The last two weeks have been very interesting. Wins against Villa, Wigan and Fulham. We're momentarily at the top of the table, and even though it's not quite top of the table its feels pretty good.
One thing I've been happy to see go is the 4-3-3. We've played this the whole season since Chamakh started leading the line -- And Arsene seemed to have been tinkering with it ever since he forged the Cesc-Theo-RvP-Arshavin combination that lasted for those three games last year before someone got injured. Point being, it worked well when we had only one striker but I would rather see us move on.
Formations are variable. Nothing's ever fixed anyway. But 2 strikers up front (4-2-3-1 or 4-1-2-1-2 or whatever else..) is a great thing. Here's reasons why :
(a) It closes down the midfield. Two holding midfielders with two wingers creates another line of defense. With the 4-3-3, the wingers ( Nasri and especially Arshavin ) weren't really defending. Which meant the three man line of Cesc, Song and Wilshere were handling four man midfields, with huge gaps between them to be exploited.
(b) Plays begin in the centre of midfield more often. Arshavin and Nasri began plays from the half line a couple of times each during the Fulham game. Arshavin seemed to benefit too and seemed to be enjoying playing in front of the defense with some space ahead of him.
(c) Cesc Fabregas's presence makes the game revolve around him. This can be a good and a bad thing. Teams have held us down by marking him very closely.The whole ebb and flow of the team doesn't depend so much on one player and his form.
(d) None of our strikers are the same. It will be great to pick two out of Chamakh, Van Persie, Bendtner, Walcott, Arshavin or even Fabregas ( spain uses him in this role sometimes )
(e) If used well, it can provide a lot more cover for our centrebacks., They're often blamed for most of the goals we concede. Very often these goals are conceded because someone's slipped out of guard duty in front of the back four.( Wonder how that would work against the likes of Drogba and Rooney who'll come knocking soon .. )
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For that and a variety of other reasons, I hope it stays. Besides, it allows me to do the strange and pointless "How Invincible are we today ? "segment. Here's how it works.
The table below compares the Invincibles squad with today's squad using the best possible fit man for man. Based on arbitrary inputs from my very own intuitive self, an Invincibility score is computed on 10 for each position.
( Disclaimer : I'm not in any way implying we should seek to re-create or heck, even relive the Invincibles era. Instead, this should be viewed as a general indicator of how far we might be from reaching that level of success. )
That's a grand invincibility average of 7.
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As I mull over that and digest the implications I remember there's a little bit of unfinished business with the champions league. Qualification. And sacks of money.
The invincibles got knocked out of the champions league that year. I don't remember being particularly unhappy about it after the Liverpool game.
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