Formation is an interesting one; I think our current options in the squad lend themselves to being able to play a lot of different shapes. In my opinion, Allen, Henderson, Can and Coutinho all best suit playing in the no.8 position. Looking at that, 4-3-3 would suit us. And yet you have Lallana, whose best position is probably as a no.10, Sterling, who I think really works well as a no.10 and Markovic, who I think will most fulfill his potential by permanently becoming a no.10 in the future, as well Coutinho and Henderson who have both played well as no.10s before. That would point away from a 4-3-3 and maybe towards a 4-2-3-1
It's going to be really interesting to see what Rodgers does with that. I wouldn't like to predict which one he will generally prefer to go with this season (of course, the fact we have plenty of options to play a 4-3-3 and a 4-2-3-1 brings in the diamond midfield as an option as well, where you play four midfielders). I do think we'll see a similar flexibility to last season though.
I think it points to, if we wanna get binary about it, that kind of 4-3-2-1 idea we had against Norwich and Chelsea the back-end of last season. It's all fairly flexible, isn't it? I mean, I'd call that 4-3-3, because I'm a luddite (and 'cos writing out anything more than three band systems is for bellends
). Markovic and Sterling have both played up top at points in their career.
I'd guess it could also point to continuing the diamond. It's not crazy to think we'll play at times with one of them at the head of it, and then another playing just off Sturridge up top. Think of the Benfica team we played in the UEFA Cup a few seasons back. They played with Aimar at the head of a diamond and then Saviola just off Cardozo up front.
I'm fairly sure we'll see a lot of different shapes next season, as is Rodgers way. I think the consistent throughout though will be the single pivot at the base of the midfield. Don't think he's strayed from that since late November/early December last year, and it was always his thing at Swansea too. By the back-end of last season we were pretty much a left-footed left back away from being able to switch up between a diamond, 4-3-3 and 3-5-2 whenever we needed. We matched up Newcastle's system in the last game of the season when we were struggling against them, the only issue was we had to take Flanagan off to put a left-footer on. If we had a left-footer there already and Flanagan was on the left, I think he'd be fairly adept at playing as a 3rd centerback as Johnson did in the 2nd half against Newcastle and also after the first 20 at home to Villa.
