4-3-3 won't work everytime!

The formation 4-3-3 is very much used by Bengaluru FC, which requires a lot of press, fast and aggressive game play to make it a success.

But it is not effective as it looks like.

Bengaluru Fc struggled to reap good results with this formation against the teams who have a low block or don't play aggressively.

Only exception came last night with 3-0 win against Mumbai City Fc !

Reasons for the success.

- Mumbai hold ball in their half alot with passing from the defense, it is easy to press and use the space.

- Mumbai was missing key players like Ahmad to control the midfield from the defense, so counter the press.

- Low confidence of the team and changes by the coach made unsettled 11, which haven't played much together.

- Now using long balls as an option effectively by Mumbai to counter the press, whenever they did,it was effective.

Reasons why it didn't worked on occasions for Bengaluru !

Non performence of the striking force, Sunil missed the penalty thus giving other team an advantage.

The defensive errors costed the team but it was the long ball used by Odisha cleared the threat and goal by Aridai was the result of that.

Midfield never contributed much in the game.

Again same problem, 4-4-2 formation cleared the threat of the press easily.

The block was low enough to not give any space to the team to score and it was certain as both the goals came because of the mistakes.

Long balls from Albino made BFC players to track back rather then pressing.

3 pressing against 4 is a difficult task.

This match was again a match where BFC dominated but could not capitalise on the chances, they had 3 chances , could have been the game set and match in the first half.

Here the game of press was effective, but on counter team struggled to stop the attacks.

A game where the press never worked.

Edmund was substituted to add to that press as he was losing the ball often but it was not good enough.

Chances could not be created as Hyderabad played with solid line and Gurpreet had to chose long balls over the press.

Hyderabad defense often becomes 5 men block with Victor coming in that role to halt the quick counters and defer the threat.

Both the teams never created much, only one lost because of more mistakes.

But BFC failed to score because the formation never worked exactly, 5-4-1 is always tough to break even with aggressive press.

Goa, was next who loves to build up and press can easily work against them but here the role of  Edu Bedia made the difference.

He took balls from the defense and controlled it to gain fouls, and often released for quick counters.

Bengaluru struggled to put men behind the ball, as the press failed, panic was desired result.

Bengaluru could not even utilise the 1 men deficit because Goa played on counter and one long ball made the difference.

One more example we can take is from the Afcon which is similar to Sc East Bengal result.

Here, Senegal such a good team failed to score a goal against Zimbabwe, the whole 90 minutes, except the penalty in additional minutes.

The problem is quite visible here with formation of the Zimbabwe.

 

With this formation the press from the 4-3-3 is easily averted by making the low block.

This is exactly how East Bengal played against BFC and utilised the counter opportunities, with scoring a goal and possibly one more.

So it does show that 4-3-3 have it's positives but can easily be countered.

Thus to utilise it we need to make players aware of the space. Danish did well and used that space to score 1 goal but could have scored 2 more.

In the second half of yesterday's match, Bengaluru lost this and didn't applied and used this space. 

That's why only 3 shots were taken at the opponents goal in that half.

Not a good choice of formation for every match !

Only good adjustment will prove the lively point here.