Play the diamond, love the diamond!

We are starting to get the hang of it now!

Like all system's they take a while to gel, but thing really look like they are starting to click in the previously much derided diamond system. Even in the Watford, Man Utd, Sunderland & Arsenal games although the results weren't great we were still playing well. The player now look like they are getting to grips with it and can cause teams a lot of problems and look comfortable defensively as well.

Channel 4 aired "The Leader" episode of the Simpsons tonight. This post reminds me of that.

Systems, not system's

Apart from that, I agree with you, and hopefully the morons that were calling for Puel's head can shut up.

Wasn't tonight more about how poor Palarse were? I think that's the way it goes......we lose, we're ****; we win, the oppo is ****.

We are starting to get the hang of it now!

 

 

Like all system's they take a while to gel, but thing really look like they are starting to click in the previously much derided diamond system. Even in the Watford, Man Utd, Sunderland & Arsenal games although the results weren't great we were still playing well. The player now look like they are getting to grips with it and can cause teams a lot of problems and look comfortable defensively as well.

Saves you having to polish a turd for once pal.

You're so weird.

I'm beginning to like Claude's team of diamonds

Channel 4 aired "The Leader" episode of the Simpsons tonight. This post reminds me of that.

NANANANANANANANA Leader

I know cubic zirconia when I see it.

The last three games have seen us play awful opposition so it is hard to judge progress - certainly the end of next month will give us a good view of where we're really at.

We've looked better defensively (shape wise) and things are little more coherent going forward. The balance feels better. Any half decent team will continue to exploit us with 1 vs. 1's out wide and in transition on the break - some of the opposition we face in the next month will be the biggest test of this.

The last three games have seen us play awful opposition so it is hard to judge progress - certainly the end of next month will give us a good view of where we're really at.

 

We've looked better defensively (shape wise) and things are little more coherent going forward. The balance feels better. Any half decent team will continue to exploit us with 1 vs. 1's out wide and in transition on the break - some of the opposition we face in the next month will be the biggest test of this.

West Ham on Sunday is going to be an interesting test. They have been frail at the back, but they still have some very talented players who can give us problems.

I cant comment about last nights game as i didnt see it but if we take the other 2 games as a reference i think the reason we have been more successful with the diamond formation is that it looks suspiciously like a 4 - 3 -3 :-)

The last three games have seen us play awful opposition so it is hard to judge progress - certainly the end of next month will give us a good view of where we're really at.

 

We've looked better defensively (shape wise) and things are little more coherent going forward. The balance feels better. Any half decent team will continue to exploit us with 1 vs. 1's out wide and in transition on the break - some of the opposition we face in the next month will be the biggest test of this.

Erm.... are you saying Watford and Sunderland weren't awful? And where do Arsenal fit within the "half-decent" teams?

We're clearly progressing, we're not the finished article but bit by bit we are getting there.

We are starting to get the hang of it now!

 

 

Like all system's they take a while to gel, but thing really look like they are starting to click in the previously much derided diamond system. Even in the Watford, Man Utd, Sunderland & Arsenal games although the results weren't great we were still playing well. The player now look like they are getting to grips with it and can cause teams a lot of problems and look comfortable defensively as well.

I cant comment about last nights game as i didnt see it but if we take the other 2 games as a reference i think the reason we have been more successful with the diamond formation is that it looks suspiciously like a 4 - 3 -3 :-)

Exactly.

As I pointed out to you on Twitter MLG, we didn't play the diamond against Swansea. This view of average positions shows we played a 4-3-3 with attacking fullbacks.

4-1-2-1-2 looks a lot like 4-3-3 when the 'forwards' pull wide, rather than the central midfielders. Just as 4-2-3-1 looks a lot like 4-3-3 if the wingers push on in line with the forward, or it can look like 4-4-1-1 if they drop deep. It's all based on interpretation and really doesn't matter. The skill set of the players will largely dictate what it looks like, Tadic is more comfortable by the touchline so as a forward he pulled really wide, whilst long would rather exploit the space between CB and RB so came in much narrower

Exactly.

