I remember that some of Calcio coaches talked about the whole formation thing, said they don't believe in the whole nomenclature of game plans and that if they instructed one player to move 3 meters up or down he will be playing in different position.
This seem to be the case in EV game plan, you can call it 433 with Messi as false 9, but in some other cases it looked 442 with Messi as AM, at certain points it was 343 with Busquets/Rakitic joining CB and Semedo & Albe becoming wingbacks, in other momemnts it was Semede/Umtiti/Pique defense with Gerard & Alba a wings to make it look like 352
This is a typical Barca thing anyway,player shifting position is always key for us eventhough we always looked to have more certain calling for our game plan
Alaves away and Betis & Espanyol at home aren't the toughest opponents, but EV is bringing back more balance to the team, the defensive set up is way better than it was in super cup
With Neymar leaving , I said before that we shouldn't be fixed with having a LW now, EV has even done better making Messi as false 9,moving Suarez to LW and playing with RW.
This -along having a true good RB- has made our right side stronger while making Rakitic a true midfielder again, benefiting the midfield tremendously. Suarez will never be true LW and will always try to move central when he can, but unlike Messi in past season and half he will remain enough on left side to keep his opponent RB occupied and this must continue. When we had Messi moving centrally we left our own RB isolated while freeing opponent LB, making teams attacking us with two players on only one as they weren't afraid from counter attack from that side, forcing Rakitic to cover on it but it didn't really help that much while it hurt defensively. This shouldn't be the case with Suarez. While Suarez himself would probably prefer more central role he is a player willing to do what coach want for the best benefit of the team
Raktic will be the most likely to benefit from such system, he isn't only a work horse and he is more than capable of creating for others IMO, attacking from fullbacks will also add a lot for the team.
This is a long season and the coach has a lot of work to do, teams will figure out this and we will need to improve, we will need to see how we will do it in tougher games, but I am suspecting we have at least have our starting attack and defensive set up for now. Lots of work in rotations with a deep squad -although it lacks elite talent- and I think there will be changes in midfield, I highly doubt Iniesta will continue as starter as season goes, probably one of Roberto or Paulinho will take his place (outside shot is Gomes or Denis,but very highly unlikely) never mind integration and development of players like Dembele.
But so far, EV give us a reason to be optimistic.
