper a defensive 4-5-1 actually looks like this when we succeed in getting Bradley (our best passer) on the ball

Against Wexford, when one of the two attacking central midfield player carry the ball forward the other dropped back sitting alongside Bradley to be able to protect the back four should a counter attack  try to take advantage of the advancing wingers. It didn’t work perfectly as we were caught out occasionally, but with the players we have its a formation worth sticking with.

It really is an awful lot of tricky players for a defence to deal with. Especially playing two attacking central midfielders who are well used to going past players (Cahill and Chambers played there on Saturday, there’s still room for Kavanagh, Rice and perhaps Chris Turner in that midfield too).

Barrett (or Baker) will perform the role of the lone striker in Twigg’s absence. I think  he’ll operate as what the Italian’s call a Trequartista; a  a deep-lying forward who wont score 15 goals in a season, but will link up with wingers, release onrushing central midfieders, and generally cause a nuisance of himself with his movement between areas where a centre half and defensive midfielder wont know who should take responsibility for him.

Twigg’s return to the team will see him be very much the main man up front, but with a plethora of tricky wingers, that doesn’t mean we should give up on the ideas behind the 4-5-1 in order to ensure maximum returns. In the formation below Barrett/Baker’s trickery behind Twigg can help release our many attacking wingers, whilst also being able to offer more cover to the two central midfielders who may be pushed wide to cover space left by the attacking wingers. It may well be up to the two wide wigners/support strikers to truly partner Twigg up front and around the periphery of the box rather than Barrett/Baker who may lie deeper.

Even with Twigg’s return more options remain. Barrett or Baker could operate in one of the wide support striker/winger roles in the 4-5-1 formation shown before, releasing O’Connor, Dennehy or Kavanagh to play in one of the advanced central midfield roles. If full backs struggle with SOC and Kavanagh running at them, how will centre halves like having to deal with them all match long? Of course SOC/Kavanagh/Dennehy will not be as destructive in that role as other midfielders, and will certainly lose a lot more ball than others, but the beauty of this formation is that with a less advanced back four, and the safety of two other central midfielders, we can afford to be more profligate in possession.

Rovers may very well line out in the tried and trusted 4-4-2 this year, but the Wexford Youths game shows that MON is at least considering thinking outside the box. With the squad he’s put together he’s afforded himself a lot of options, especially in wide attacking positions, and I think this is the reason he was willing to let Podge Amond go without signing an obvious replacement. We just might not need as many strikers this year if we trust the obvious pace and trickery of our wingers and attackers like Barrett and Baker.

Crucial to this of course is a midfielder who can thread a killer pass to release the likes of Twigg, SOC, Dennehy, Kavanagh, Barrett etc. This potential change of formation might just mean that its Stephen Bradley who takes over from Stephen Rice as the key man at the heart of Shamrock Rovers this year. The fact that we can even consider building a formation without Rice just shows how well MON has improved the options available to him this year, but don’t be surprised to see Ricer make himself undroppable once again.

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~ by smulv on March 2, 2010.