Houlliers 4-3-3 plan for the future?

[The Situation]

Options in formations are starting to look more exciting in some ways. It can deffo be mixed up now for certain opponents.

4-3-3 sounds good on paper but would Bent need to be assisted with another striker? I don't know, either way you can fit the players you want into either formation. We'll see what happens though, either formation would work I think although the extra man in the midfield would certainly benefit us at the moment I suppose. Makoun - Adam - Delph = looks very promising (on paper lol).

[ROBBO]

Just finished watching a re-run of the Sunderland- Newcastle game, it may be that he was just having an off day but Bent looked sluggish and miss timed a lot of jumps.Must admit i havn't watched him a lot of late and i know how good his scoring record is, can anyone give stats as to his last two years and is he the forward we've all been waiting for?

[VillaZogmariner]

Let's assume for a minute then that this 4-3-3 is the way Ged wants to go, this is what we've got -

-----------------Anchorman---------------
---Playmaker---------------BoxToBox---
----------------------------------------------
---InForward--------------InForward---
----------------Targetman-----------------

Anchorman (Not Ron Burgundy)

Makoun
Petrov
Hogg
Herd

Playmaker

Delph
Bannan
Petrov

Box To Box

Delph
Reo-Coker
Gardner

Inside Forward - 2 From

Young
Downing
Agbonlahor
Albrighton
Bannan
Delfouenso

Target Man

Bent
Heskey
Agbonlahor
Delfouenso

So as it stands we've got enough numbers to play this and if we don't sign anyone else in January we should be fine, but I'd still like a Playmaker brought in (Adam)

Assuming though that we don't sign a player, and everyone above is fit/available I'd go for -

------------Makoun----------
---Petrov-----------Delph--
--------------------------------
---Young-------Downing---
-----------Bent---------------

Subs - Agbonlahor, Heskey, Albrighton, Reo-Coker, Defender, Keeper

[Mr Diggles]

Interesting and exciting thread.

I like VS's idea of how the current squad fits the 4-3-3 formation, if this is indeed what Houllier plans. Its a bit of a pity for Albrighton, who has been one of our two or three best players so far this season, but if we only play with 3 up front, you've got to go with Young and Downing, and make sure Downing plays on the left for the majority of the game.

My concern would be that Bent is more prolific playing off a target-man forward, such as Heskey. Can he play the spearhead role himself? Also, as noted in the article, you really need good attacking fullbacks, and a good midfield screen for the defence. It remains to be seen if Walker is going to be bought after the loan, we need a LB and I was hoping J2M was going to be more of a dynamic player than the holding mdifield general for us.

[Shrek]

Just finished watching a re-run of the Sunderland- Newcastle game, it may be that he was just having an off day but Bent looked sluggish and miss timed a lot of jumps.Must admit i havn't watched him a lot of late and i know how good his scoring record is, can anyone give stats as to his last two years and is he the forward we've all been waiting for?

He has scored 4 goals since September. So he has been on abit of a drought for him. But I'm not concerned at all.

[PaulWinch again]

Well if we shift into a Barcelonaesque style, I'll be pretty happy.