01-06-2021, 07:52 PM
(01-06-2021, 05:27 PM)Tricky Wrote:(01-06-2021, 04:39 PM)GaribaldiRED Wrote: In CH's two last seasons at Brighton he played 4-4-1-1 and 4-3-3. Interviewed just before he left Brighton in 2019 he commented:
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Asked about the change of formation and potentially sacrificing one area to improve another, Hughton said: "That is always the balance and I remember changing the system. We'd won, I think, a couple of games, with the system we were playing and one of the arguments there was that we weren't playing particularly well.
"Certainly I think a change in system there saw us, certainly on the ball, being better.
"Systems is one thing, it's about a player. Pascal (Gross) we've missed in a position we've played him (No. 10) so often. But we can always talk about formations and for a change of a 4-4-1-1 to a 4-3-3, it depends how you look at it.
"It gives me three players with more opportunities to score - your wide players are playing higher up.
"We can always talk about systems. It's about performance, the quality of the teams we are playing against, competition, and for me not so much about formation."
"Apart from a 4-4-2 where you are playing two number nines up front we probably don't really have that natural number ten.
"Alireza (Jahanbakhsh) can play and has played off the front but we certainly don't have that natural ten that can play in there."
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For me it sounds like CH is quite pragmatic and not too fussed about formations but rather what type of players he has to his disposal.
Which would explain why he favoured the 4-2-3-1 so much last season. He just didn't have the right types of players at his disposal to try and play any other way
I think you are right. He inherited a squad used to play 4-2-3-1 so even though he probably didn't feel that he had the perfect #10 he stuck to that formation. I seem to remember him commented that the squad was unbalanced.