I will be writing three blog posts about the positions/roles of our front three and how they can work together to benefit the whole team. This is the first post.
I will go through their roles in their respective positions and also what they like to do as a player and how this fits into the formation. These are just thoughts I have had during and after our matches and what I have taken from the watching the players play in different roles and since Suárez became a Barça player.
Formation 1
Suárez shifted to RW, Messi in his usual False 9 position and Neymar on the LW.
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Neymar is shown as a left winger/left forward. I believe that this is his best position as it gives him the space and time to make runs from the wing towards the box, much like the runs we saw from Messi a few years ago at Barça, but also allows him to engage in 1-vs-1 battles with the opponents right full-back, and we all know that Neymar loves to try and humiliate the opposition.
I’ve shown Messi up front in the False 9. This allows him to drop deep to collect the ball from the midfield and run at players like everyone knows he can. This position allows Leo to have the freedom to try and create opportunities for himself and for his teammates. Messi has thrived in this positions for many, many years and has create some incredible memories for Barça fans whilst playing there.
Finally, Suárez is shown on the right wing/right forward position. Many of you, including me, have probably thought to yourselves or even tweeted saying something like, ‘why have we paid €81 million to play one of the best out-and-out strikers in the world on the right wing?’ this sometimes translates to: ‘fuck off Lucho’.
Suárez may not be scoring from this position, but he works immensely hard there, as I have shown by using the backwards blue arrow. He tracks back very well and usually makes good tackles/interceptions. He also makes good runs, making sure the oppositions defense is always occupied and also can provide many goalscoring opportunities.
Obviously, we didn’t pay €81M for him to work hard and track back, we paid for him to be the striker we needed to help Messi and to add more threat to our attacking trio. If you read my previous post, you’ll know my opinions of his signing. It is not a bad signing.
This is probably the formation I prefer as it gets the best out of both Neymar and Messi and although Suárez isn’t in his best position, he can still be very effective from the right wing.
Be sure to watch out on my twitter for when I post part 2 and 3.
Like I said on my last post, I’m relatively new to this so any advice/constructive criticism is appreciated, I’m not claiming to be an amazing writer 🙂
Happy new year 🙂
Part 1 of 3.
Gifs found on Google images, credit is shown on the watermarks.
Line-up of front three made at lineupbuilder.com
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