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I saw a picture, on Twitter, of Malta warming up before their match against Scotland. The photo depicted 10 players in a line going the entire breadth of the pitch, and the text below stated that they were preparing for their formation already. Amusing? I tittered at the caption.

This got me to thinking about formations and their evolution over the past few decades, and how we would line up if we would adopt different tactics with our current squad – should everyone be fit. For my examples below, I will not touch on the goalkeeping position, as George Long has that role.

Let’s start with the 1950s and the common 4-2-4 line-up. This is something that Steve McClaren brought in with five minutes to go during Middlesborough’s run to the UEFA Cup Final in 2006. What makes this formation so incredibly hard is that the attacking wings of the front four have to either play as wingers that track back to defend, or risk a 6-6 score line by the final whistle. Enjoyable to watch? Probably, but just as equally frustrating to observe with the team not defending. My team for this formation would be:

FULLER        CHARLES        OSHILAJA        MEADES

ABDOU        TROTTER

FORRESTER        TAYLOR        MCDONALD        BARCHAM

How do I see this formation working for us? I can’t at the moment. Fuller and Meades would have no cover and we would be battered by the flanks. But upon looking at that line-up, you can rest assured that provided we kept the ball, the attacking side of this team would pummel the opposition.

When you look at the 1960s, you cannot help but contemplate the greatest of all Real Madrid teams. They adopted (in 1960 specifically) a 3-2-2-3 formation. Yes, they had Puskas and Di Stefano in attack, but they also had Santamaria in central defence. And their possession-based game is sometimes considered the basis on which the Barcelona team between 2000 and 2010 was built. My team for this formation would be:

NIGHTINGALE        CHARLES        OSHILAJA

HARTIGAN        ABDOU

PARRETT        BARCHAM

TAYLOR        APPIAH        FORRESTER

How do I see this formation working for us? Maybe, on a narrow pitch, this formation would utilise the ‘playing on the floor’ that Neal Ardley wants to do right now. Abdou and Hartigan would be great defensive cover, whilst Barcham and Parrett would be excellent in setting up attacking options.

If you look at the 1970s, you cannot discard England’s World Cup winning team. Sir Alf Ramsey adopted an inverted 4-3-3 formation. This is where the shape of the midfield and forwards shape an M-W shape. This was also the biggest success of the early 1970s Ajax team featuring Johann Cruyff. No-one can deny the success of Ajax in that decade with that attacking football, however Zdenek Zeman’s Foggia in Italy adopted the same formation and caused a stir in the defensive-minded Serie A. My team for this formation would be:

SIBBICK        CHARLES        OSHILAJA        MEADES

FRANCOMB        ABDOU        TROTTER

TAYLOR        APPIAH        FORRESTER

How do I see this formation working for us? Well, if anything is to go by this season so far, it isn’t. This formation only works if you have a dynamic and fast midfield who aren’t playing against an over-crowded middle of the park.

The 1980s brought lump-it-and-run football to those who couldn’t play like Hamburg or Mönchengladbach. The 4-4-2 diamond was taken seriously and is one of my two favourite formations. With Felix Magath on the top of the diamond and Wolfgang Rolff being used primarily as defensive cover and the central defensive pairing of Hieronymous and Jakobs, Hamburg didn’t have much of a worry against a Juventus team featuring Tardelli, Platini, and Rossi. This goes to show that if you are solid in formation with a diamond, you are very hard (pun intended) to break apart. My team for this formation would be:

FULLER        CHARLES        OSHILAJA        KENNEDY

HARTIGAN

ABDOU        BARCHAM

FORRESTER

TAYLOR        APPIAH

How do I see this formation working for us? This is quite an interesting system. It keeps our back four in the defensive half of the pitch: something I feel Barry would struggle with, as he is constantly bombing up the wings. Same goes for Callum. But if the back four kept their shape and defensive mentality in check, we’d probably see many 1-0 victories.

