Making the switch from 4-2-2 to 4-2-3-1

Football started out with teams playing the 4-4-2 formation. This went on for decades until a few years back, when managers thought there’s more to football formations than just the 4-4-2. In this article I’ll be stressing on the emergence of the 4-2-3-1 formation in the Premier League.

Rafael Benitez first experimented with the 4-2-3-1 formation in the Premier League during his time as manager of Liverpool. Many have followed his footsteps and when you look at it today, almost all of the top clubs around Europe play the 4-2-3-1, the exceptions being Juventus who play 3-5-2, Manchester City who play 4-4-2 and Barcelona who play 4-3-3.

Some may look at it as a lone striker upfront, but many like to look at it as a 5-man midfield. The reason so many managers have been switching to the 4-5-1 (4-2-3-1) formation is that they don’t want to get outnumbered in midfield even if it comes at the expense of leaving your striker all alone. Here it’s up to the striker whether he wants to involve himself in the game or not.

When you have a striker like Luis Suarez, you know you can rely on his skill to get you the goals and Suarez played that role excellently. But this week when Liverpool played Aston Villa at Anfield, Daniel Sturridge was included in the starting lineup too and Liverpool risked playing a 4-man midfield. The result, they got outnumbered in midfield with Agbonlahor and Weimann making those runs down the flanks, and Liverpool could do nothing about it. The game ended 2-2 and at the end the losers were Liverpool who dropped 2 valuable points in the race for that 4th spot.

Liverpool made a similar mistake when they were away at the Emirates. Arsenal‘s superb flowing passing in their midfield proved too be too much for Liverpool. Sturridge and Suarez were hardly effective. Arsenal won that game 2-0. Moving away from Liverpool, nearly every club has adapted to the 4-5-1 formation. Chelsea have Torres/Eto’o, Arsenal have Giroud, Manchester United have Robin van Persie, Everton have Lukaku, Swansea have Bony and so on.

Even though Manchester City play 4-4-2. There was one game where manager Manuel Pellagrini played a 5-man midfield and that was at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea. Even though City lost that game 2-1, Pellagrini knew the importance of this formation and went with it. If it wasn’t for a defensive error though, that game would’ve ended 1-1.

Like everything, even the 4-2-3-1 formation has certain flaws. Strikers like Fernando Torres and Dimitar Berbatov have been victims of this formation. They have been playing with a striker beside them for nearly their entire career and have failed to adapt to this new style of play.

To conclude, I can say that we’ll be seeing a lot of the 4-2-3-1 formation in the coming years. No side wants to be outplayed in midfield as it’s the most important area on the pitch and it’s the midfielders who put in the highest amount of work rate by back tracking, counter-attacking, feeding the striker and making all the runs.