4-3-3: Default formation?

[Mr Pink]

I do have a concern that in some games we will have too many players in a congested middle third and not in areas higher up the pitch, and I'm not sure that Sandro and Parker are needed in the majority of home games, one of them plus Modric and VDV is plenty enough to retain possession and control the middle of the park IMO.

Personally I think flexibility is the key, an ability to slightly change shape from 4-3-3/4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1 and even to a 4-4-2 depending on the oppostion rather than one set formation.

I do agree, but its knowing when to.

 

[mpickard2087]

I do agree, but its knowing when to.

Well thats where Harry earns his salary, making these decisions!

 

[Mr Pink]

Well thats where Harry earns his salary, making these decisions!

That was my first thought, yes :razz:

 

[lukespurs7]

Really agree with this.

This is the reason that the stated formation should only be played in games where not losing is the most important thing. Top teams away from home where the main goal should be not to concede and defend as a team. We don't do it enough imo. Our attacking players are good enough to score without us dominating possession the full ninety minutes.

With the amount of games we should have to play next year, along with the number of hamstring injuries we get, having vdv and lennon both vying for one position can only be a good thing, if anything, i would like to sign another wide player to help rotate with bale and lennon and keep them fresh for the whole season. Vdv will get enough games with us playing 4411 in almost every game at home and 70% of the away games.

This...100%.

Man.Utd have done it for years, at home they play 4-4-2, take the game to teams and hammer them.
Away especially at Arsenal and Chelsea etc they play more of a 4-5-1/4-3-3 so they are much more solid and then often would nick goals on the counter-attack or just frustrate and wear teams down and then their experience would often come through and they'd win the game because their players had the quality to do so. This in theory nearly happened against Chelsea, except VDV and Ade and Bale all had our chances and on another day with their quality one of those would've gone in.

4-4-1-1 at home and 4-5-1/4-3-3- away especially against the better teams.

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

This...100%.

Man.Utd have done it for years, at home they play 4-4-2, take the game to teams and hammer them.
Away especially at Arsenal and Chelsea etc they play more of a 4-5-1/4-3-3 so they are much more solid and then often would nick goals on the counter-attack or just frustrate and wear teams down and then their experience would often come through and they'd win the game because their players had the quality to do so. This in theory nearly happened against Chelsea, except VDV and Ade and Bale all had our chances and on another day with their quality one of those would've gone in.

4-4-1-1 at home and 4-5-1/4-3-3- away especially against the better teams.

I agree with this but I don't think Harry would.

Harry is very reluctant to change the team and formation after any victory. As shown when we comitted suicide by playing a 4-4-2 at the emirates coming off the back of smashing Newcastle at home.

 

[Dan Ashcroft]

I definitely think having Sandro and Parker playing is a must. It just allows our attacking players to concentrate on attacking, and I think the more we play that system the better the players will understand it. I don't think that the shape was quite right in the first half against Chelsea. Modric was not really in the game and that led to our lack of creativity.

In the second half he seemed to be a bit more central and I thought the system worked excellently. Parker and Sandro broke up most of the Chelsea play and our forward four looked very dangerous with the full backs offering width.

I don't expect Harry to use this formation against Bolton or Swansea, but personally I think he should.

The problem is that Modric doesn't use having Sandro there to get forward. He stays in his normal position, which is why it becomes a 4-3-2-1, rather than a 4-2-3-1 with him moving up to take Lennon's place.

 

[mil1lion]

I wouldn't often play Sandro and Parker together personally. I think we're good enough with Modric in a central 2 and 3 attacking (but hard working) midfielders.

I would only opt for defensive midfielders in the toughest of games. There's not a game left that I wouldn't be confident with Modric and Parker or Sandro in the middle.

 

[lukespurs7]

I agree with this but I don't think Harry would.

Harry is very reluctant to change the team and formation after any victory. As shown when we comitted suicide by playing a 4-4-2 at the emirates the coming off the back of smashing Newcastle at home.

Hopefully the performance against Chelsea will have made him finally realise thats the way to go against the big teams away,at home I still think with these players 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 is the way to go, if VDV is injured and we can't play 4-4-1-1 then and only then at home against the top4 should we consider playing the 4-5-1 we did against Chelsea, otherwise we take the game to them as we should be good enough to do so, we deserved to against Man.u and only individual errors from Walker and Modric cost us, NOT the formation.