The 1990s brought one word to the fore: Goooooolazo. Italian football was at its fiercest. The defensive nous of Inter Milan, AC Milan, Juventus and even the national team brought success and massive frustration for those watching due, mainly, to the lack of goals. With all of those teams mainly adopting a 5-3-2 formation, the defences shored up the goals conceded numbers but, more importantly, developed football into much more of a chess match – and if my team won 1-0 every week, I wouldn’t be moaning. My team for this formation would be:

FULLER        NIGHTINGALE        CHARLES        OSHILAJA        MEADES

HARTIGAN        TROTTER        ABDOU

TAYLOR        APPIAH

How do I see this formation working for us? If we don’t utilise the wing-backs, this formation has 0-0 written all over it. The midfield would be too deep and Kwesi and Lyle, up front, would cut very frustrated figures.

The Noughties brought a different nation to the fore, yet again. French football took the world by the scruff of the neck, and in the case of Zinedine Zidane in the World Cup final in 2006, a head-butt to the chest. after the success of Aimé Jacquet, 4-2-3-1 was adopted by Roger Lemerre, and with the strength of having two formidable defensive midfielders who also had the ability of creating a phenomenal through-ball, their team was a tactical sensation. My team for this formation would be:

FULLER        CHARLES        OSHILAJA        MEADES

HARTIGAN        ABDOU

PARRETT        EGAN        BARCHAM

TAYLOR

How do I see this formation working for us? Similar to the 4-4-2 diamond shape, this would be quite defensive-minded, but were Abdou and Hartigan to play one-twos around the opposition midfield, I believe that we could have a good attacking instinct. However, we’d be reliant on out-scoring the opposition.

So then we look at the 2010s. Sorry folks: I must talk about my beloved Germany here. I could write about them for hours and bore you out of your mind. Jürgen Klinsmann decided to appoint Joachim Löw as his assistant, and after Klinsi left, it was very quickly apparent that Löw was the tactician in that relationship. Jogi has adopted the 4-2-3-1 formation but created more of a 4-2-1-3 when attacking. The ability of the two forwards to revert to midfielders or two midfielders to advance to attackers proves the tactical nous available to Löw. My team for this formation would be:

SIBBICK        CHARLES        OSHILAJA        MEADES

HARTIGAN        ABDOU

PARRETT        TAYLOR        BARCHAM

APPIAH

How do I see this formation working for us? As I posted above: this all depends on how Jimmy and Anthony in the defensive midfield positions link up. I’d prefer to see a 4-1-3-1-1 formation, but that is too ‘middle of the park’. However, with Toby Sibbick’s defensive nous and Jon Meades’s no-nonsense defending, I believe we would just about be okay.

Out of all these formations, I believe that the 4-3-3 is not working. Why? Because our squad is incredibly midfield-heavy. We have to look at accommodating the midfielders and take the game to the opposition again. The true Wimbledon way. Personally, I don’t care if we lose 5-0 – just as long as the players actually give a shit, and put in a bit of effort.

// Mark Hendrikx – @MarkatCIFF

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In finance, we are often told that past performance is no indicator of future performance, but does this hold true in football? Crunching the historical numbers might just give us a confident indicator as to how we will perform this year . . .

So, as I write this at midday on the first new Saturday of the season, we proudly sit atop of the League One table, due to it being categorised alphabetically before the first ball is kicked. We achieved what we needed to achieve last year – survival – but where to now?

I usually do an analysis of some sort at the beginning and end of a season to try and garner an idea of how well we may do, and where we may end up. It’s almost become a pre-season superstition or ritual for me now: an omen of relative success, whatever the measure.

Coming into our second season in this league, there has been a lot of trepidation about how we will fare. Whilst an occasional exceptional season can and does occur, generally, in the longer term, the law of averages imparts on a team’s performance, season in and season out.

In our case we have, certainly since the Conference, been bang average. The rapid climb in our earlier years has now been offset by a slightly more negative performance, in that we have lost more than we have won – although we have also drawn quite a lot.

