The 3-5-2 requires a central defender to push up to add numbers going forward and disrupt the opposing team's shape. This allows the attacking players to be freed up and become dangerous, and this allows the strikers to be given a supply. However, we are doing two things wrong that are preventing us from creating many chances:
- Our central defenders don't really push up, leaving us with 4 at the back, 6 pushed up, and no one in between to link the two together. In order to create this link between the defensive and attacking unit, one of the four need to push up by either carrying the ball forward or playing it forward into the feet of the attacking players. We've started doing this in our recent matches, but we do it quite slowly and, as a result, often enough, the opposition are settled enough to shut us down. If we play with pace whilst going forward, we get good attacking spells like we would with a diamond formation (think of our performances at home with the 3-5-2 and Spurs in the first half).
You see Jones do a good job going forward and disrupting the opposition, and I like that, but Evans is quite slow and negative, always looking to release the ball quickly rather than carry it forward. He seems like he's not suited to a back 3 at all even though his style of play suits that system. Ironic, isn't it? We badly miss Rojo at the moment who isn't defensively worse than Evans but understands how to play in a back 3 better than Evans does.
- Whenever the ball goes out wide, the players frequently tend to drift into the box hoping for a good delivery from the wing back. That is absolutely stupid from our players. In such a system, you cannot leave your wing backs isolated. The wide areas need to be outnumbered in order to create havoc for the opposition, yet our players don't get this! This is a fundamental part of van Gaal's philosophy, yet our players seem to ignore this! Whenever a wing back receives the ball, the central midfielder and wide central defender at the same side need to support the wing back in order to cause problems and be better at creating chances. However, we've rarely done this. As a result, we struggle to create good chances overall and are overly reliant on the wing backs to put in good deliveries or create space on their own. This current approach would work if we had a back 4 with full backs supporting our wide players, but we don't.
The two problems outlined above are the reason why we struggle to create good chances in a 3-5-2 in several matches. Yes, we have good spells, but that's only when we are doing the right things or when our wing backs are performing very well. Otherwise, I think we're better off shaping up with a diamond as we at least have someone from the back 3 pushed up with players supporting each other better than they do in a 3-5-2.
