She Kicks Tactics: Formations Overview (with Lee Burch)

The closing instalment of the magazine’s formations series, in which coach Lee Burch steps back from individual shapes to explain why they change. Formations exist to get important players into key positions, he argues, illustrating with the rise and fall of the number 10 as the sole playmaker: English sides once almost all played variations of 4-4-2, then imported the trequartista, and now more often use a deep-lying midfielder behind two attack-minded ones. Weaknesses get exploited by managers hunting space or overloads, such as putting a midfield three against a pairing. His examples are concrete and local – Arsenal losing the Little, van de Donk and Nobbs triangle to injury, and Durham potentially switching to 3-5-2 to keep Beth Hepple dangerous once opponents plan for her.