 

As I pointed out to you on Twitter MLG, we didn't play the diamond against Swansea. This view of average positions shows we played a 4-3-3 with attacking fullbacks.

Call it what you will, that's basically how we've played since preseason. That the tip of the diamond e.g. Tadic is as advanced as the two (inside) forwards, making the formation look like a three up top is nothing new.

Call it what you will, that's basically how we've played since preseason. That the tip of the diamond e.g. Tadic is as advanced as the two (inside) forwards, making the formation look like a three up top is nothing new.

Indeed you can call it what you want but calling it a diamond would be incorrect IMO.

Exactly.

 

As I pointed out to you on Twitter MLG, we didn't play the diamond against Swansea. This view of average positions shows we played a 4-3-3 with attacking fullbacks.

That looks exactly like the way we've been playing the diamond all season, tbh. As a narrow 4-3-3 with the point of the diamond playing in the middle almost up front.

3 wins from 3 is all well and good but lets see how it goes playing a top ten team before "loving it"

Sparta Prague were awful, Palace were poor and didn't get to see Swansea in full but by all accounts they won't be venturing into the top ten anytime soon.

The last three games have seen us play awful opposition so it is hard to judge progress - certainly the end of next month will give us a good view of where we're really at.

 

We've looked better defensively (shape wise) and things are little more coherent going forward. The balance feels better. Any half decent team will continue to exploit us with 1 vs. 1's out wide and in transition on the break - some of the opposition we face in the next month will be the biggest test of this.

Er Arsenal?

We were the better team in that game for long periods, away at the 3rd/4th best team in the league.

The way I see it, Tadic had the freedom to find the space. It took Swansea until well into the second half to actually realise we were destroying them down the right flank. Tadic consistently picked the ball up on the right and played it through to our other two forwards in the channels. Cedric was the player making overlapping runs down the right to give us the traditional width.

Puel's system isn't a rigid formation (apart from the base of the diamond). The heatmaps for every game are different as its fluidity up top allows players to pick up space anywhere from one side of the pitch to the other. Tadic exploited Swansea's weakness down the right flank but that definitely does not mean we set up with a formation different to how we played in any of our games this season.

As I said weeks and weeks ago when people were complaining, the diamond formation is a 4-3-3 when attacking.

Erm.... are you saying Watford and Sunderland weren't awful? And where do Arsenal fit within the "half-decent" teams?

 

We're clearly progressing, we're not the finished article but bit by bit we are getting there.

Sunderland are certainly awful. Watford less so (but certainly a team we should be beating at home). More on Arsenal below.

Er Arsenal?

 

We were the better team in that game for long periods, away at the 3rd/4th best team in the league.

Long periods? No way. They dominated possession and chances. When we lost the ball they would attack far too easily. We didn't deserve to lose and we created the better chances but the way we'd lose the ball and it result in a dangerous counter for Arsenal was very bad. I'm pleased to see that has stopped, but then it would do so against the last three teams we've faced as we've had more of the ball.

I'm saying its hard to judge progress because of the standard of opposition we've faced. I would certainly say we've played better against the three teams we just beat than we did against Sunderland. As I say, October is the month where I will judge real progress with the new formation. I'm just not getting carried away with the three wins, just as it wasn't appropriate to get carried away with the poor start to the season.

Some formations have inherent weaknesses no matter what the standard of player and understanding that exists between them. We saw the diamond under Adkins when we were one of the best teams in the Championship and teams would constantly find space down the wings and we would constantly find ourselves in 1 vs. 1 positions while defending - it's dangerous. Also because the diamond means we have lots of players concentrated in small parts of the pitch any switch of play can cause us problems too. That's a formation thing, not a quality thing. We have to accept weaknesses in a formation as long as we experience the strengths of it. I want to see how many strengths we experience when we play very good opposition. In the one game we've done that (Arsenal) we've had less possession, conceded more chances and looked unorganised in transition. That's where I want to see most progress and I can't judge that until we play a half decent team again. And, in the interest of fairness, we also saw some good things against Arsenal.

