How do you solve a problem like Gonzales?

By: Tom B | April 10th, 2009

Hello intrepid followers of my little adventure.

First things first, I’m sorry for the trouble people have been having linking to the full sized pictures. This was a coding error on my part, however with the help of Daryl this has now been addressed and should be fine into the future.

Now a question which has been bugging me for some time now, what to do with my one good winger? He has the stats to make a big impression down the right, can dribble and cross with quite good physical skills. There are two key problems with this;

1) there is no-one to run down the left, I mean no-one, see below for my list of left sided players.
second,

2) If he were to get good crosses in, our strikers and attacking players lack the aerial ability to capitalise.

So, can I play lopsided formations with 2 blokes down the right and one bloke down the left? Why not? Australia did it for a little while a couple of years ago. Tim Vickery (The Vickerpedia) of the BBC also claims that LDU of Ecquador won the Copa Libetadores last year with two down one side and one down the other.

I’m currently thinking this formation could work by having Gonzalez at AMR and a right sided full back, with a more cautious LWB and focussing passing down the right. I have decided that this is the best course of action, I’ll give it a go, and see how it ends.

Player Profile
Jordi Gonzalez

Now Jordi looks grumpy in his picture. I think I know why. It is the fact that he is a semi-professional footballer plying his trade with a guilty conscience. He has a guilty concience because deep down he knows he can not pass the ball (5), can not head a ball (2), can’t tackle (6), take a free kick (1) or make a decision (4). His off the ball work is terrible (3) and he’s not very brave. He is good at one role, getting down the touchline (Dribbling and Pace 11, acceleration 13) and delivering crosses (11). Can a player like this workin my narrow formation? We’ll just have to see