Team built for 3 at the back

[Bigbadwulf07]

Why have we got specialist wing backs, Jonny, Ait Nouri, Semedo and then go 4 at the back. If we were to make this change we should have brought in specialist full backs. IMO even without Raul, we would be so much better reverting to 3 at the back

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Did any of the three you mention ever play wingback before coming to Wolves?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Did any of the three you mention ever play wingback before coming to Wolves?

No is the answer to that.

 

[sycophantia]

Must admit this simpleton (me) was thinking along the same lines till someone explained why they aren't wb's.....can't remember who it was, probably DW, YW or Johnny.

 

[big mean bunny]

I personally feel that Semedo looks better in the 4. I thought he looked good yesterday although seen others disagree, he was at least looking to go on and drive with the ball, and raise the tempo.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

No is the answer to that.

As I thought, you could perhaps make a case that playing fullback at Barcelona isn't inherently different from playing wingback for most other times, and playing behind Messi isn't anything like having a conventional winger ahead of you.

It's largely irrelevant though, people will be used it positions that their managers consider them suitable for, not purely on their previous CV.

 

[Bigbadwulf07]

IMO Jonny has been playing WB for 2 years and haven't we missed him?, Ait Nouri looks far better attacking but good, albeit raw in either role, Semedo looks shaky defending. Marcal looked a better FB, Hoever has the most promise in either role

 

[PuntsWolf]

Good attacking as a FB doesn’t equal great WB.

TAA is great attacking as a FB for Liverpool but totally ineffective as a WB for England.

It’s one of the things that’s winding me up the most at the moment saying Semedo would be a great WB. It’s just lazy and baseless just because he’s been shaky defensively and runs fast forwards.

File it with Neves as an AM becomes he kicks it hard, Vinagre as a LW as he can’t defend and does step overs and Edwards as a #10 as he scored a few headers.

 

[Premier Quality]

I think Semedo can be an excellent wing back because he has the stamina to do it, excellent close control and passing, so he can either dribble or pass depending on the situation, and he’s intelligent enough to judge which. His crossing isn’t great though, so he needs options in the box to pass to which we haven’t given him until recently.

he has weaknesses too, but then who doesn’t? Doc played wing back far more effectively than full back, but he had substantial weaknesses in his game.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Good attacking as a FB doesn’t equal great WB.

TAA is great attacking as a FB for Liverpool but totally ineffective as a WB for England.

It’s one of the things that’s winding me up the most at the moment saying Semedo would be a great WB. It’s just lazy and baseless just because he’s been shaky defensively and runs fast forwards.

File it with Neves as an AM becomes he kicks it hard, Vinagre as a LW as he can’t defend and does step overs and Edwards as a #10 as he scored a few headers.

"I'd play Naylor on the left wing Franksie"

 

[jlo]

The team is built for 3 at the back......because we don't have quality premier league centre backs. Not because of the full backs. People forget we've strengthened the FB/WB twice over since the Championship, yet our CBs are still the same (excluding a non-league CB we've added).

 

[AndyWolves]

Id be thinking about Boly and Saiss at CB. I can't make my mind up about Coady as a CB.

 

[Premier Quality]

Boly and Kilman for me. But we’d miss Coadys leadership, we don’t have a huge amount of talkers in the side.

I guess that could be because they all know Coady will be doing it though, so they can abdicate the responsibility?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Can't see Kilman being any good in a back four, he's slow and he's cumbersome on the ball.

 

[PuntsWolf]

The team is built for 3 at the back......because we don't have quality premier league centre backs. Not because of the full backs. People forget we've strengthened the FB/WB twice over since the Championship, yet our CBs are still the same (excluding a non-league CB we've added).

It’s not the 4 or 5 though. Plenty of worse teams than us (with rubbish CBs) can still be defensively solid playing 4s. It’s more the low block that bought our success rather than the number of CBs.

We played 5 at the back at Burnley and West Ham. Probably two of our worst performances of the season where we could have easily conceded 10 in those games combined. It was how we played not what formation we played.

 

[prawnking]

Three at the back sounds comforting, but I think Johnny hit the nail on the head the other day; we can't really go back to that classic 343 as those players just aren't here anymore, either permanently or through injury.

Which means Nuno has to work out another way of using the other seven players in a way that gives us some convincing attacking threat.

 

[Premier Quality]

Can't see Kilman being any good in a back four, he's slow and he's cumbersome on the ball.

I don’t think he is - he’s pretty good on the ball. And he’s not quick, but he’s as quick as John terry, Cahill, coady, silva, maguire, evans, etc etc - pace is nice in a back four but it’s not all important if you have good positioning, reading of the game and arial ability.

 

[Tony Towner]

The team is built for 3 at the back......because we don't have quality premier league centre backs. Not because of the full backs. People forget we've strengthened the FB/WB twice over since the Championship, yet our CBs are still the same (excluding a non-league CB we've added).

It’s not the 4 or 5 though. Plenty of worse teams than us (with rubbish CBs) can still be defensively solid playing 4s. It’s more the low block that bought our success rather than the number of CBs.

We played 5 at the back at Burnley and West Ham. Probably two of our worst performances of the season where we could have easily conceded 10 in those games combined. It was how we played not what formation we played.

I'd like to expand on these 2 posts.

Firstly, it seems too big a coincidence that 5/6 PL wins have come with a 5, I appreciate our 2 heaviest defeats also did. You could even argue the one win with 4 was more about circumstance, given the motivation post the Raul injury. Also nobody can convince me it was a planned formation change, it was a reaction to a lack of creavity. Neither Semedo or RAN were signed to play full back, so WB was the original intention imo.

All of our wide defenders can play both positions, but that doesn't mean the team can. In a 4 we still expect the full backs to push high up whilst the centre mids don't track runners - YW broke this down better than I can, but it's leaving the centre halves exposed more than would be the case with an extra man.

Boly is our best centre half defending one on one, but as we know he can have his switching off moments and to honest, parking his leadership, we'd be better off with Dunk or Mee than Coady at the moment. In a 4 he will have to be sacrificed sooner rather than later for a conventional centre half.

I also noticed that Semedo was making Dohertyesque runs inside Adama yesterday rather than both looking to take up the same areas, but Traore didn't look up and spot them. Improve that and we'll be more dangerous

 

[Paul]

I personally feel that Semedo looks better in the 4. I thought he looked good yesterday although seen others disagree, he was at least looking to go on and drive with the ball, and raise the tempo.

Semedo did look good yesterday but in some peoples eyes 37 Gazillion pound Semedo did not, and also as per TT's post above you would think that if Semedo was overlapping Traore would go inside or vice versa !

 

[YoungWolf]

I think the back four looks better when we play with two defensive midfielders in front of them rather than just Neves.

We've only started with that shape in four games I think?

Arsenal
Villa
Spurs
Brighton

In the first three are the only times we've been able to get Neto, Traore and Podence as the three behind the forward too, and I think they have been some of our better performances. We did a slightly weird shape at Liverpool where Neves seemed the most advanced at times but it didn't make sense to me.

Whereas the flat 433 we just don't have the player for and seems to leave us more open anyway. Two defensive midfielders should also let our full backs play higher to help us create more.