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Sandy • The first three months of the season have been filled to the brim with tactical jargon. The discussions remain ongoing, and don't seem to be dying down any time soon. Real Salt Lake's move away from the trademark diamond midfield shape that guided the club to success was put on the back-burner this preseason to inject a new approach, the somewhat-contentious 4-3-3 look.

In seven of its first eight games of 2015, RSL utilized its new formation, which the club worked relentlessly on during its three preseason stops. RSL notched three road shutouts in the 4-3-3 and nailed down the defensive minutia, but the attack wasn't producing consistent threats the club had in the diamond for so many years.

Which has now evolved to the sorta-not-really diamond. A 4-4-2 formation implemented the last two outings at home against L.A. and on the road at Chicago four days later. RSL coach Jeff Cassar has stated that it's "not exactly" a diamond. So I asked players after training Tuesday what exactly the team is playing in.

Drawn up on paper, it's a 4-1-3-2, with captain Kyle Beckerman pitted in his usual place in front of the back line with a flat line of three midfielders — consisting of Luke Mulholland, Luis Gil and Jordan Allen — available to attack and recover when given the opportunity. Those three sit behind RSL's new bruising forward duo of Alvaro Saborio and Devon Sandoval.

A grinning Mulholland, fresh off his second goal of the year (which came off an impressive 10-pass sequence and a left-footed cross by Sandoval Saturday at Chicago), said he refers to the look as a "1-3."

The "1" being Beckerman in front of the back line. The "3" being he, Gil and Allen.

Mulholland said the new look is similar to the diamond in that when the ball turns over, RSL looks for Beckerman to initially quarterback the turnaround and get RSL moving in the right direction, whether that means Beckerman transfers the ball to the other side to avoid trouble or himself starts an attack.

"I guess just how it's different to a diamond is the outside mids, we want to press the outside backs as quick as we can as opposed to allowing them to come down the sides and then trap them with the more advanced outside midfielders," Mulholland said. "Also with the personnel interchanging with myself, Luis and Jordan, we all know that we don't just have to stay in our positions, we can fill in for one another whenever we get caught out of position, just to keep the other team guessing."

Right back Tony Beltran said he feels comfortable in both the 4-3-3 and this new 4-4-2 hybrid look, but admitted the club looks more potent in the newest system.

"I think for whatever reason right now, it's just we understand that formation a little bit better, and probably because we're used to play with two guys up top and it's kind of a makeshift diamond with four in the midfield," he said. "But I've always said that we have a lot of success when our midfielders are able to combine within 15-20 yards, that's when we can really move the ball around teams and get the ball side-to-side, and that's where we've had a lot of our past success. I think switching into that with the 4-4-2 helps."

Regardless of the formation, RSL's possession has been noticeably better as of late, which has lead to more scoring opportunities after the club went through a 34-day, 510-minute goal-scoring drought in April and May.

"You can have all the possession you want, but you have to have a purpose with your possession — I think we've had that," Cassar said.

The staff has picked the right — and available — personnel with injuries to three of the team's most talented offensive pieces in Javier Morales (concussion), Joao Plata (foot) and Sebastian Jaime (leg). The two latter names were part of the driving force to use a 4-3-3 as wide strikers.

When RSL returns to full strength — unclear when that will be exactly — the 4-3-3 will get its full and deserved trial. In the mean time, the sorta-not-really diamond seems like a viable option to push RSL through the upcoming injury-plagued, national-team depleted months.

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Allen possibly in, Frank definitely out • Cassar said Tuesday midfielder Jordan Allen may be available for this Saturday's match at Montreal. He said RSL's been in contact with U.S. U-20 coach Tab Ramos regarding the specific time to release Allen, one of 21 players called in for the upcoming FIFA U-20 World Cup in New Zealand, to the U-20 predatory camp.

"We're not 100 percent sure when he's going to be leaving, it could be this week, it could be after the game," Cassar said. "We have to see what's going to happen there."

Montreal will be without head coach Frank Klopas against RSL Saturday, who was suspended one game and fined an undisclosed amount of the MLS Disciplinary Committee Tuesday for violating the league's policy on entering the field/leaving the bench area. Klopas did so in the 90th minute of Montreal's 2-1 loss to the Portland Timbers last Saturday.

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-Chris Kamrani

Twitter: @chriskamrani