Last week, on the 18th, West Ham confirmed the signing of Mali International Modibo Maiga. What is the best way though, to get the best out of our attack to ensure that we don’t see our name in the red at the end of the campaign?
Currently we have on our books; Carlton Cole, Nicky Maynard, Sam Baldock, Modibo Maiga, Ricardo Vaz Te, Robert Hall and the forgotten man in Freddie Piquionne who will be competing to start our attacking line up. With Piquionne expected to either leave or be a passenger for the last part of his contract, I would expect Sam Allardyce to look for one or two, more likely two more strikers to bolster our attack.
At the moment we need to work with the signings and players we have, so we should consider the best way to use Modibo Maiga. Which we have options to do so, the first is going to be a 4-3-3 formation. This would preferably have Vaz Te on the left wing with Taylor or McCartney behind to provide the attacking over laps. Then with Cole in the middle of this attack, it would give the team a good direction. If you had Cole in the middle, he could benefit the team by the way that he could hold up the ball and give and go to the wings, or with his flick on’s, you could have the wingers bombing on the overlay looking to run onto the ball. I would then have Maiga on the right, but I would expect Allardyce to bring in a natural right-sided winger, which we currently don’t really have a lot of quality in.
Our second option is to have a lone striker, this would undoubtedly be either Cole or Maiga. I don’t see that Baldock or Maynard have the quality or the skill to do what the other two can give to the team. This formation would be only used in games where we have to soak up the pressure. A vital role into this formation would have to be the roles of Vaz Te and of Nolan, if when we were breaking they would have to join up with the attack and let Jack Collison, Mark Noble and Mohamed Diame sit and protect.
Thirdly we could try the rigid 4-4-2 formations that could work, only if we gave license to Ricardo to bomb up the wings. We could, I believe make this work, preferably I would have Maiga and Baldock, because if these two could become the nippy inside running strikers that they have the potential to do they could cause serious problems for the more rigid of centre backs. This could became a very lucrative partnership, the pair could be able to make moves that would pull them off their markers and then to make runs that with the quality of Nolan, Noble and Vaz Te’s pass into their feet. Then you have the option of bringing on any of your strikers to bring the weary defenders to face a new dilemma, imagine Cole, full of energy, coming on with 15 minutes to go.
I personally am unsure about the best formation for us, it seems clear that Diame and Noble are going to bring up the base to the midfield and control the game if they can, then you have Nolan and Vaz Te to feed to. Here is the problem, this leaves a lone striker, because Nolan isn’t a winger so, he would have to play in the middle of a 4-2-3-1 formation. You would need to have a right winger and a lone striker due to the fact that the right wing would have no attacking outlet. So this means that if you need a right wing outlet, you can only have a lone striker, preferably Cole, who could hold the ball for Vaz Te and the right-sided player to join the attacks. The right sided player would need to be forced upon Maiga or Baldock, who I’m sure would rather be spearheading the attack and not playing the Vaz Te role on the right. So, I feel that for this formation to work, you need to bring in a quality right winger or use Maiga or Baldock.
