Solskjaer's Man Utd have unleashed the 'dream forward' for the PL's most fashionable formation

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There’s a new formation creeping into the mainstream of the Premier League’s big six: the 4-4-2 diamond.

The 4-1-2-1-2 (or “diamond” to be simpler) is not a new system, it was used copiously back in the 1990’s by Serie A sides that had an abundance of elite strikers and titanic trequartista’s (no. 10s), but with the rise of 4-2-3-1 in the 00’s and then the dominance of the 4-3-3 in the 2010’s, width took on a new dimension.

No longer were a team’s wide midfielders ‘traditional wingers’, starting deep and not necessarily the most lethal goalscorers. Now they were attacking midfielders that were part winger, part midfielder, part forward. So the idea of a wingerless formation that left full-backs isolated up against not only their opposite number but also a roaming wing-forward wasn’t too appealing.

So why has it returned to the Premier League now? Well, the emphasis on possession football dictated by Pep Guardiola’s football revolution in general but his arrival in England, in particular, has created an environment where top quality sides know that by controlling possession, they minimise the risk of having no wingers. When you own the ball, it’s not as much of an issue that you leave your full-backs 1v1.

But more than just that, it’s also that strikers have changed. Because of the wing-forwards of the 4-2-3-1, they had to evolve. So now you have strikers who can do everything: they are comfortable in wide or deep zones as much as they are in the box. The Premier League has several like this: Harry Kane, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mohamed Salah, Marcus Rashford, etc.

Kane is a key part of the earliest adopter of the diamond in the Premier League: Spurs. Mauricio Pochettino turned to the system early in the season as a way to evolve his side without the use of the transfer market. The big coming out party was at Old Trafford, where Spurs rocked José Mourinho’s United 0-3 thanks to the diamond.

The unique quirk of their shape was that whilst Dele Alli played as the 10 and Kane as the striker, what actually happened was that Kane’s natural playmaking was utilised as the Englishman dropped deep to link play whilst Dele roared forward into attacking spaces both high and wide on the left. Meanwhile on the right, Lucas Moura was often Spurs’ furthest player forward, acting as the tip of their spear.

So Spurs had a diamond in the middle of the park, but even with the movement to create dynamism, that diamond remained and provided numerical superiority, whilst Dele and Lucas provided width and verticality. Spurs could dominate possession but were very capable of playing direct on the break as well. The shape was flexible, quite easily rotated into a classic 4-2-3-1; it could do anything, and that proved too much for Manchester United.

In true Spurs fashion, however, they lost their next three games. Part of the problem was that Lucas wasn’t a consistent enough threat in attack. No, Spurs’ diamond wouldn’t truly become unleashed until Son Heung-min became part of the starting XI, replacing Lucas up-front next to Kane.

Here Spurs had a genuinely lethal wing-forward they had transposed to a central role; obviously, Son still drifted wide and tracked back like a winger when required, but he knew that when Spurs had the ball it was his job to make the goalscoring runs. And the run of form Son found playing this role powered Spurs’ continued involvement in the title race and gave spectacular validation to Mauricio Pochettino’s decision to switch to the diamond.

Son only lost three games starting as a forward, and ignoring the aberration of the Wolves defeat (because seriously, how did that happen?) both losses came because of the potency of the diamond. Not Spurs’ diamond, but their opponent’s.

In early December, despite Arsenal’s fast start, Spurs had turned the North London Derby around, were 1-2 up and looked in control. Then Unai Emery brought Alexandre Lacazette and Aaron Ramsey off the bench. He immediately paired Lacazette with Aubameyang in attack and put Ramsey as the no. 10 behind the pair.

Unlike the Spurs set-up, both of the Gunners strikers were, well, strikers. However they were also great footballers, so they could stretch Spurs wide and feed in team-mates or push centrally towards goal. And with Aaron Ramsey probing behind them, making runs into space, they became absurdly hard to mark. Each of the three goals they scored showed the power of the diamond.

Ramsey set-up Aubameyang for the equaliser by running into space Lacazette had left. Because the no. 9 had drifted wide, both Ramsey and Aubameyang were 1v1, enabling the Gabonese’s stunning shot. For the go-ahead goal, Aubameyang was deep and Ramsey had drifted wide (again, into a space) and found Lacazette who admittedly worked some magic to score – with a little help from Eric Dier. Then finally, Aubameyang again dropped but Lacazette stayed high, this created a gap and Lucas Torreira ran into it, Aubameyang found him. Boom. 4-2.

