Should we change to a 4-3-3 if we get Di Maria?

DeMono

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I heard a lot reputable Journalists and people on here talking about how Di Maria would fit in to a 3-5-3 formation, going as far to say he should play wing back(£64m for a wing-back)-which is scandalous.

LVG wants to build for the future (near) and ultimately wants to play a 4-3-3 formation, but he does not have the right "specialist attackers", i.e a winger. LVG even specifically noted "Di Maria and Ronaldo". As you can tell, he is already building 'his team' buy hopefully buying Di Maria. At Bayern Munich he played 4-4-2 because of the players he had at his disposal, and so when he brought in one player, Robben, he changed the whole system to 4-3-3. A similar thing here with Rooney/RVP/Mata needing to play AND not having that top class specialist winger forced LVG to play this way (3-5-2/5-3-2). Thus, I see LVG making that 'Robben move' by buying Di Maria and changing the while system to 4-3-3 as he has that specialist winger. Again, we all know that LVG will stick by his principles and his philosophy, so I see him not hesitating one bit to drop RVP/Rooney; if that means the whole squad plays better-then he will do whatever it takes. If they don't like it, they can sod off.(which they won't as no one is willing to pay £250k every week).

Now, we are playing this 3-5-2/5-3-2 formation because A)We have Rooney, RVP and Mata. We should fit them all in (we don't need to). B) Why we NEED to play this 3-5-2 formation is because of the lack of specialist wingers in a 4-3-3 formation. Now we have Di Maria, we do not have the need to play that 5-3-2 formation. This will benefit the whole team more than playing Rooney/RVP together (which slows the whole team down, you could see the injection of pace from Welbeck changed things around a little). What will eventually happen is would LVG drop Rooney to play Van Persie for the benefit of the whole team? I think he will, Rooney is also not as big impact on marketing as RVP is (sells more shirts in the whole PL).

Two more pluses of a 4-3-3 system: 1) is playing Adnan Januzaj on the right wing, where in a 5-3-2 system-he can only play as a striker (RVP, Rooney, Welbeck and Hernandez are infront of him) or a wing-back (he does not have the defensive stability there).
2) We lack Defenders for a 3-5-2 system, so playing 2 defenders will ease our worries as we do not need as many centre-backs, and they don't need to be learning new tactical information too.
 
I'd say 4-2-3-1

DDG
Rafael-Evans-Rojo-Shaw
Herrera-Carrick
di Maria-Mata-Januzaj
Rooney
 
red_7 said:
I'd say 4-2-3-1

DDG
Rafael-Evans-Rojo-Shaw
Herrera-Carrick
di Maria-Mata-Januzaj
Rooney
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Love this team.

LVG knows with the arrival of Di Maria we have to drop Wayne or RVP and it should have happened a long time ago, they really can't play together.
 
Sarni said:
Pretty much.

352 needs to be dropped.
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It is killing the team, there is no time to make experimental transitions in this free-for-all league. You have to start of like a sprinter or you will be left behind.
 
Yep.

It isn't working.

Dave
Rafael - Evans - Rojo - Shaw
Herrera - NewSigning - Mata
Di Maria - RvP - Januzaj​
 
revel911 said:
Because of Di Maria or because we have not won with it? If it is the later, I am still unconvinced it wouldn't work once we have all of our starters back.
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Di Maria. Nowhere to fit him in that formation IMO.
 
Bwuk said:
Yep.

It isn't working.

Dave
Rafael - Evans - Rojo - Shaw
Herrera - NewSigning - Mata
Di Maria - RvP - Januzaj​
Click to expand...
:lol:

What the hell is that for a formation? I think you need a refund.
 
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I think we should, i hate the whole concept of playing a formation to accommodate rooney and van persie, i'm perfectly fine if one of them is dropped.

I don't think we have the right players for 3-5-2 either, valencia and young aren't wingbacks, shaw and rafael are fullbacks mainly and we don't know whether they'll fit there or not, van gaal himself prefers 4-3-3, so why waste so much time and energy in something i don't see us playing long term?
 
Sarni said:
Di Maria. Nowhere to fit him in that formation IMO.
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Definitely interesting to see where he'll line up. I think he could play as a wingback, midfielder or anywhere in the front three, but none of them scream out as the obvious choice.
 
I think we should. We should maybe begin to use van Persie sparingly, elongate his career. di Maria and Januzaj either side of Rooney is frightening.
 
There shouldn't be any preset formation. Surely it depends on the opposition, their strengths and weaknesses. Flexibility is the name of the game.
 
We should.
Di Maria and Januzaj on the wings, Rooney or RVP as front man, supported by Mata, Herrera and Carrick or New Signings.
 
Theon said:
Definitely interesting to see where he'll line up. I think he could play as a wingback, midfielder or anywhere in the front three, but none of them scream out as the obvious choice.
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If we pay €80m for a player to play him out of position then we may as well give up, €80m on a world class winger/central midfielder to play him at full back position would be criminal.
 
