[Why is it hard to give freedom to both of your 8’s - THREAD]

I have seen United fans talking about giving more freedom to Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes yesterday. I have heard the same thing from Chelsea fans last season. Since Pep has done it at City, it’s common for fans to want 2 8’s with freedom. But, why is it hard to pull off?

The first benefit of two players positioned in the halfspaces is that it will give your players lower up the pitch more options to progress the ball into. Adding to this, halfspaces are probably the best zones to receive the ball as it is between two channels most of the time.

Below, you see Ross Barkley receiving between West Ham’s wide midfielder and central midfielder. The wide midfielder didn’t know if he had to commit close to Barkley and it opened up a passing lane to Azpilicueta wide. It created a predicament for the opponent.

Following with the talk about channels, we can see there De Bruyne making a run in between two players (a channel) to receive. This is a trademark run from De Bruyne at City and it resulted in a penalty for City.

Then, when your striker drops deeper to receive, he will be able to find a teammate by a simple layoff as his teammate will be close to him. This is seen below.

However, those benefits aren’t exclusive to two central midfielders. Two wingers in the halfspaces can give you the same benefits. However, they won’t give you enough technical quality to retain the ball in central areas to overload then find teammates into space, like at City.

But, why is it so hard to pull off? Firstly, you need to understand a basic principle. In football, there are five corridors and each corridor must be occupied at any given time to give the ball-carrier more passing lanes. And each corridor can’t be occupied by two players.

The reasoning behind having only one player in each corridor in advanced positions is that you don’t have to push too many players forward to stretch the pitch but also because players lower up the pitch can come in between two corridors to form triangles to progress the ball.

By looking at this picture, you must’ve understood the issue: if your 8’s are in the halfspaces, your wingers can’t. Which means they will have to be played wide. Because of that, your FBs can’t bomb up and down.

This is the first reason as to why Pep used Sané and Sterling on the side of their strong foot rather than inside while he inverted both Delph and Walker. The second reason being defensive transitions.

While your two midfielders high up the pitch will allow you to adopt a high press in central areas to attempt to recover the ball quickly, if it fails you only have one midfielder left in your holding midfielder. Therefore, Walker and Delph were alongside him to have more bodies.

Now, you need to understand that the profiles required to play on the wings are very specific. As inverted FBs, Pep used two good technical players in Delph and Walker. Later, he used a 10 in Zinchenko as Delph’s replacement.

As his wingers, he also used very specific profiles. He used Sané on the left and Sterling on the right. They were tasked to hug the touchline in the second phase to stretch the opponent’s backline. But, when they received they needed to be great in 1v1 situations.

Now, we can talk a bit more about United. While Pogba and Bruno are more than capable of either making runs in behind themselves or find runners into the channels, what United don’t have is wingers with the same profiles as Sterling and Sané.

Rashford could be able to do a good job in 1v1 situations if he is played on the right-side. His output could be close to a 17/18 Sterling on the right if patterns to find cutbacks are done.

Pep instilled patterns in cases where a runner was receiving the ball in behind the opponent’s backline. In these situations, having a winger on his strong-foot favored cutbacks. As Pep says, ‘A hard, low cross towards the front post is like a goal half scored’.

When the winger received, the striker or the opposite was there to finish from close range. This is how Sterling got almost all of his 18 league goals in 17/18 from close-range.

While Rashford could do a job on the right in this case and Daniel James could be useful off the bench on both wings due to his speed, United would definitely need either Sancho or Dembélé who are both top 1v1 players.

About inverted FBs, while AWB has the physicality to handle transitions, it remains to be seen if he can impact the buildup of his team by playing in the middle of the pitch. It is a role that would suit Shaw well however since his flaws in his final ball would be masked.

And your inverted FBs would’ve to massively contribute in buildup as they could form a midfield pivot in buildup when your holding midfielder splits the CBs to form a 3 at the back.

I took the example of United because this is what I’ve seen on the TL but you could ask yourselves multiple questions if the idea of your team playing two 8’s with freedom crosses your mind:
Are the wingers good enough in 1v1 situations? Are my FBs competent enough on the ball?

Are my 8’s competent enough to retain the ball in central areas and sustain pressure? Can my manager instill patterns for my wingers to still score enough goals to win the league despite them not being able to cut in to shoot on their stronger foot?

While it isn’t impossible to pull off, having two 8’s with freedom is rather hard to pull off and a lot of coaching is required as you would need a well-drilled press as well as players who would be able to recognize triggers to make runs offensively.