Its more of a "triangle" isn't it? When attacking, or especially when Austin in is. The point of the diamond goes away leaving the base 3-person triangle. This "triangle" seems to be when we are most potent.

Whether or not we actually play a diamond in games - it's definitely made us play higher up the pitch and makes breaks more readily available.

The fast Redmond/Long type 'striker' seems to be keen to allow us to play higher up the pitch and have more possession.

I wonder if Boufal will play in the 10 or up top as one of the strikers - if you play him in the 10 you could easily play tadic in the left side of the diamond or up top as well.

Seems like we have some nice options now.

As I said weeks and weeks ago when people were complaining, the diamond formation is a 4-3-3 when attacking.

you're obviously unbelievable Jeff

To compare Adkins diamond tries to what Puel does is where you go wrong, Puel has a much stronger grip of the concept, it strength and most importantly to overcome it's weakness, this man has been perfecting this in the top tier of the French league and European competition.

To compare Adkins diamond tries to what Puel does is where you go wrong, Puel has a much stronger grip of the concept, it strength and most importantly to overcome it's weakness, this man has been perfecting this in the top tier of the French league and European competition.

Yeah I have no doubt that Puel's diamond is more mature than an Adkins diamond given his experience etc. But I think it wold be wrong to say no matter how well he understands it that he can eliminate its weaknesses. It is quite clear that it is a narrow formation that the opposition can expose specifically when you a) lose the ball, or b) allow a team to switch the play quickly and create overload 1 vs. 1 situations in advanced positions.

Quite clearly there are strengths to the formation as well. But the weaknesses the diamond has will exist no matter who is the Manager because some are just inherent in the formation regardless. It is the same for any formation so I am not having a go at Puel for playing a diamond.

For what it is worth I find the formation very attacking and enjoy watching it. Defensively absolutely nothing comes through the middle (as you would expect) but out wide there is so much space (again, as you would expect) and it's ok Puel fanning out the strikers to mark the full backs when we don't have the ball but we only do that when we get chance to reset and get into position. When we lose the ball upfield any team with competence can break well and create something so it is just the balance of how many men or how far we commit the team forward to ensure we don't become easy to break on that concerns me in general. That is not to say we can't take a risk but its just about balance and decision making. This can be developed as long as you have players who have tactical intelligence (which I think we do).

Jeez let's not get carried away here... Lots on here telling Batman and his merry men not to get too depressed after 4 miserable performances, so let's not get carried away after 3 games against weak opposition hey!?

Sparta were absolutely awful - no arguments there surely?

Swansea likewise awful

Palace were a weakened team and clearly no interest in the league cup

Let's judge after the next 5-7 games

Yeah I have no doubt that Puel's diamond is more mature than an Adkins diamond given his experience etc. But I think it wold be wrong to say no matter how well he understands it that he can eliminate its weaknesses. It is quite clear that it is a narrow formation that the opposition can expose specifically when you a) lose the ball, or b) allow a team to switch the play quickly and create overload 1 vs. 1 situations in advanced positions.

 

Quite clearly there are strengths to the formation as well. But the weaknesses the diamond has will exist no matter who is the Manager because some are just inherent in the formation regardless. It is the same for any formation so I am not having a go at Puel for playing a diamond.

 

For what it is worth I find the formation very attacking and enjoy watching it. Defensively absolutely nothing comes through the middle (as you would expect) but out wide there is so much space (again, as you would expect) and it's ok Puel fanning out the strikers to mark the full backs when we don't have the ball but we only do that when we get chance to reset and get into position. When we lose the ball upfield any team with competence can break well and create something so it is just the balance of how many men or how far we commit the team forward to ensure we don't become easy to break on that concerns me in general. That is not to say we can't take a risk but its just about balance and decision making. This can be developed as long as you have players who have tactical intelligence (which I think we do).

This is similar to how I see it. I've only been to 3 games,Sunderland,Sparta and Swansea but I think in all three of those games the opposition has found it far too easy to cross ball into our box,as the opposition has been pretty average it hasn't mattered. Going forward we are looking more accomplished with it,but I'm not sure how it will work especially at home against better opposition.