 

[ajspurs]

Very interesting analysis on SS1 about the way we were setting out.

Showing Modric telling Bale to move out wide on one occasion, then showed us spreading the ball from one side to the other and how we would have been in a good position on the left side had Bale stayed wide with Ekotto but he then drifted inside, had a shot, well wide. Typical. Also briefly highlighted how much the loss of one player (Lennon) has effected us and our natural balance.

 

[sloth]

Really agree with this.

This is the reason that the stated formation should only be played in games where not losing is the most important thing. Top teams away from home where the main goal should be not to concede and defend as a team. We don't do it enough imo. Our attacking players are good enough to score without us dominating possession the full ninety minutes.

With the amount of games we should have to play next year, along with the number of hamstring injuries we get, having vdv and lennon both vying for one position can only be a good thing, if anything, i would like to sign another wide player to help rotate with bale and lennon and keep them fresh for the whole season. Vdv will get enough games with us playing 4411 in almost every game at home and 70% of the away games.

This...100%.

Man.Utd have done it for years, at home they play 4-4-2, take the game to teams and hammer them.
Away especially at Arsenal and Chelsea etc they play more of a 4-5-1/4-3-3 so they are much more solid and then often would nick goals on the counter-attack or just frustrate and wear teams down and then their experience would often come through and they'd win the game because their players had the quality to do so. This in theory nearly happened against Chelsea, except VDV and Ade and Bale all had our chances and on another day with their quality one of those would've gone in.

4-4-1-1 at home and 4-5-1/4-3-3- away especially against the better teams.

There are a few things to say here.

First off I agree that there is no set rule, I think we should have a preferred formation which suits the strengths and weaknesses of our squad (I disagree with you both on this and think that it has to be 4-3-3/4-2-3-1), but we should also consider the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents and line up accordingly. 4-4-2 has been very successful for us in certain games this season. The word of warning is that we shouldn't think of 4-4-2 in simplistic, provides more width/is more attacking, and 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 in narrow/defensive kinds of way. I think that's faulty thinking.

The second thing is a development of that last point. 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 can be more defensive and serve that purpose, but it can also be more attacking.

Simply put, winning games is about who has the ball, where they have it, and how effective they are at creating/preventing attacking angles, extra men, and extra space (which all things being equal leads to scoring more and conceding less). 4-3-3 is not less attacking because you have one fewer attacker and one more defensive player, eve though it is true to say that it can be.

The argument people sometimes make about 4-4-2 is that you have an extra striker and more width, therefore when you play weaker teams it's more attacking because you don't need the extra defence minded player.

In fact though there's a more subtle dimension which playing this way offers.

The first is that you can be better at winning the ball off weaker opponents, and you can win it higher up the pitch. To steal a phrase from Rugby, "turnover" ball is the prelude to many goals.

But in addition to this, although on paper it appears to make you narrower, depending on your players, you can actually play with more width. This is because the wing-forwards in your three have extra space in which to operate, they can come inside, but then they either have lots of room to pull wide, or into which your attacking full-backs can run. Because they're not static, they don't provide a easy target to mark, with two strikers inside them and them hugging the touch-line.

Here's the crucial point though, they also don't keep getting sucked inside in an effort to counter teams with three in the centre. We have three in the middle who already match up the opponents.

As an example, look at the average positions of our players in two of our recent matches, the game against Chelsea where we went 4-3-3, and the last time we had Lennon and Bale on the pitch at the same time, against Wolves at Home (you have to scroll down to the 'positional report' and chose 'Player Positions'):

http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/50...nd-Premier-League-2011-2012-Chelsea-Tottenham

http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/50...mier-League-2011-2012-Tottenham-Wolverhampton

I realise these are only single examples, but I'm not trying to show that 4-3-3 always results in greater width, only that it can, and these two games serve to illustrate that point.

 

[Mr Pink]

Still really like Dembele, playing well at OT tonight. Such great feet and ability.

 

[Boots22]

Still really like Dembele, playing well at OT tonight. Such great feet and ability.

