Well, from my view, NOT ALL 442s are the same.
You know that I love SOME stronger players, some defending etc.
In the first part of a season, we usually played:
Luis-Messi
Iniesta-Rakitic-Busi-Paulinho
Alba-Umtiti-Pique-Roberto
Against Roma, we DID play 442, but it was suddenly:
Iniesta-Rakitic-Busi-winger Roberto
plus Semedo in defense.
So, someone can say that it is the same, but it isn't.
In the first part of a season, we played 4 central midfielders.
Iniesta played on the left, but he was still: a central midfielder who is just playing slightly more towards left.
On the right side we had Paulinho/Rakitic or Gomes who are also: central midfielders who played at the right side of a midfield.
But no matter if you put Raki on the left, right or in the middle, he is still a central midfielder with both his attacking and defensive off the ball movement.
So, our defense had 4 central midfielders plus 4 defenders in the first part of a season.
And we were conceding extremely rarely.
What happened later?
Suddenly we had Dembele as a RW or a RM. On paper, someone could say: it is the same if you have Dembele or Rakitic/Paulinho as a right midfielder.
Well, it isn't the same. That is a totally different universe.
Dembele is a winger and he plays close to a touchline, while Raki/Paulinho/Gomes play centrally even when they are Rcms in a 442.
So, Dembele is both: a winger and he moves differently, plus he doesn't know how to defend.
The same was in Roma's match, we dropped Paulinho/Gomes for Roberto as a right winger.
He hogged the touchline and we basically played with a 3 men midfield plus Roberto hogging a touchline.
I am not saying that 442 is perfect, but obviously EV's 442 with workhorses worked better for EV than this new thing from the 2nd part of a season.
Look at the first part of a season:
2:0 Betis
2:0 Alaves
5:0 Espanyol
3:0 Juventus
2:1 Getafe
6:1 Eibar
3:0 Girona
1:0 Sporting
3:0 Las Palmas
1:1 Atletico
3:1 Olympiacos
2:0 Malaga
3:0 Murcia
2:0 Bilbao
0:0 Olympiacos
2:1 Sevilla
3:0 Leganes
0:0 Juventus
1:1 Valencia
5:0 Murcia
2:2 Celta
2:0 Sporting
2:0 Villareal
4:0 Deportivo
3:0 Real etc
In the first 45 matches of a season (AFTER Supercup matches), we had:
30 clean sheets (66% of matches)
13 times conceded 1 goal
2 times conceded 2 goals (Celta and Sociedad)
So, in the first 45 matches, we conceded only 17 goals
Then, in the last 11 matches, when we started to play both Messi, Coutinho, Luis, Dembele, Iniesta etc, or at least, we had Dembele and Coutinho compared to a 1st part of a season when we didn't have them:
11 matches:
1 clean sheet
4 times conceded 1 goal
4 times conceded 2 goals
1 time conceded 3 goals (Roma)
1 time conceded 5 goals (Levante)
So, in the first 45 matches, when:
1. Roberto was usually a RB
2. when we played 442 with Iniesta-Raki-Busi-Paulinho/Gomes. Or in the worst case: Vidal as a RM and Roberto as a RB in some matches. Ok, Vidal is a winger, but he is a way better defender than Dembele, for example.
3. when we didn't have Coutinho and Dembele:
= we conceded 17 goals in 45 matches
And had 30 clean sheets in 45 matches.
After moving to 433 or 442 with wingers Dembele/Coutinho instead of a CM playing as a RCM:
11 matches:
20 goals conceded in 11 matches, lol.
So, in the last 11 matches we conceded more goals than in the first 45 matches (20:17 goals).
Clean sheets: 30 out of 45 turning into 1 out of 11 matches.
Ok, I know that there are some other factors like players losing their motivation lately, but still: you can see that EV's defensive 442 with 4 Cms was working way better than current 442 with Dembele or 433.
90% of people are only looking at attacking contribution and for majority of them it is: playing Dembele is a no brainer.
Well, at least in EV's system, NOT playing Dembele or wingers is actually a no brainer, according to stats and our results.
So, I agree with you that EV is probably bad.
But what is worse is that he turned back to a formation and style which brought him results, to please the fans and media (playing Dembele and more attacking players).
If we would have played 442 with Pualinho instead of Roberto in Rome, we probably wouldn't conceded 3 goals since we didn't concede more than 2 goals for 45 matches in a row.
But, EV started to "experiment" in 2-3 matches before Roma and that's it.
He abandoned his system and started to play something new.
Also, I doubt that EV's 442 with 4 true CMs from the beginning of a season would ever concede 5 goals against Levante.
That is more or less impossible since our midfield is extremely strong and defensively oriented in that version of 442.
When you have 4 true CMs, Rakitic has less space to cover, so he is not that bad (if a pitch is 60 meters wide, if you have 3 players in line in 433, each has to cover roughly 20 meters. In 442, each CM has to cover only 15 meters of space. Or, even worse, if Busi plays behind them, then in 433 Iniesta and Rakitic need to cover around 30 meters each. While in 442 with 3 Cms in line and Busi behind, they need to cover "only" 20 meters of width instead of 30 meters of width as in 433.)
Busi has less space to cover also, so you can't outrun him that easily.
Ineista has less space to cover.
Paulinho is in, and also has less space to cover.
While yesterday in 433 we had 3 slow turtles in midfield (each covering 30 meters of width) with Dembele, Luis and Cou barely defending.
Plus, Semedo instead of Roberto as a RB.
Way different story than the beginning of a season.
Imo, 442 is way better in defense than 433.
Even though, 442 lacks in attack.
On the other hand, our 433 is better in attack (even though we suck there often too even in 433), and our midfield is slow (3 turtles) and defending is a like a horror show.
When you sum everything up, imo, our current team was way better in 442.
But that will mean: no Dembele, so people will get angry.
