Um, midfield as in central midfield, and we were overrun by Real not only on skill/technical level, but because they were playing 4-3-1-2, essentially 4 CMs, who our 2 limited CMs (in defensive sense), couldnt get near of (especially when they played their fullbacks as wide as they did, stretched us out completely, no one had the time come help out the mids). It IS sound reasoning because this is the reason you rarely ever see 2 man mids anymore in most top clubs. Midfield gives you control and wins you games.
Pjanic can work as hard as he wants, but he has little to no impact in physical sense in the midfield. He gets overrun not only in speed but strength, he is a regista who focuses on distribution but lacks the stature for most of the other all around tasks. Its not his fault, he should be complimented with more dynamic players. But rest assured a midfield is in trouble if it needs to rely on Pjanic working hard and running alot. He can recover few balls with positioning smarts, but thats basically it.
in that set up if 3 of your "central" midfielders are Pjanic, Khedira and Dybala (as the AM who is given freedom from defensive duties much since he is a forward), then you are defenitely asking to be spinning trying to chase your tail in most of the toughest match ups.
This doesnt mean 4-3-3 is the solution, personnel is the issue more then anything else, but the limitations of 2 man mids is more obvious with the lacking personnel in midfield.
I agree with the part in bold, the rest, not really. Controlling a game isnt about filling in as many CMs as possible. Its more about having a game plan, every player having a ROLE and individual tasks, instead of having 5 players overlapping eachother in responsibilities as we see it with Allegris tactics. Playing 4-4-2 will mean losing midfield control to a team playing 4-3-3 ? that doesnt make sense at all. We have seen how shit we have been trying to play this formation for long now. If you have 2 good wingers (we have plenty) and have the tactics build up around that, then 2 guys in midfield isnt inferior against a 4-3-3, if you play wide and stretch them out. Its the basics of tactics. If you put a high number of players in one area there will be less in another. You gotta play to your strengths. If your strength is a solid selection of CMs then field them all, if not, then play a formation that suits your best players.
And you cant use that 4-1 loss to Real to prove anything. How many games did we loose with 4-3-3 as well. Real had a better team and could edge us in so many ways that night, mostly having a huge mental edge over us. And we played pussy tactics with Barzagli as RB, Alves as RW, just like Allegri tried it with De Sciglio instead of one of our best players Cancelo. Same result, another lesson not learned. If we keep trying to cover our weaknesses on the cost of not using our strengths, then we will never win anything important. Thats why I am hugely against fielding 3 of our current midfielders simply because they are all mostly average. If we had Vidal, Pogba, Pirlo and (prime) Marchisio, then I would suit them all in, or atleast 3 of them.
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I’m pretty sure that deep down Allegri knows that players such as Bonucci, Cancelo, Berna, Mandzukic, and Dybala are actually the better options in midfield compared to the turtles we have bought as CMs.
But allegri will never have the balls to drop them, hurt their feelings, and create a bad relationship with ‘international’ World Cup winner like Khedira.
It is not very serious to suggest that any of those 5 players should be better midfielders than the professional midfielders that we have, even though they are not top-class.
You are not the only one in here who ACTUALLY think that these guys can play midfield, which is hilarious.
Putting Bonucci or Mandzukic in a CM role they would get eating alive and make a complete fool of themselves. They dont have the speed, stamina, agility or technique to be there, with players all around them. Nor the vision or calmness. Mandzukic with a passing accuracy of 50% and 17 passes a game, now distributing the ball and being responsible for 50+ passes, plus running twice the distance he usually does? Nah mate. Thats some Football Manager 2010 level shit.
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Szczesny
Cancelo
Bonucci 
Alex Sandro 
Emre Can
Pjanic
Matuidi 
Mandzukic