Been well impressed with Dembele recently, think i'm right in saying he's been playing in a lot deeper role recently too

 

[Mr Pink]

Been well impressed with Dembele recently, think i'm right in saying he's been playing in a lot deeper role recently too

He has been, playing a deeper role tonight. He has some physical presence to and can shift through the gears.

 

[lukespurs7]

There are a few things to say here.

First off I agree that there is no set rule, I think we should have a preferred formation which suits the strengths and weaknesses of our squad (I disagree with you both on this and think that it has to be 4-3-3/4-2-3-1), but we should also consider the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents and line up accordingly. 4-4-2 has been very successful for us in certain games this season. The word of warning is that we shouldn't think of 4-4-2 in simplistic, provides more width/is more attacking, and 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 in narrow/defensive kinds of way. I think that's faulty thinking.

The second thing is a development of that last point. 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 can be more defensive and serve that purpose, but it can also be more attacking.

Simply put, winning games is about who has the ball, where they have it, and how effective they are at creating/preventing attacking angles, extra men, and extra space (which all things being equal leads to scoring more and conceding less). 4-3-3 is not less attacking because you have one fewer attacker and one more defensive player, eve though it is true to say that it can be.

The argument people sometimes make about 4-4-2 is that you have an extra striker and more width, therefore when you play weaker teams it's more attacking because you don't need the extra defence minded player.

In fact though there's a more subtle dimension which playing this way offers.

The first is that you can be better at winning the ball off weaker opponents, and you can win it higher up the pitch. To steal a phrase from Rugby, "turnover" ball is the prelude to many goals.

But in addition to this, although on paper it appears to make you narrower, depending on your players, you can actually play with more width. This is because the wing-forwards in your three have extra space in which to operate, they can come inside, but then they either have lots of room to pull wide, or into which your attacking full-backs can run. Because they're not static, they don't provide a easy target to mark, with two strikers inside them and them hugging the touch-line.

Here's the crucial point though, they also don't keep getting sucked inside in an effort to counter teams with three in the centre. We have three in the middle who already match up the opponents.

As an example, look at the average positions of our players in two of our recent matches, the game against Chelsea where we went 4-3-3, and the last time we had Lennon and Bale on the pitch at the same time, against Wolves at Home (you have to scroll down to the 'positional report' and chose 'Player Positions'):

http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/50...nd-Premier-League-2011-2012-Chelsea-Tottenham

http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/50...mier-League-2011-2012-Tottenham-Wolverhampton

I realise these are only single examples, but I'm not trying to show that 4-3-3 always results in greater width, only that it can, and these two games serve to illustrate that point.

Some good points mate but still think 4-4-1-1 at home is the way to go the majority of the time. You say the team who keeps the ball etc wins the game and yes possession is important but playing 4-2-3-1 means that Ade is often having to play backwards or run at defenders on his own.

Without going into great detail the simplicity of it is that playing with one less holding midfielder makes us more direct. However there is no real set rule in football as you say at the start, I am saying generally I would like us with the players we have at our disposal now to play:
4-4-2/4-4-1-1: At home except perhaps against a top4 side who plays 3 in midfield where matching them may be beneficial.
4-2-3-1/4-5-1/4-3-3 or whatever you like to call it: away from home, especially against the top4.

But it really depends who we have fit etc, When one of Lennon or Bale is out as we have no real adequate replacements it makes sense to bring in Sandro and change formation. If VDV is out then playing 2 strikers against weaker teams sometimes makes sense...

So generally there is a time and a place for a formation however we shouldn't set those in stone and say 100% that is what we will do, football is about adapting,especially in the modern game.

 

[WhiteHart4Ever]

This...100%.

Man.Utd have done it for years, at home they play 4-4-2, take the game to teams and hammer them.
Away especially at Arsenal and Chelsea etc they play more of a 4-5-1/4-3-3 so they are much more solid and then often would nick goals on the counter-attack or just frustrate and wear teams down and then their experience would often come through and they'd win the game because their players had the quality to do so. This in theory nearly happened against Chelsea, except VDV and Ade and Bale all had our chances and on another day with their quality one of those would've gone in.

4-4-1-1 at home and 4-5-1/4-3-3- away especially against the better teams.

