Sign him up Mick

By Tom Bason
July 28 2010

Although this transfer is by no means a certainty, I firmly believe that Michael Mancienne could be a vitally important signing for Wolves this summer.

First of all, a brief history lesson. In the mid to late 90's, there was a growing feeling that the fullbacks were the most important part of the team. As Jack Charlton pointed out, they are often the players on the pitch with the most time on the ball. Jonathan Wilson, one of the country’s foremost tactical journalists observed that the winners of the 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006 world cups all had the best pairs of attacking fullbacks (France's Lilian Thurman and Bixente Lizarazu, Brazil's Jorginho and Branco, and Cafu and Roberto Carlos and Fabio Grosso and Gianluca Zambrotta of Italy). Even if you are sceptical of this, surely it's no coincidence that all four teams played attacking fullbacks (or conventional wingbacks in the case of Brazil’s 2002 team) and went on to lift the world's biggest trophy.

In recent years, much has been made of teams switching to 4-5-1, or the 4-2-3-1 formation that was so popular this summer. This was used in part to give a man advantage in midfield, but also allowing the wingers to push further forward to occupy the opposition fullbacks, while ensuring they didn't leave gaps in the middle of the park. We even saw the introduction of defensive wingers- Manchester United’s Ji-Sung Park sacrificing himself to stop Inter’s Maicon pushing forward in 2009, while Dirk Kuyt often performs a similar role for Liverpool and Holland. Domestically and in Europe, teams are now starting to go one further. Inter won the Champions League playing a forward-three (Goran Pandev, Samuel Eto'o and Diego Milito), effectively nullifying the opponents attacking fullbacks. No left-back is going to push forward in the knowledge that they are leaving space behind him for the likes of Eto'o and Pandev to run into. Barcelona play a similar system, with Leo Messi and Pedro constantly pushing their direct fullbacks backwards towards their own goal. This means that the back-4 are now playing in a straight line across the back, and if they have two defensive midfielders playing as well, they effectively have six defenders on the pitch, with the front four often being very isolated.

Forward thinking managers are always looking to gain a tactical advantage on the pitch, and so will be looking to see where they have their players coming forward from the back. Assume the opposing team plays one centre forward, plus two wide forwards. The fullbacks mark the wide men, and one of the centre backs man marks the centre forward. This leaves one man free. For years in Italy this was the libero. The likes of Gaetano Scirea performed the role for years, while Franz Beckenbauer and Matthias Sammer were experts in the role for Germany. Tactics tend to move in cycles, and this will be going back to the system thought up by Karl Rappan's Switzerland in the 1930's. Three man markers, plus a sweeper with license to bring the ball up the pitch, adding an extra man to the attack. This will cause the opposition manager problems, as now his attacking midfielder, who previously had very few defensive responsibilities will need to track the sweeper coming forward. This in turn will isolate the front three, meaning counter attacks will be harder to instigate. It may be argued that few teams will be happy about leaving three defenders against three strikers, but teams are happy to leave two centre backs against two strikers, and in any case, the two defensive midfielders that many teams play will ensure there is enough cover. A few teams in the World Cup played players in both a defensive midfield and centre back role, almost as old fashioned centre-halves- both Rafael Marquez and Sergio Busquets performed the roles well for Mexico and Spain respectively. This is obviously all guess work, but it seems to me that it is the next logical step tactically.

Do we currently have anyone at the club who could play this role? Richard Stearman maybe, but his occasional lapse in positioning and decision making could rule him out. Christophe Berra and Jody Craddock are both tailor made for the marking role, and while I've not yet seen much of Steven Mouyokolo, from the reports I've read I'm not sure he'd have the ability to step into a midfield role. Surely the obvious player is Michael Mancienne. His natural game is similar to this role to this anyway, and he proved last season that he is good enough on the ball to play in midfield. Arguably not strong enough (yet) to be a first choice centre back, this position could almost have been created just for him. Play as a defender, sweeping up behind the three man markers, with license to bring the ball out defence and push forward when we are in possession. I believe I've seen the future, its name is Michael Mancienne.