Indeed, apart from the amazing run that resulted in the play-off final win, we’ve won a few and lost a few – which was exactly what we were doing until the MK win last year, when our season then totally tailed off.

In averaging terms, that was possibly expected (balancing out that great run last year) or, being positive for this coming season, it could be a ‘credit’ for us, a sort of ‘in the bank’ extra that might compensate for a poor run of form: balance in the universe and all that.

Anyway, to this year’s analysis, which follows the path of previous years (and last year’s table – included in the total so you can use it to update as the season progresses if you wish!).

I’ve averaged the history of results, home and away, against each team in this division, and come up with a predicted result and score. Where we have never played a team before, I have assumed each home team will win 1-0.

I have taken into account last season’s results as well, but in long term scenarios, such as our matches against Oxford, last year’s success, though welcome, has had minimal impact, as our form against them has been so poor in the past – and we still have a bogey team to beat, in Northampton Town.

Last year we were predicted to achieve 61 points in the season: winning 49 at home and 12 away. In the end, with that awful end of season performance, we fell just short of that total, with 57 points (32 at home and 25 away). Just turning a couple of draws into wins would have seen us achieve this and have been elevated to 12th place in the division.

The facts and averaging do not lie, but it always seemed at the outset that the away form would be better than just the equivalent of four away wins all season, and so it proved to be: the percentage split of 56 to 44 is probably closer to what most people would guess it would be. Mine would be 60:40, if pushed for a breakdown.

So to this season then, and the first positive: the stats suggest we should gain more points than last. We’re now up to 64, which last season would have equated to an 11th place finish. With Sheffield United having garnered an exceptional 100 points last year, and therefore being the stand out team, the general consensus this season is that the division will be a lot tighter, so such a total may move you further up or down the table as it finally pans out.

Again, our form is heavily biased towards a great season at home and, as a season ticket holder, I hold out hope for that, but our away form this coming year looks more realistic compared to last season’s actual form. We’ll have to wait to see what the impact is of a change in playing style with the current personnel, and the effect of the new ‘Chelsea-style’ pitch at KM . . .

So if the stats are to be believed, we are again on for a bang average season within League 1. But then, the stats themselves are based upon the average, and it’s the exceptions the prove the rule of change.

The unknowns are those that have come up and those that have come down, and therefore a couple of teams we have never played before in this current form of a Wimbledon football club. Some like Portsmouth we have reasonably good records against overall, but will their promotion momentum make them an unstoppable force this year? And will the likes of Rotherham be able to halt the slide down the divisions? We wait to see.

The first five games

As before, when this analysis has appeared in the WUP fanzine, the podcast team are going to let me update and evaluate this analysis as the season progresses.

So, almost exactly one month into the season, how are we doing? Well, in the real world: better than this time last year. Just. At this time on this date last season, we had played six games and had four points: this season, we have four points from five games: a slight improvement!

Last year, we had drawn at Northampton and Rochdale, won at home to Chesterfield, but lost to Walsall, Bolton and Scunthorpe. Predication-wise, we were down to win at home to Bolton and Scunny, lose at Northampton and Walsall, but win at Rochdale and Chesterfield.

But against the teams we have played this year, we have only ‘achieved’ our forecast result against Doncaster (though with a better score of 2-0). We were down to win at Scunthorpe (which by all accounts we should have) and probably drawn at Fleetwood, where I think they beat us for the first time. Likewise, Shrewsbury’s first win at Kingsmeadow upset the apple cart, whilst Blackpool, as a new team, was predicted to be the standard 1-0 loss we ‘achieved’.

So from a potential 15 points, we expected 10, but achieved only four. Not the most auspicious of starts then.

So on a process that looks at averages over the long term, it is naturally a bit dangerous to hypothesise too much going forward. However, having more on the board than this time last year certainly should support the players with a touch of confidence, something that seems so crucial to how we perform.

We’ll have a fair few tough games to play until the next podcast update, so like me, maybe keep updating your table to see how things are going.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL BREAKDOWN OF RESULTS & PREDICTIONS

// Jim Potter