Another thing United do - they clearly did last night - is quite simply to get the fullback and winger ready on each side, get an overlap situation and put the ball in the box - again and again. Second part of this is to get as many players into the box as physically possible (2 wide players on the attacking side, 1 on the other coming in towards the first post, 2 defending, the other 5 in the box (when do we ever get a total of 6 players into the box during open play?)) and hope for some situation to develop. I only watched the first half but it eventually did and Rooney scored from a cross.

This is certainly an area where we can improve - compare the crossing abilities of Walker, BAE and Lennon with Valencia, Rafael, Young and Evra, only Bale can really cross among our players; though Lennon can certainly put a good ball in when we counter or if he can run into the box, not so much against a settled defence.

All in all the 4231-451-433-422 is just about who's there, really. The big issues for us either way is:

1) Do we play with one or two midfielders with dominantly defensive qualities?
2) Do we play with wingers that prefer to cut in (i.e. VDV / Bale on the right / Sturridge at Chelsea etc.) or wingers that stay wide, get in behind the defence and put the ball in the box
3) Do we play with an attacking midfield, forward '10' or 2 strikers?

My answer would be the following:

1) I agree that against some teams, dominantly away from home, having two defensive midfielders, i.e. two from Parker, Sandro, Huddlestone, Livermore, makes sense.

2) I like wingers, and consider width to be essential. Ideally still, if we play with only 1 striker then unless we have a really prolific attacking CM or Forward '10' we need to get GFTS; meaning the wingers will need to cut in as well. For me the best formation is one that can combine the two, with a Bale-type winger hugging the line on one side with a Mata/Silva/VDV type winger cutting in and getting goals on the other. To do that, though, you need the right balance with a proper attacking fullback with good end product. Walker doesn't do enough for me in that position yet, certainly neither does BAE.

3) So, what about the AM, Second Forward position? Here, we're ironically struggling a bit, even though this is were we on paper have the best players: VDV, Modric, possibly Bale, Kranjcar as back-up, Defoe as a goal scoring striker alternative. However, Modric is to me a CM or LM rather than AM. Quite simply he doesn't provide enough goals and his final pass around the box can also be improved (I find this weird but you don't see that much brilliance from him around the box, do you?). VDV is someone you play off, someone to provide goals, but not someone that defends and not someone that can provide the drive and power the best AM possess - players like Lampard and Scholes at their best, Fabregas at Barca etc.

All in all with our current players we're best off playing what is best characterized as a 4-4-1-1 formation with two proper wingers, and 451 ONLY when we really just want to defend and get away with a point. But we are missing the proper AM that can do a bit of defending as well for a 4231 formation, and we're missing a proper cut-in RW for a 4-3-3 formation. The attacking contribution and particularly crossing ability of our fullbacks as well certainly limits our options when it comes to playing more narrow formations.

So for the rest of the season I want to see Lennon when fit, and both Sandro and Parker in CM together only when we're playing Sunderland away and possibly if Lennon is out and we stick VDV on the right.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

There are a few things to say here.

First off I agree that there is no set rule, I think we should have a preferred formation which suits the strengths and weaknesses of our squad (I disagree with you both on this and think that it has to be 4-3-3/4-2-3-1), but we should also consider the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents and line up accordingly. 4-4-2 has been very successful for us in certain games this season. The word of warning is that we shouldn't think of 4-4-2 in simplistic, provides more width/is more attacking, and 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 in narrow/defensive kinds of way. I think that's faulty thinking.

The second thing is a development of that last point. 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 can be more defensive and serve that purpose, but it can also be more attacking.

Simply put, winning games is about who has the ball, where they have it, and how effective they are at creating/preventing attacking angles, extra men, and extra space (which all things being equal leads to scoring more and conceding less). 4-3-3 is not less attacking because you have one fewer attacker and one more defensive player, eve though it is true to say that it can be.

The argument people sometimes make about 4-4-2 is that you have an extra striker and more width, therefore when you play weaker teams it's more attacking because you don't need the extra defence minded player.

In fact though there's a more subtle dimension which playing this way offers.

The first is that you can be better at winning the ball off weaker opponents, and you can win it higher up the pitch. To steal a phrase from Rugby, "turnover" ball is the prelude to many goals.