Then Son’s last game in England before the Asian Cup was also the game in which Spurs’ diamond was turned against them by, well, another diamond. This time it was from Manchester United, who had obviously learned a thing or two from their Old Trafford thrashing as well as Arsenal’s turnaround because they started the match in the diamond shape and executed their game plan flawlessly.

With Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as manager, United matched Spurs’ formation and placed Jesse Lingard as their no. 10 with Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford as their wide forwards. The use of Lingard was markedly different to how Spurs manipulate Kane into that “deep” role, but it did share similarities with Arsenal’s use of Ramsey.

Lingard primarily pressed the life out of the Spurs midfielders, in particular, Harry Winks. Destabilising Spurs’ ability to get the ball from defence to their danger men in attack was a huge part of why Spurs were so nullified by United. This also allowed Paul Pogba to make the kind of forward runs that Ramsey made for Arsenal, bagging a team-high six shots as a result.

Of course, what really made the United diamond so lethal was the fact that both strikers were blisteringly fast and utterly comfortable playing as wingers.

In fact, both had spent the vast majority of José Mourinho’s tenure vying for that left-wing spot, so moving wide into channels and also tracking back to defend diligently was nothing new to them. Under Solskjaer, however, they have been tasked to stretch the opposition as much as possible rather than act as another pawn in the deep-lying defensive lines.

What this did was make United a terrifying prospect on the break. The Red Devils engineered three ‘fast breaks’ against Spurs – as many as they had in all previous Premier League games under Mourinho this season – and have had more shots as a product of these scenarios than any other side since Solksjaer’s took charge (7).

Marcus Rashford, the dream wide-forward for any manager looking to deploy this system, is the only player to score multiple times from a fast break in this five-game period – including against Spurs – and has also had more shots from these situations (3).

In fact, Rashford’s three efforts from fast breaks in five Premier League games under Solskjaer is more than he managed in his previous 49 combined under Mourinho (2); he truly has been unleashed.

But to focus again on the Spurs victory specifically, Solskjaer’s side became so frightening for two reasons.

On the one hand, they had the numbers and the shape to pass the ball amongst themselves should they wish to calm the game down (which they did at the start of the second half) but they were equally happy to cede possession and then launch counter-attacks at lightning pace into the spaces Spurs left behind.

By playing deep they removed the spaces for Son (and Dele) to run into behind their defence, nullifying a great deal of the dynamism of Spurs’ diamond. And then, with Lingard pressing Winks, they couldn’t move the ball forward to their key playmakers quickly enough. This made them slow in possession and liable to give it away as their frustrations grew, which would then allow United to launch devastating passes in behind their defence to the jet-heeled Martial and Rashford who could curve in from the half-space to take up central striking roles or simply breeze into the spaces left by Spurs’ advancing full-backs.

United’s goal came from exactly that situation, as Kieran Trippier played a sloppy pass that Jesse Lingard intercepted. The ball fell to Paul Pogba who immediately saw that Rashford was in behind Ben Davies at left-back and was running 1v1 with Jan Vertonghen, a race he will always win. The pass was played, Rashford shot early, and the goal was scored.

Spurs’ great counterattack in the second-half should be noted, but it came when they had changed formation to the original scourge of the diamond: the 4-2-3-1. United handled it at first, but when Romelu Lukaku came on for Martial, United lost much of the dynamism that made their shape work in the first-half (Rashford was clearly tiring) and they ended up needing a David De Gea masterclass to see their win out.

It’s not a flawless system, but this 4-1-2-1-2 or 4-4-2 diamond – or however you want to refer to it – is a truly potent formation. It offers the ability to press the opponent’s deep-lying playmaker (a key position at elite sides) whilst also having a solid four creative players in the central zone to ensure numerical dominance. Then finally, it unleashes the fast wing-forwards that populate the modern game.

Spurs have used it to go on a great run, Arsenal have used it to change games, United have shown it can be a lethal counter-attacking weapon, even Liverpool’s great Champions League run last season was based on a 4-3-3 false nine that, thanks to Roberto Firmino dropping deep, somewhat relied upon a diamond in the middle of the park to stabilise it.

The big six sides in England have found their new favourite weapon in the battle against each other. Whether the tip of this diamond is sharp enough to win the war remains to be seen.

The post Explained: why the diamond formation is emerging as the key tactical weapon in the battle of the ‘big six’ appeared first on Squawka News.



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