Quote Originally Posted by Psychotic View Post
Uhhh, United didn't successfully play 4-4-2 after Keane left. They did for a bit while Jose dominated, but in United's successful teams of the past 5 years first you had the Tevez - Rooney - Ronaldo 4-2-3-1 and then in Ferguson's final season it was 4-3-1-2 diamond. http://eplindex.com/20573/footballin...-ferguson.html Fergie was ahead of the curve again. It's that idiot David "4-4-2 and lots of crosses are the DNA of Man United!" Moyes who played a flat 4-4-2 in 2014.

I'm not saying Herrera is or isn't box-to-box, but I am saying so far I don't see that he's a better player than say Joe Allen, another box-to-box midfielder, and I don't think you could build a title challenge around either in a 4-4-2.
I dunno, I think we played a hell of a lot of games 4-4-2 (while we did I agree dabble with 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 as you suggested). SAF was very versatile in his later seasons, but 4-4-2 was still the basic style he reverted to for most games. After Ronaldo left, we played Valencia, Young, Nani etc. on the wings with Rooney filling in on occasion. As for Tevez-Rooney-Ronaldo - I wouldn't say that was a 4-2-3-1. I would say it was a mix between 4-3-3 and 4-4-2. Even then, though, we almost always had someone on each side who would play as a winger during build-up play. The rest just really depended on how many midfielders SAF felt like playing.

I don't expect us to mount a title challenge this season. xD I'm expecting us to mount a CL challenge this season. I think most United fans agree with me on that one - the title is still not something we can realistically go for. It's not that I don't think the players are good enough, it's that I don't think they are familiar enough with one another (let alone the manager, let alone the formation). Also I expect us to continue with our horrible plague of injuries because nobody will ever fix that for us.

EDIT: And Moyes only played 4-4-2 for 45-70 minutes of each game. After that he would take off some midfielders and put on more strikers. If there was one thing I was always critical of Moyes for, it was that. We finished nearly every game with 4-1-1-4.

EDITRA: Fantastic article, btw. Great find.