But in addition to this, although on paper it appears to make you narrower, depending on your players, you can actually play with more width. This is because the wing-forwards in your three have extra space in which to operate, they can come inside, but then they either have lots of room to pull wide, or into which your attacking full-backs can run. Because they're not static, they don't provide a easy target to mark, with two strikers inside them and them hugging the touch-line.

Here's the crucial point though, they also don't keep getting sucked inside in an effort to counter teams with three in the centre. We have three in the middle who already match up the opponents.

As an example, look at the average positions of our players in two of our recent matches, the game against Chelsea where we went 4-3-3, and the last time we had Lennon and Bale on the pitch at the same time, against Wolves at Home (you have to scroll down to the 'positional report' and chose 'Player Positions'):

http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/50...nd-Premier-League-2011-2012-Chelsea-Tottenham

http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/50...mier-League-2011-2012-Tottenham-Wolverhampton

I realise these are only single examples, but I'm not trying to show that 4-3-3 always results in greater width, only that it can, and these two games serve to illustrate that point.

I agree with all of this.

We shouldn't limit ourselves to a set formation, home or away, and it's the applied tactics as well as the formation that matter. But 4231 and 433 would be my preferred formations with the players we have.

 

[sloth]

All in all with our current players we're best off playing what is best characterized as a 4-4-1-1 formation with two proper wingers, and 451 ONLY when we really just want to defend and get away with a point. But we are missing the proper AM that can do a bit of defending as well for a 4231 formation, and we're missing a proper cut-in RW for a 4-3-3 formation. The attacking contribution and particularly crossing ability of our fullbacks as well certainly limits our options when it comes to playing more narrow formations.

So for the rest of the season I want to see Lennon when fit, and both Sandro and Parker in CM together only when we're playing Sunderland away and possibly if Lennon is out and we stick VDV on the right.

:lol:

What I wrote higher up the page attempted to specifically address your, imo, simplistic interpretation of our various set-ups in this post.

Of course, I may be the one who is completely wrong, but I hope I've given my view of where I think you've got it too simplistic, for this reason I'd hope that rather than simply trot out the same opinion again, in the spirit of good debate, you might attempt to show where the specific points I and others raise are misguided, and how the examples etc. we offer are invalid.

As a case in point, and to get the ball rolling, I don't think 4-4-1-1 necessarily offers more width or results in us creating more attacking situations. I think this for the many reasons stated previously, but to pick just one, I think it makes our attacking players easy to pick up by our opponents. As an example of this see this graphic from our recent game against Stoke (scroll down to the positional report and chose player positions):

http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/506913/MatchReport/England-Premier-League-2011-2012-Tottenham-Stoke

Look at how congested it became in the centre, observe how Bale's space on the left was restricted by their full-back / winger combo, which incidentally applied pressure to BAE on the ball too. Then look how vulnerable we were to the counter down our right-hand side.

In comparison look at the width we had in the game against Chelsea: http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/50...nd-Premier-League-2011-2012-Chelsea-Tottenham

The greater options, balance, avenues of attack, and shape in defence.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I definitely think having Sandro and Parker playing is a must. It just allows our attacking players to concentrate on attacking, and I think the more we play that system the better the players will understand it.

I agree with this completely. Some think playing Sandro and Parker is a defensive application, but, while it does offer us an extra defensive dimension, it does it while at the same time increasing our attacking potential because people like Bale, Modric and VDV can spend less time defending and have more freedom, particularly against easier opposition.

I don't think that the shape was quite right in the first half against Chelsea. Modric was not really in the game and that led to our lack of creativity.

In the second half he seemed to be a bit more central and I thought the system worked excellently. Parker and Sandro broke up most of the Chelsea play and our forward four looked very dangerous with the full backs offering width.

I don't think there was a problem with the shape first half, I just think that it was a tough tussle, and the players had to compete first and play second. Which IMO, they did very well. Second half our superior team and tactics started to tell, aided by the substitutions Chelsea made.

We actually had 54% of the ball first half, 58% second half. As good as we've had at Chelsea for years.

