Rangers have confirmed that Mark
Warburton has imposed a standardised 4:3:3 formation throughout the whole
institution, from grass roots youth level all the way up to the first team.
All teams from Rangers’ youth
academies all the way up to the senior Championship side will strictly adhere
to a the 4:3:3 formation, which is the clearest indicator yet of the attacking,
flowing, footballing philosophy Warburton is endeavouring to imprint upon the
team.
A short statement confirmed this
change of approach:
“From first-team to under-8 level, every Rangers
team will now play a single formation with an emphasis on positive play at all
times.”
And youth player Max Ashmore
confirmed it:
“That’s linked to the way we are trying to
play football now with our 4-3-3 formation and looking to dominate the ball.”
This regimented universal
approach to the formation means that young players are being schooled in
flowing football from pre-teens years at Murray Park, meaning by the time they
graduate to the senior level, they have fully adopted and been raised with that
system in their blood.
It is a tentative attempt at
trying to do what Ajax
did in the 70s, by breeding footballers who all knew the formation, the tactic,
and how to play football.
It also means we know
categorically what system Warburton will be putting out on Championship pitches
next season, and that, assuming it clicks, Rangers fans will see quality
football by a team who understand each other.
It is going back a bit, but for
four matches in 2007, Rangers had a three-man midfield of Hemdani, Ferguson and Thomson,
with Burke, Naismith and Cousin up front – and that combination worked
marvellously. Inexplicably Smith dropped it despite the results and displays
and form wavered. But the point was the formation worked, including a stroll at
Easter Road.
There is no harm trying this, and
the fact so much thought appears to have been put into it forces the notion it
is more of the ‘shape of things to come’.