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Proof that people should not doubt Bilic’s managerial abilities

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Before his appointment this summer at Upton Park, Slaven Bilic often used the 4-2-3-1 formation at Turkish club Besiktas and it is expected by many that he will adopt this same system with his new West Ham squad.

However, Bilic has been known to use different systems successfully in the not too distant past, especially with Croatia as he looked to find a way of getting the best out of his limited pool of players and that flexibility is a good sign.

At Besiktas he adopted a possession based game with attacking, overlapping full-backs and two wingers supporting the main centre-forward Demba Ba, our former goal scorer.

As one of the giants of Turkish football, Besiktas were expected to seek the initiative and dominate most games and while they did ok, they didn’t come close enough to challenging for the title that the owners and fans desperately wanted.

Although they had a very decent defensive league record they often got caught on the counter-attack with their high defensive line and also had problems with discipline, seeing an incredible 10 players sent off during last season.

Previously at Lokomotiv Moscow, it was a similar story. The team were expected to take control of most games but struggled for results and finished 9th, their lowest ever finish since the formation of the Russian League in 1992.

Lokomotiv was certainly the blip in his managerial career so far but it is interesting to see that many of his best results and performances have come when his teams were perceived to be the underdogs.

Take last season’s results in Europe as an example, with Besiktas interestingly performing very well as underdogs against English clubs Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool over two legs.

In the Champions League play-off, Arsenal snuck through 1-0 on aggregate and could count themselves somewhat fortunate in the first leg. In both games Bilic seemed to play a very clever counter attacking 4-5-1 in defence that quickly turned into a 4-4-2 when his team got hold of the ball.

Arsenal as expected dominated possession in both games but were frustrated as Besiktas back four defended deep and very narrow and then looked to expose the Gunners high defensive line by quickly clipping balls into the channels whenever they got the chance, looking for the pace of Demba Ba and also Ozyakup, who joined in coming off the wing.

Demba Ba played on the shoulder of the slow Per Mertesacker, had chances to turn the tie Besiktas way in the first leg and perhaps should have done so. Arsenal fullback Nacho Monreal also had a torrid time that night in Turkey as he also had his lack of pace exploited in behind him.

Bilic had both of his front two pressing very high, with two banks of four behind, playing much deeper. It was an interesting tactic that very nearly worked and something I can see him doing on the opening day of the season at the Emirates, with Sakho and Valencia.

Besiktas 0-0 Arsenal

In the return leg at the Emirates, Arsenal won 1-0 to go through but were hanging on for dear life at the end after the sending off of Mathieu Debuchy, although they thoroughly deserved the win on the night despite again being frustrated for long periods and were threatened by the counter-attack.

Tottenham 1-1 Besiktas

During the 1-1 Europa League group stage tie at White Hart Lane, Bilic used the similar tactics as he did with Arsenal and gained a late penalty with the chipped diagonal ball over a slow defence again causing problems. In fact the whole team pressed further up the field and dominated possession this time, deserving a lot more than the point they gained. They  deservedly won 1-0 at home in the return game and topped the group.

Besiktas 1-0 Liverpool

In their 1-0 second leg win and subsequent penalty shoot-out victory over Liverpool in the first knock out stage, Besiktas played with a lot more width, using their usual 4-2-3-1 that they played in the league with Ba up front on his own. They wanted to double up on Liverpool’s wing-backs to stifle them and did it successfully, while also exploiting 2v1 situations going the other way.

Bilic even warned Brendan Rodgers what he was planning to do with his pre-match comments.

“When playing against an English side you must stop them playing down the wings, if you give them space on the flanks to deliver crosses you will suffer,” Bilic said.

“We have to defend our flanks well, it is essential if we are to win”

They managed to drag Liverpool players out of position from all over the pitch because of it, which was a very clever move again and helped gain another very impressive result against English opposition.

Turkey 0-3 Croatia

One of his greatest wins as Croatia manager was a superb 3-0 away win in Turkey in a crucial Euro 2012 qualifier. It was another occasion like the Arsenal game where he went with a 4-5-1 in defence, which quickly became a 4-4-2 in attack as their two most forward players pressed high up the pitch. Olic would press first, followed by Mandzukic and the rest of the team followed from deeper positions, forcing Turkey to make mistakes in their own half. They exploited the flanks well too in an excellent counter-attacking performance, as they cruised through to the finals despite being underdogs yet again.

England 2-3 Croatia

A game that England fans won’t forget in a hurry, Bilic’s Croatia employed the 4-4-2, again with high pressing up front and dropping balls in behind the England back line to try and exploit an ageing Sol Campbell and a generally sluggish all round defence as Croatia topped the group and qualified for Euro 2008.

In the following qualifying campaign Croatia were beaten 4-1 and 5-1 by England when the tag of favourites now didn’t seem to suit them, a trait that has followed him since so far in club management.

In an interview with The Guardian just before Euro 2012, Bilic had this to say on formations:

“My opinion is that formations are slowly dying out and a large number of experts will confirm that. It has become increasingly difficult to mark the movement of the players, with regards to the ball, just by assigning numbers to each line. Fluidity is much more important – you want your team to stay compact, and your lines to remain close to one another, so they can flow over. You need to make sure that no gaps emerge, and that tends to happen often to teams who play with strict lines. A quality opponent will always find your weak spot and massacre you.

But that doesn’t mean the system is any less important. Organisation and automatism are the foundations for everything – only if you have that, will the individual quality of your players show in a positive way. I will never underestimate the value of individualism and inspiration – but without a solid system, improvisation is just anarchy. And anarchy can also sometimes bring you a result, sometimes even better than your established schemes, but it cannot be a long-term solution”

So it appears that our new gaffer is very flexible with his thinking, preferring to give individual instructions rather than concentrating on a set shape. He certainly seems to have a number over English opposition in the past which is obviously a very good thing for us.

Maybe the real test will be when West Ham are no longer the underdog and with expectations that have already gone up a notch with the fans since his arrivals.

I think we are still certainly the underdog when it comes to the top six teams in the Premier League and that’s how Bilic will like at this moment in time.

So maybe it’s best to curb those high expectations just for now while he settle’s in.

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