Sunderland are certainly awful. Watford less so (but certainly a team we should be beating at home). More on Arsenal below.

 

 

 

Long periods? No way. They dominated possession and chances. When we lost the ball they would attack far too easily. We didn't deserve to lose and we created the better chances but the way we'd lose the ball and it result in a dangerous counter for Arsenal was very bad. I'm pleased to see that has stopped, but then it would do so against the last three teams we've faced as we've had more of the ball.

 

I'm saying its hard to judge progress because of the standard of opposition we've faced. I would certainly say we've played better against the three teams we just beat than we did against Sunderland. As I say, October is the month where I will judge real progress with the new formation. I'm just not getting carried away with the three wins, just as it wasn't appropriate to get carried away with the poor start to the season.

 

Some formations have inherent weaknesses no matter what the standard of player and understanding that exists between them. We saw the diamond under Adkins when we were one of the best teams in the Championship and teams would constantly find space down the wings and we would constantly find ourselves in 1 vs. 1 positions while defending - it's dangerous. Also because the diamond means we have lots of players concentrated in small parts of the pitch any switch of play can cause us problems too. That's a formation thing, not a quality thing. We have to accept weaknesses in a formation as long as we experience the strengths of it. I want to see how many strengths we experience when we play very good opposition. In the one game we've done that (Arsenal) we've had less possession, conceded more chances and looked unorganised in transition. That's where I want to see most progress and I can't judge that until we play a half decent team again. And, in the interest of fairness, we also saw some good things against Arsenal.

A crude way to judge progress would be to ask yourself would we batter Sunderland if we played them on Sunday?

Jeez let's not get carried away here... Lots on here telling Batman and his merry men not to get too depressed after 4 miserable performances, so let's not get carried away after 3 games against weak opposition hey!?

 

Sparta were absolutely awful - no arguments there surely?

 

Swansea likewise awful

 

Palace were a weakened team and clearly no interest in the league cup

 

Let's judge after the next 5-7 games

How lucky we are to come across 3 truly awful sides in a row.

Good to see you're maintaining your consistent position of not wanting to judge our new manager or his system until at least the end of October.

Thre is a greaqt podcast interview with Rudd Guillit on the Guardian recently plugging his knew book about football tactics .

In ther interview he said that there are really two types of 4-3-3. The midfield is always a V shape, and it depends on wether the v faces one way, with 2 defensive midfield and one attacking, or the other way, with only one DM. According to him, the second way is more attacking, as more players are able to get forwards.

Makes sense to me.

Jeez let's not get carried away here... Lots on here telling Batman and his merry men not to get too depressed after 4 miserable performances, so let's not get carried away after 3 games against weak opposition hey!?

 

Sparta were absolutely awful - no arguments there surely?

 

Swansea likewise awful

 

Palace were a weakened team and clearly no interest in the league cup

 

Let's judge after the next 5-7 games

Says the man who has been banging on and on and on about the same sh eite for months

perhaps this will be the archetypal " winning system " that we've been looking for so long.....and we can wait to see if it's going to be " Diamonds forever...."

.(...sorry I couldn't resist that one ....I'll go off and have another coffee.......)

Jeez let's not get carried away here... Lots on here telling Batman and his merry men not to get too depressed after 4 miserable performances, so let's not get carried away after 3 games against weak opposition hey!?

 

Sparta were absolutely awful - no arguments there surely?

 

Swansea likewise awful

 

Palace were a weakened team and clearly no interest in the league cup

 

Let's judge after the next 5-7 games

One might argue that " we didn't let them play ". We had superior % possession in the first two games, and it was 50/50% in the Palace game.

If you think Palace played " a weakened team ", then what sort of a side did we put out? I don't ever recall Alan Pardew expressing a lack of interest in any game.

All teams try out some of their "B squad " players in such competitions, otherwise they'd get no " game time " at all.

We also made a lot of changes .....and played FOUR Academy lads who aren't normally first choicers either.

