Tactical conundrums and strategic successes

Such is the openness of the Airtricity League this season, managers are being forced to be ever more shrewd when it comes to selecting their line-up’s and preferred systems.

Each series of games has become as unpredictable as a game of jenga on a table with a wobbly leg. Supporters of every club can never be sure of what way their team is going to play.

There is definitely an argument to be made about this constant changing of systems hampering a team’s chances of building consistency. But managers are under pressure to achieve results and will feel that certain games require a shake-up – not only in personnel but in formation too.

The days of two teams locking horns in a basic 4-4-2 set-up appear to have vanished. Instead, managers continue to devise systems that would be more commonly found in an NFL playbook rather than on a blackboard in a dressing-room in Dalymount Park.

Is this good for the game? Is it a positive thing to see UCD set up in a 4-5-1 against Dundalk’s 4-3-3? Or is too much being made of systems?

One man who is suitably qualified to answer this is Sporting Fingal manager Liam Buckley. Having managed four different clubs and enjoyed a long playing career, he knows what works and what doesn’t in the domestic game.

Buckley’s current team play in a 4-3-3 formation, but he insists that he moulds his system around his players rather than trying to force players to adapt to a specific system.

“I have all systems in mind. But I feel that with the shape that we have here [at Sporting] at times we are very good at it and at times we can be sloppy, so there is still work to do on it,” Buckley told Insider’s View.

“When I managed St Pat’s in 1999/2000 we had a 3-5-2 and we won the league. When I managed Shamrock Rovers we had 4-3-3 and at one stage we were second in the league and got to the cup final, and at Athlone Town we had a 4-4-2. It just depends on the personnel that you have and you get the best out of them.

“Some of the opposition are now trying to match us by setting up in a similar shape, but we are still going on to win games, so it just depends on the quality of player that you have.

“It comes down to how you develop your patterns of play – keeping in mind you have three guys in the middle and what they are doing is crucial to the other positions that we have.”

Buckley may be almost 20 years older than some of the younger managers in the league – Martin Russell [UCD], Ian Foster [Dundalk], Darius Kierans [Drogheda United] – but he is just as open to exploring different ways of setting his team up.

However, there are two principles at the core of his thinking that will never change and they are to win and to try to win in an entertaining fashion.

As he says: “I think we have an onus, not only to win games, but also to provide some entertainment value for the supporters.”

So it is of little wonder that he has tweaked things at Sporting on a number of occasions to suit the game in which they are playing and the opposition that they are up against.

Primarily, they stick to their favoured 4-3-3, which perfectly complements their current roster of players, but for Buckley it is all irrelevant if the system doesn’t lead his team to victories.

“We want to win games, we don’t want to lose them. There is a fine line between some teams that are set up not to lose matches, while we’re set up to try and win them,” stated Buckley.

“We are quite an offensive team with the two full-backs bombing up on either side, the midfielders getting forward and a front three being alive and quite busy.

“I feel that our players enjoy playing in a system where you can pass the ball, get crosses in and have shots on goal. Our training is geared around that and the players are still getting used to it all.”