Full-backs and the future

[Paq]

Love our guys - so improved and so important to our play.

What's the future for full-backs, given they have such an important role to play in attack? Inverted? Swapping sides during a game? Playing with just one dedicated full-back?

Rose started out as a winger but has been taught how to defend and now looks a world-beater. I think that's been the case for a few full-backs over the years. What's the natural extension of this? I heard one pundit recently talking about how specialist goalkeepers might become a thing of the past. Can't see that happening but kudos to him for thinking out of the box...

What tweaks to the full-back position are we likely to see over the next 10-20 years?

 

[Shadydan]

Think we're gonna see more 3 at the back formations going forward and full back starting more higher up the pitch, reckon that we have the almost perfect modern day and future proof full backs, high energy, quick, with defensive nous and with an end product only difference being that I think full backs now will be popping up in the box more and will have to be more technically accomplished in the final 3rd.

 

[JimmyG2]

Full 'Back to the future'.
Missed a trick there fella.

Full backs as attacking wing back players
has been developing over many years.
Can't see any reversion to the days of yore
in any position really.
Centre-halves that bring the ball out.
Keepers that have to be good with their feet.
Centre forwards that have to work back.
Coaches love flexible, multi-talented players.

 

[Paq]

Full 'Back to the future'.
Missed a trick there fella.

Full backs as attacking wing back players
has been developing over many years.
Can't see any reversion to the days of yore
in any position really.
Centre-halves that bring the ball out.
Keepers that have to be good with their feet.
Centre forwards that have to work back.
Coaches love flexible, multi-talented players.

I certainly did, well done.

Agree with the idea of full-backs starting higher up the pitch. Would be great if Kyle and Danny could shoot with their 'wrong' foot.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

I certainly did, well done.

Agree with the idea of full-backs starting higher up the pitch. Would be great if Kyle and Danny could shoot with their 'wrong' foot.

I'm convinced that this season we will see the first ever inverted full backs formation.

 

[brakefluid]

I'm convinced that this season we will see the first ever inverted full backs formation.

Lol we pioneered inverted fullbacks with Lee Young Pyo. Best right footed left back EVER.

 

[mil1lion]

They should call them full forwards nowadays

 

[ComfortablyNumb]

You could argue that Lennon, 5 years ago, played more like a full back does these days. I think all "wingers" are now going to be expected to put in that kind of shift defensively.

Perhaps, instead of thinking about formations as horizontal bands across the pitch, we'll start thinking more about vertical zones, and how players line up in those zones? Or maybe I shouldn't have drunk so much last night.

 

[Danny Boy]

Lol we pioneered inverted fullbacks with Lee Young Pyo. Best right footed left back EVER.

I think Chris Hughton is also a right footed left back? I remembered Chrissy is also a goal scoring left back for us back then.

 

[Blake Griffin]

https://streamable.com/5h4h

kwp playing as an inverted full back attacking central areas with pace. i'd be interested to see if it could work but i guess you'd need to counterbalance it with natural width ahead of them somewhere.

 

[talkshowhost86]

I like the title of this thread.

It sounds like the title of a philosophical book written by Tony Dorigo.

 

[littlewilly]

Alf Ramsey was a little ahead of his time.

Full backs and the past.

 

[aliyid]

I think the next big development needs to be people getting passed the perception that teams have a static formation where defenders defend, midfielders can only occupy the middle of the park and strikers are only at the top end of the pitch. This idea that a team is married to a 4-4-2 / 4-4-3 / 3-1-3-2-1 formation which is rigid and set in stone is quite out of date and mainly only true in very defensive teams who set out to park the bus and deny teams space. And full-backs are key to this development.

We (for example) generally start off with a standard 4-2-3-1 formation with Wanyama / Dembelle taking on the two deeper lying midfield roles and allowing Eriksen, Alli & Son/Lamella to operate behind Kane. When we're moving forward this changes to a 3-6-1 as our full-backs push forward and Wanyama or Dier drop back into defense. We overload the midfield and win back posession quickly if/when we lose the ball due to pure number of bodies in there. If we don't win it back then our full backs drop back and we revert back to the original 4-2-3-1 shape. But the full backs provide width going forward allowing our central players to be in the danger zones (even if it does tend to crowd out the middle at times).

So next developments are to see them becoming dead ball specialists (like Dennis Irwin, Leighton Baines, etc...) a big part of being a full back is providing width and you need good delivery and crossing ability to do this so I can see more focus being put on crossing being able to deliver a good ball.

 

[MattPhilpott]

Really think we have the most consistent and talented PAIR of full backs potentially in Europe right now, even the likes of Marcelo/Carvajal, Alaba/Lahm and Alonso/Moses are still not close on these guys...

Need to get KWP and that Rico Henry fella from Brentford to understudy the life out of these guys, and then just slot them in when the others begin to decline...

 

[mill]

I remember seeing an early season pundit analysis of Man City, they were playing 451, with Fernandinho the deepest and de bruyne and silva central with 2 wide players playing on their strongest side.

Fernandinho would drop in between the cbs and the 2 FBs came inside into a deep midfield position, the wingers kept the width and with the fbs in a kind of dm positions it allowed kdb and silva to join aguero

 

[BringBack_leGin]

Surely a thread for General Football, not spurs chat.

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

You wouldn't invert the fullbacks. Opposition attackers would just go round the outside and keep putting crosses in and the point of attacking fullbacks is to offer the width that inverted narrow midfields suffer from. You could say don't have inverted wingers in midfield but then to wouldn't then need the full backs to provide that width and they could focus on defending with the correct foot.

 

[RichieS]

You wouldn't invert the fullbacks. Opposition attackers would just go round the outside and keep putting crosses in and the point of attacking fullbacks is to offer the width that inverted narrow midfields suffer from. You could say don't have inverted wingers in midfield but then to wouldn't then need the full backs to provide that width and they could focus on defending with the correct foot.

Depends on the nature of the attackers. All the way back in 2007 Rafa Benitez played Alvaro Arbeloa at left back to counter Messi's desire to come in off the right flank. Messi of all people should have been capable of going around the outside but Arbeloa kept him quiet.

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

Depends on the nature of the attackers. All the way back in 2007 Rafa Benitez played Alvaro Arbeloa at left back to counter Messi's desire to come in off the right flank. Messi of all people should have been capable of going around the outside but Arbeloa kept him quiet.

Actually, whoever was playing RB for Barcelona should have provided the outside width
Dani Alves or was it before him?

 

[THFCSPURS19]

Really think we have the most consistent and talented PAIR of full backs potentially in Europe right now, even the likes of Marcelo/Carvajal, Alaba/Lahm and Alonso/Moses are still not close on these guys...

Need to get KWP and that Rico Henry fella from Brentford to understudy the life out of these guys, and then just slot them in when the others begin to decline...

I think you're being slightly too generous to our FBs here, I'd say Alaba/Lahm, Marcelo/Carvajal, Alex Sandro/Dani Alves are better.

I love Walker, but to suggest that Lahm, perhaps the best full-back in the world over the last decade, is 'not close' to Walker is rather taking the piss a bit.