by aterford » Fri Jul 05, 2019 9:22 pm
TBH I don't hate the idea of playing with three at the back, i kinda feel like we've the personnel for it (Kimmich and Alaba are basically wingbacks, players like Pavard and Lucas are obviously mobile enough to play as 'wide' CBs, Gnabry or someone like Werner could do well up top, etc) though we'd certainly need to pack in even more defenders...
...that being said the idea of being FORCED to play as such because we can't land a winger is absolutely embarrassing. If we wanna approach the summer with the mindset that we're playing 3-5-2 next year, you know, that's fine. But if we're approaching it as "We wanna play 4-2-3-1 but if we can't get the right players then we'll play something else" then that's just awful.
Trouble is also that I get the feeling the manager and bosses aren't on the same page. Feels to me like Kovac would rather play three at the back but the bosses/board would rather stick with 4-2-3-1 (as above) and Kovac wants players who fit his system and the club wants players who fits "our style". And far be it from me to defend Kovac but I'm not sure really who's to blame here....
On one hand, I think it's foolish that our club often acts as though 4-2-3-1 is the only system we can ever play and if we don't we're no better than Paderborn.
On the other hand, I think Kovac is a pretty tactically limited coach and I'm not sure how much leeway I wanna give him...
...but, at the same time, if you have a tactically limited manager, I'm not sure it's wise to further limit his tactics by forcing a particular type of player and style of play. Like I said, I don't really rate Kovac's tactics, but if he feels best about playing three at the back then I think it'd stand to reason that if we want to get the most out of him as manager we should make that happen - if not, send him packing. Keeping a manager who is limited to one style and then not allowing him to play that style is maximum foolishness IMO.
Of course, I'd rather just get a new manager, but it's too late for this year. So that's the tricky thing. I think Kovac probably does best with back three, but at the same time most top teams recently haven't had great success with such a system. And I don't expect Kovac to be around much longer, so you don't wanna buy 'lame duck' players who are limited in versatility and best suited to back-three who are then left without a clear role when a new manager comes in and goes back to a back four.
But....at the moment I'm not sure where our approach falls. There are pros and cons to both.
1. We could sign Kovac the players he wants for the style he wants to play. In this way, I think we probably maximize Kovac's potential but I still doubt it's enough to do anything significant. Kovac probably still ends up leaving and we're likely left with deadweight players who are "Kovac quality" and too limited to have a significant role under a new manager.
2. We could sign top-level players who fit the 4-2-3-1 the bosses want to play AND are versatile enough to play other styles as well. These players can play well under Kovac and still can succeed and be key players when he is gone (for example, Thiago looked like a player designed for Pep's system, but he's class enough to be a key player long after Pep's gone. Or Tolisso appeared to be tailor-made to play in 4-3-3, but he's shown he can play well outside of that, too).
But I think right now we're stuck in a weird third option: yes, we've landed Pavard and Lucas, but outside of that we haven't really signed any "Kovac players" and we haven't signed any other top players yet who can play a key role beyond Kovacball. So at the moment it kinda feels like our approach carries all the negatives of the above two 'methods' and few-to-none of the positives.
#BigFlickEnergy