Saints have had more shots on goal this season than Man City, Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal

[Saint86]

Shots inside the box as a percentage of total shots we are the lowest in the league. Last season we were 2nd.

Shots on target percentage we are currently 14th. Last season we were 12th.

We are 9th for accurate crosses this season and last season were 1st

 

I'm not a fan of stats but the only way you could interpret them so far is that Puel's style of play is completely ineffective

 

I think you rest my case for me then

[baggytrousers]

Like watching England vs Iceland at the euros. What do we have in common..... The DIAMOND

 

Nice theory except that England didn't actually play The DIAMOND at the euros.

 

In all their games they played a FOUR-THREE-THREE formation. In the game against Iceland they played Kane as the target man with Sturridge on the right wing and Sterling on the left. NOT the same system as Puel's 4-4-2 diamond at all.

 

Where you may be getting confused is that in the run-up to Euro 2016 Woy experimented with a 4-4-2 diamond in the home friendly against Portugal in a bid to try and get Kane and Vardy playing up front in the same team. Although England won the game 1-0 the experiment was largely considered a failure as Kane and Vardy seemed to spend most of their time tracking opposition full backs rather than playing trough the middle. As a consequence Woy swapped back to his favoured 4-3-3 for the tournament proper.

 

The only proper example of someone playing the 4-4-2 diamond in English football is the Liverpool team of 2013/14 which had Sturridge and Suarez playing as the two and Stevie G was in the Romeu DM position. This is where things get interesting because this was easily Liverpool's best season in living memory, finishing runners-up and scoring 101 goals in the process.

 

In fact they should really have won the league and might well of done had Stevie G not had THAT slip. In an odd way that famous slip did highlight one of the weaknesses of the diamond in that if the DM makes a mistake the defence can be left fairly open. I do wonder if Romeu is up to it in that role from what I've seen so far but it's early days so let's give him a chance to prove himself.

 

The real plus about that system for Liverpool that season however was the fluidity of their attack. They went from scoring 71 goals the season before with the same strikers to 101 goals that season and then down to 52 the following season although by that time Suarez was gone. 2013/14 was the only season they played the diamond however and their attack became almost unplayable at times.

 

A lot of the credit was given to Suarez who was in imperious form but I think it's fair to say that the system played a big part in Liverpool's form that season, playing without a big man but with two technical mobile strikers, supported by a small, technical playmaker (Coutinho) and fullbacks who bombed on to provide the width.

 

It's also worth noting that they only scored 1 goal in 4 out of their first 5 games that season but by mid-season they were regularly whacking the goals in. They scored 24 in 6 games in November/December.

 

The diamond certainly worked that season for Liverpool but they did have the exceptional talent of Suarez to call upon. The system does have the advantage of freeing up a team's best attacking talent and making them very different to counter (witness Hatem Ben Arfa at Nice last season). I believe this was the imperative behind us going all out to get Boufal as he does seem to be an extraordinary talent.

 

Time will tell if the diamond proves to be the right system for us but I believe we have the players to make it work and it would be folly to abandon it before it's had a chance to prove itself.

 

I know a lot of this is going to fall on deaf ears and the fact that you honestly thought that England were playing a 4-4-2 diamond against Iceland shows that the club has got its work cut out to convince some of the fans but, for the club's sake, give the team a fair chance to implement Puel's plans properly, get behind them and let's judge them after 10 games or so when we have had a proper chance to truly evaluate our new manager and his tactics.