One of the ways head coach Enzo Maresca has been able to fit three midfielders into a formation that has space for just two, is by tasking one of the full backs to “invert”. Instead of running forward down the line as normal, they instead take up position in midfield when the team’s in possession, allowing one of the original two midfielders to push further up.
So far, we’ve mostly seen actual full backs trying to come to terms with the demands of this role — some better, some not so well — but considering that we spend more time in possession than most of our opponents, the role may be better suited for a midfielder instead. And we have indeed seen that a few times as well, with Moisés Caicedo taking up the nominal full back role and inverting into his usual midfield role.
The key enabler to that specific scheme has been the fitness of Roméo Lavia. So now that he’s back healthy again, we get to try this again.
And it looks like Maresca has successfully indoctrinated the majority of the voters in the WAGNH Community as well, at least for [this week’s preferred lineup exercise](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Ca_yH8lBxVg2qKAc_cHZiu4jE_uG43ldMHkFJdxgyFw/edit#responses). James did get over the 50% mark in the voting, 55% to be exact, but that’s not quite enough to get in the lineup for this one.
**4-2-3-1 (74%)**
Sánchez (81%) | Cucurella (99%+), Colwill (91%), Chalobah (94%), Caicedo (98%) | Lavia (74%), Enzo (91%) | Madueke (81%), Palmer (83%), Neto (69%) | Jackson (98%)
Props to Marc Cucurella who got every voter except for one to vote for him.