I agree we need more games to get a better assessment of " the Diamond system ", but we've played some good football - even if we didn't get wins in those early games.

.

The way I see it, Tadic had the freedom to find the space. It took Swansea until well into the second half to actually realise we were destroying them down the right flank. Tadic consistently picked the ball up on the right and played it through to our other two forwards in the channels. Cedric was the player making overlapping runs down the right to give us the traditional width.

 

Puel's system isn't a rigid formation (apart from the base of the diamond). The heatmaps for every game are different as its fluidity up top allows players to pick up space anywhere from one side of the pitch to the other. Tadic exploited Swansea's weakness down the right flank but that definitely does not mean we set up with a formation different to how we played in any of our games this season.

They took their left back off at half time (and comically replaced him with Kyle Naughton who switched from the right, but who has been consistently bloody awful for about 4 years in either full back position), so I'd be inclined to think they'd noticed we were getting a lot of success down that side. Then we got 3 crosses in within 2 minutes of the start of the second half, so I'm not sure "well into..." is accurate, they just didn't have anything to stop it. Bringing Montero on pushed us back, and we countered by adding a more defensive approach on that side to cut Montero's supply off and add defensive cover.

It looks like it has evolved into this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXWq34XByjc

There isn't a huge amount of difference from 442 narrow diamond and 433, it depends if you view the central attacking player as an AM or striker.

Austin, Tadic and Redmond played as a front three against West Ham and they swapped positions throughout the match and left West Ham's defence confused as to who they should mark.

It looks like it has evolved into this...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXWq34XByjc

 

There isn't a huge amount of difference from 442 narrow diamond and 433, it depends if you view the central attacking player as an AM or striker.

 

Austin, Tadic and Redmond played as a front three against West Ham and they swapped positions throughout the match and left West Ham's defence confused as to who they should mark.

Nice Vid, I would say that is exactly how we setup to play in every detail. Good to see the why of what we see on the pitch and the explanation as to how it works. This explains why on occasion the tip of the diamond is further forward than the two dedicated strikers. If they have both rotated on their flanks it would leave say Dusan looking like he is playing the furthest forward. It likewise explains the amount of careful slinging it around the back we see. Thanks.

This is a great video, and matches what I thought I saw. We look best with Austin in the #9, and Redmond/Long/Tadic in the outside forwards. This is because those positions are getting the ball a lot of time in open space, out near the boundaries. This takes advantage of their quickness and pace. The #9 is more of a central striker, and is also usually in the position to play the longer "hold up" type ball, which Austin is the best at for us.

Not sure what we're playing these days but it feels like a 4-1-2-3. Whatever it is the opposition have worked it out.

Earlier in the season we were passing the ball quickly with one touch play through the centre of the park and it was creating chances, I don't remember us doing that at all since the Leicester game now.

Earlier in the season we were passing the ball quickly with one touch play through the centre of the park and it was creating chances, I don't remember us doing that at all since the Leicester game now.

I don't remember us creating many good chances against many teams this year. The only games this season where I've thought we looked scoring a few goals was Burnley at home, Swansea at home and away at West Ham. Burnley got beaten 4-0 on Monday and have the worst away record in the league, Swansea are bottom of the league and West Ham have the second worst defensive record in the league.

I'm inclined to think those chances and wins were as a result of the opposition being so poor rather than our own abilities

I don't remember us creating many good chances against many teams this year. The only games this season where I've thought we looked scoring a few goals was Burnley at home, Swansea at home and away at West Ham. Burnley got beaten 4-0 on Monday and have the worst away record in the league, Swansea are bottom of the league and West Ham have the second worst defensive record in the league.

 

I'm inclined to think those chances and wins were as a result of the opposition being so poor rather than our own abilities

Very selective memory then, it wasn't that long ago we were lamenting the fact that we were creating 15+ chances a game but hardly putting any away.

Very selective memory then, it wasn't that long ago we were lamenting the fact that we were creating 15+ chances a game but hardly putting any away.

Three up front cannot work.... We are weak in mid field - outnumbered.... There is a mental block with some players when it comes to scoring...