So far LvG has resisted playing our key players out of position, he wants Rooney as a 9, he hasn't played Mata on the wing and Jones has not been used in midfield even when things were as dire as yesterday. So from that you'd imagine he's planning to play a player who cost £64M in his best position as opposed to shoehorning him in at wing back.

The biggest difference between 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 is that a true 4-3-3 has two box to box CM's ahead of a #6, all defend and start deeper than a #10, so if we use the latter aka Mata then it would be 4-2-3-1 but you then need both of the 2 CM's to be apt defensively and right now we don't have the CM's to do it..
 
Sarni said:
If we pay €80m for a player to play him out of position then we may as well give up, €80m on a world class winger/central midfielder to play him at full back position would be criminal.
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I think he's overpriced, no doubt about that. His best season however was last year and he didn't play as a winger, so I'm not so sure it's as clear cut as just sticking him on the wing in a 4-3-3. He's clearly quite flexible.

Wingback isn't fullback remember and you do not have to play that role in a defensive way. Even ignoring great attacking wingbacks of the past, remember Van Gaal played a three man back line with Ajax in which he played no fullbacks at all with Overmars for example on the flanks. So really there is some options there, none jump out as the clear one but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Di Maria turned out to be fantastic as an attacking wide player in a 3-5-2.
 
bruiser said:
There shouldn't be any preset formation. Surely it depends on the opposition, their strengths and weaknesses. Flexibility is the name of the game.
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To an extent but it's about time United find their strongest XI and formation and start letting other teams worry about chopping and changing their tactics to beat us.
 
4231 / 433 is the obvious choice.
We would need a strong defender though, in my opinion, and a decent defensive midfielder and we'd have a strong looking team.
We just need to drop RVP to the bench. Rooney and RVP as a partnership is slow, so it should be one or the other for most matches, although sometimes Rooney could drop to where Mata plays with RVP up top
 
the problem is having inexperienced defenders (The sooner Evans is fit, the better it will be for us). Since we have young defenders we are protecting them while playing the 3-5-2. as you mentioned, he might switch to 4-3-3 and i really think its time he did that

Valencia and Young are not good enough as wingbacks and do not look dangerous enough 1 v 1 against their opposing full back for this formation to work. Now that we have wingers who can beat their man, we should change to 4-3-3. that being said we need to buy an accomplished DM because our inexperienced defense does need some kind of protection.

i dont want to sound too radical but in my opinion we should be playing 4-3-3 with welbeck, di maria and januzaj from the start with either Rooney or Van Persie as a striker (with mata on the bench).

Welbeck Van Persie Januzaj

Di Maria Carrick Herrera

This way any one of Van Persie, Januzaj Welbeck or Di maria can act as a no.10 which makes us more unpredictable

imo this team would have enough pace and invention to beat the best.
 
We have some of the best attacking options in the world when di maria arrives, we need to choose whats the best for the team, not the individuals. and the way we do that is by dropping rvp or rooney.

4231.

Mata as the 10
rooney or rvp as the striker
januzaj and di maria flanking the wings.

a balanced World class attack. and completely covered for injuries, with world class options on the bench.
 
3-5-2 seems to be better suited to teams who sit back in my opinion. For teams who want to sit back against you it's not attacking enough, so I think it's better to have two specialist wingers. So yeah I think we should go 4-3-3 and I think it's pretty obvious that is why we are signing ADM.
 
Someone said:
I think we should, i hate the whole concept of playing a formation to accommodate rooney and van persie, i'm perfectly fine if one of them is dropped.

I don't think we have the right players for 3-5-2 either, valencia and young aren't wingbacks, shaw and rafael are fullbacks mainly and we don't know whether they'll fit there or not, van gaal himself prefers 4-3-3, so why waste so much time and energy in something i don't see us playing long term?
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I don't think it was about Rooney and rvP, but about having a crazy unbalanced team.
 
DeMono said:
It is killing the team, there is no time to make experimental transitions in this free-for-all league. You have to start of like a sprinter or you will be left behind.
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We should keep it if LVG thinks we will be better long term with it.

Having said the arrival of Di Maria may change his mind.
 
Devil may care said:
So far LvG has resisted playing our key players out of position, he wants Rooney as a 9, he hasn't played Mata on the wing and Jones has not been used in midfield even when things were as dire as yesterday. So from that you'd imagine he's planning to play a player who cost £64M in his best position as opposed to shoehorning him in at wing back.

The biggest difference between 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 is that a true 4-3-3 has two box to box CM's ahead of a #6, all defend and start deeper than a #10, so if we use the latter aka Mata then it would be 4-2-3-1 but you then need both of the 2 CM's to be apt defensively and right now we don't have the CM's to do it..
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Agreed, I was just typing the same thing.

We still don't have midfielders for both 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1.
 
4-4-2 diamond: The front three stays the same, and we can overload the flanks as the wide midfielders, AM, or the strikers could support the fullback.

