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The Morning Roar: Is City shifting to a 4-2-3-1?Adam Soucie checks in with Head Coach Adrian Health
What better way to start your day than with a quick dose of Orlando City? Here's today's Morning Roar...Last week, I had the chance for a long sit-down with Head Coach Adrian Heath. After knocking out some fan questions for the Social Media Mailbag, we discussed how preseason has been going, and the changing look of Orlando City. Last year you started with a 4-4-2. This year you're focusing on a 4-2-3-1. Is there a reason for the shift? It's certainly the way that we play and the possession in the middle. From our point of view, we have to do something different to make it more difficult for the opposition. Playing two up two, generally the two back are saying 'I'm marking him and you'll mark him.' When you have the one player further back it starts to create problems for our opponents. We're tinkering with the formation, though. We'll play a 4-4-2 in some preseason matches along with the 4-2-3-1 formation. John Rooney can come in to play the hole, Kevin Molino can play the hole, so we have options. We've worked on two or three different formations, but I think systems are what you make of them. We have enough players now to be quite flexible in our formation. Do injuries to Matt Luzunaris and Jamie Watson hurt you in the preseason formation-wise If everyone was fit, I'd certainly have more than one striker on the field because they need the training time as well. Obviously Matt and Jaime need minutes on the field once their better. I think Jamie can play in the middle, he's done that some in his career. But I think we have enough players to make our formations flexible. We have plenty of forward players, which we'll need throughout the season. Do you see John Rooney filling in for Yordany Alvarez in the 10 role this season? That's certainly his best position. Anthony Pulis and James O'Connor have filled in for the defensive part of the mid, which gives us freedom in the forward areas. That lets John go forward in play. That gives Kevin (Molino) the opportunity to wander wide. We''ve lost three really good players to the MLS this last offseason. What we need to do now is address with John Rooney about our play style. We play possession football, we don't play the longball. We're just starting to get with Rooney and our widemen about not crowding each other, which is what the preseason is for. If we can get everyone fit and have the play time, it'll be a good season. We think Matt Luzunaris will be fit by then. We know Jamie Watson and Kieron Bernard will be there. We haven't really got anybody we're worried about for April 7th. Looking back on it, what are your views on the Disney Pro Soccer Classic? I think we should have beaten Toronto, we were the better team. Even with 10 men on the field, we looked like the better squad in the first half against FC Dallas. We also played against everyone's best team. If you looked at the MLS First Kick, those same players that played us at Disney started on their perspective teams on opening day. I wasn't disappointed in our play at all. We were two weeks into our own preseason, playing against clubs that should be beating us. The difference in the size of the clubs (including payroll) is huge. The games for us are great to compete in. It's also great for our fans to watch us play here locally We think that we can go out and beat everybody and anybody. |