On what basis? It is and always has been a link made by lazy journalists.
I could see Southgate coming in.
The transfer strategy indicates the potential for 3 at the back, as we targeted Yoro, Branthwaite and DeLigt.
Mazraoui and Shaw suit wingback, with LWB being easier to replace with an attacker if and when Shaw breaks down.
The formation may also get the most out of Fernandes and Rashford.
It would be pragmatic, but I could see us getting top 4 with this setup. Southgate specialises in managing game per game and looking at the full course.
I highly doubt he's even on the list. Anyone worth their salt knows he's not up to it, especially tactically, but that shouldn't be a surprise. He only managed on club level for 3 years and that was 15-18 years ago as well. He wasn't anything special back then, and football is a very different sport now altogether compared to the late 2000s. He basically missed the whole tactical revolution of the last 15 years as he quit club football just when Guardiola, the biggest pioneer of said tactical revolution, basically entered the game.
It says it all, that with an overpowered squad, on international level, where tactics don't even matter as much, as it's a more "arcade" type of football, and with the competition made up mostly of washed up managers on the decline (with some rare exceptions, like Enrique, Flick, and Nagelsmann from the last few years), he somehow managed to handicap his own team in every major international tournament, with his unbalanced tactical approach.
@AkaAkuma
We targeted 2 centre backs, because Ineos clearly want to rebuild that position. Also, starting with a back 4, but switching to a back 3 during a game, especially when you have possession, has become a regular occurence lately under some of the best managers in the world. It's a cornerstone of both Pep's and Arteta's teams currently. Maresca as well, if I'm not mistaken. That's why you have centre-backs playing full-back, and full-backs who can invert into midfield next to the central midfielders: Zinchenko, Calafiori, Timber, White, Aké, Gvardiol and Lewis are all players who fit at least one of these roles. In our current squad, Martínez, Dalot, and Mazraoui are capable of playing in such a system and are very suited to it. Branthwaite too, but targeting him doesn't necessarily indicate a plan to a switch to a permanent back 3. Branthwaite and Martínez could both start games at left-back if we had both, with Martínez able to into turn into a CCB and Branthwaite into a wide defender if we switch to a back 3. They could play together because of this as well, despite both being originally left-footed CBs. And then, Mazraoui and Dalot are both great at inverting into the midfield.
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