A diamond of

__Mata
Hererra___Di Maria
__Blind__

Is pretty good, the bottom three can run tirelessly and press opposition. We could stay deep and hit teams on the counter. I used blind because he can play as CB and CM and occupy whatever space the situation demands.
 
Dreaded said:
We should keep it if LVG thinks we will be better long term with it.

Having said the arrival of Di Maria may change his mind.
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I think it definitly will. Every piece of evidence suggests so. LVG is also not scared to drop big named players for the benefit of whole team.
 
He's now our best player - pending confirmation - and should subsequently be utilised in his best position to extract the absolute maximum from him. Personally, I don't see that role being in the 3-5-2, as it would either mean Mata being benched or playing in the Robben role at the expense of Welbeck or van Persie which I don't think is the correct way to use him. The wingback role should be completely ruled out of the equation, so I won't go into that.

The long-term aim for LvG seems to be a gradual transition towards the 4-3-3, but he might seem him as more influential to the team playing as an advanced central midfielder. Something that would be an option in the 4-3-3 in the same role he had in his final season at Madrid, but it would still leave us light on the flanks. I'm probably seeing things differently to van Gaal as width and quality wide players is usually high on his agenda, so he probably views di Maria in that regard.

I think the 4-1-2-1-2 is the solution. It's a very narrow formation and systematically more so than the 3-5-2, but following di Maria's arrival, the return of Rafael and Shaw and in the event of purchasing a ball-winner or holding midfielder like de Jong or Blind we would have someone adept at screening the back four and covering the fullbacks when they venture forward. It's a formation that would allow better balance in the team and sufficient pace and energy to provide the width, stretch and penetrate defences and support the flanks and cover the flanks with di Maria, Welbeck and Herrera.

I hope that' what we opt for anyway. The diamond was by all accounts a failure under Sir Alex, but we have more suitable personnel for this to be a success as well a more flexible coach.
 
Everest Red said:
4-4-2 diamond: The front three stays the same, and we can overload the flanks as the wide midfielders, AM, or the strikers could support the fullback.

A diamond of

__Mata
Hererra___Di Maria
__Blind__

Is pretty good, the bottom three can run tirelessly and press opposition. We could stay deep and hit teams on the counter. I used blind because he can play as CB and CM and occupy whatever space the situation demands.
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Exactly. We would have plenty of energy to cover ground and track back with Herrera and di Maria, while also supporting the forward players and supplying width with AdM having licence to pull wide. Blind or even Carrick can sit deep, distribute the ball quickly from deep and cover for Rafa and Shaw when they go forward.

We would need a more capable holding midfielder in the long-term, but I would be happy with Blind and Carrick predominantly taking that role until January if LvG had someone lined up then.

I'm confident it would prove successful.
 
Everest Red said:
4-4-2 diamond: The front three stays the same, and we can overload the flanks as the wide midfielders, AM, or the strikers could support the fullback.

A diamond of

__Mata
Hererra___Di Maria
__Blind__

Is pretty good, the bottom three can run tirelessly and press opposition. We could stay deep and hit teams on the counter. I used blind because he can play as CB and CM and occupy whatever space the situation demands.
Click to expand...

How on earth can you hit teams on the counter when the front 3 remain RVP/Rooney/Mata and none of them possess any pace? 4-4-2 diamond is pretty ridiculous in fact any system which tries to force Rooney/Mata/RVP into the same line up is.
 
goin4glory said:
How on earth can you hit teams on the counter when the front 3 remain RVP/Rooney/Mata and none of them possess any pace? 4-4-2 diamond is pretty ridiculous in fact any system which tries to force Rooney/Mata/RVP into the same line up is.
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More ways to score than just on the counter.
 
Better question is do we play him on the left of a middle of three thus dropping Mata which looks like di Maria's best position, or as one of the wingers in the front three which he is also very good at? Personally I'd go with the second option but it's still an interesting debate.
 
While he was was playing CM last season, he still drifted and found himself on the left wing a lot of the time, almost like he was playing two positions. No worries at all about him playing left wing rather than starting in the middle.
 
Pexbo said:
To an extent but it's about time United find their strongest XI and formation and start letting other teams worry about chopping and changing their tactics to beat us.
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Agreed, we always played that way, teams had to adapt to use not the other way around, I mean the odd personnel change here and there for sure but overall we played our system and our game plan and it would overrun the opposition most of the time.

Borys said:
Agreed, I was just typing the same thing.

We still don't have midfielders for both 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1.
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This is why we have to hope it's true that LvG is going to bring in 2 CM's as well as Di Maria this week.
 
gza the genius said:
Better question is do we play him on the left of a middle of three thus dropping Mata which looks like di Maria's best position, or as one of the wingers in the front three which he is also very good at? Personally I'd go with the second option but it's still an interesting debate.
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If we get Vidal, there is no need for him to be in the central 3. I would rather he stayed on the wings, creates space ad injects pace to our team on the wings.

This will be very beneficial in Old trafford where exploiting the wings can win the game for you (which is why we played a 4-4-2 formation)
 
Yes, without doubt, this three at the back nonsense is fecking shite.
 
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