Both halve's were played tactically pretty spot on. Both Chelsea's first half chances came from our poor pressing (which wasn't often in that game) which allowed Chelsea's midfield to pick out clever runs made by Drogba. This is typical Chelsea and we dealt with it pretty well for most of the game. If we hadn't been a bit lax a couple of times with our pressing in midfield (Modric was to blame for two of them) Chelsea would have barely had a sniff at all.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Another thing United do - they clearly did last night - is quite simply to get the fullback and winger ready on each side, get an overlap situation and put the ball in the box - again and again. Second part of this is to get as many players into the box as physically possible (2 wide players on the attacking side, 1 on the other coming in towards the first post, 2 defending, the other 5 in the box (when do we ever get a total of 6 players into the box during open play?)) and hope for some situation to develop. I only watched the first half but it eventually did and Rooney scored from a cross.

This is certainly an area where we can improve - compare the crossing abilities of Walker, BAE and Lennon with Valencia, Rafael, Young and Evra, only Bale can really cross among our players; though Lennon can certainly put a good ball in when we counter or if he can run into the box, not so much against a settled defence.

All in all the 4231-451-433-422 is just about who's there, really. The big issues for us either way is:

1) Do we play with one or two midfielders with dominantly defensive qualities?
2) Do we play with wingers that prefer to cut in (i.e. VDV / Bale on the right / Sturridge at Chelsea etc.) or wingers that stay wide, get in behind the defence and put the ball in the box
3) Do we play with an attacking midfield, forward '10' or 2 strikers?

My answer would be the following:

1) I agree that against some teams, dominantly away from home, having two defensive midfielders, i.e. two from Parker, Sandro, Huddlestone, Livermore, makes sense.

2) I like wingers, and consider width to be essential. Ideally still, if we play with only 1 striker then unless we have a really prolific attacking CM or Forward '10' we need to get GFTS; meaning the wingers will need to cut in as well. For me the best formation is one that can combine the two, with a Bale-type winger hugging the line on one side with a Mata/Silva/VDV type winger cutting in and getting goals on the other. To do that, though, you need the right balance with a proper attacking fullback with good end product. Walker doesn't do enough for me in that position yet, certainly neither does BAE.

3) So, what about the AM, Second Forward position? Here, we're ironically struggling a bit, even though this is were we on paper have the best players: VDV, Modric, possibly Bale, Kranjcar as back-up, Defoe as a goal scoring striker alternative. However, Modric is to me a CM or LM rather than AM. Quite simply he doesn't provide enough goals and his final pass around the box can also be improved (I find this weird but you don't see that much brilliance from him around the box, do you?). VDV is someone you play off, someone to provide goals, but not someone that defends and not someone that can provide the drive and power the best AM possess - players like Lampard and Scholes at their best, Fabregas at Barca etc.

All in all with our current players we're best off playing what is best characterized as a 4-4-1-1 formation with two proper wingers, and 451 ONLY when we really just want to defend and get away with a point. But we are missing the proper AM that can do a bit of defending as well for a 4231 formation, and we're missing a proper cut-in RW for a 4-3-3 formation. The attacking contribution and particularly crossing ability of our fullbacks as well certainly limits our options when it comes to playing more narrow formations.

So for the rest of the season I want to see Lennon when fit, and both Sandro and Parker in CM together only when we're playing Sunderland away and possibly if Lennon is out and we stick VDV on the right.

Good observation. It is the thing ManU do better than anyone, and probably why they are still where they are. But, they don't just do it it one way. They attack on mass but if it breaks down they seem to get back on mass. They seem to allow very few chances to the opposition, yet maximise their chances by flocking into the box

But Arsenal are very good at attacking as a coherent unit too, so it doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it with traditional wingers.

I think it is a question more of coaching and conditioning. Players must move intelligently into spaces and others must phil positional voids and cover and when the move breaks down the attacking players must bust their bollocks to get back into a good collective defensive shape.

 

[ajspurs]

So we played 4-4-2 today, it failed miserably... I can't see us using it again this season to be honest.

What should Harry do, revert to more of a 4-3-3 type formation or a 4-4-1-1, which is still reasonably tight as VDV does mostly play in a fairly deep cental position.

I think VDV becoming the only player who can put in dead ball deliveries makes him even more important to be honest but would that mean Lennon drops back to the bench? He showed more urgency than anyone in the short time he was on against Sunderland.