He is a right back who appears in cm, lw, rw, all over the place, APART FROM RIGHT BACK!!!!!
It has caused us to concede on multiple occasions and has lead to one of last seasons Mr consistent's becoming the target of fans anger.
And it has caused TC to be a target because he doesn't drop Ayling.
This means TC is happy with Ayling marauding all over the place, but that sounds bizarre, why would he want his right back being out of position.
And the answer is, thats the Barcelona way . . . .
The reason it looks like Ayling is doing something wrong is because our defence looks lob sided, Berardi doesnt go forward as much because he isnt comfortable at left back, fair enough.
But often you will see Jansson cover for Ayling and Vieira as our dm covering for Jansson. So we maintain a back 4. But that leaves us light in the middle, Ayling appears to have put us in trouble.
Barcelona under Pep would play Eric Abidal and Dani Alves as full backs, he wanted them to push forward. That left poor Pique and Puyol as a back 2, except it didnt, Sergio Busquets would slip in between them, all of a sudden they were a back 3 with the full backs providing the width and the attacking players squeezing the middle.
Made it very hard for teams to get out, the middle was crowded and the full backs were pressing the sides, ultimately teams smacked it long, Puyol or Pique picked it up, pass to Busquets, he starts the attack again.
The reason it wont work for us is we are forced to play Berardi at Left back, he understandably doesnt want to go forward much, so we are never able to progress to the back 3 that this system requires.
Hopefully with a natural left back we may see what TC os trying to do?
Edit, before someone points out Pep technically played a 4-3-3 it still meant a back 4 becoming a back 3 on purpose
