So the 3-5-2

Every time Young and Valencia get in position for a cross you know exactly what they're going to do.

Valencia - shift the ball with the outside of the boot towards the byline then drill in a hard, low cross

Young - at roughly the 18 yard line, drag the ball back on to the right foot and float in a slow curling ball towards the back stick

EVERY TIME. This is driving me bananas. My god.
 
Borys said:
Tell me how would you play 4-3-3 with our current squad.
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4231 would work better than 352, with mata in the team this team is built for 4321. Play 4 CB's would make us more secure than trying to play a system when out wingbacks are not doing their job right
 
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Hopefully di Maria means an end to this formation. It isn't working.
 
Well in pre-season I liked this formation. What the hell was I thinking?

It is a bag of shit.
 
Ash_G said:
I get we want to play rooney/mata/rvp long term and this can fit them in but not at the cost of the rest of the team. Playing 3 at the back when only 1 of them, Blackett shows any real compusre on the ball is pointless because it just means the other team can stand off us put more pressure on the midfield who would probably have struggled enough before hand.

Then got wingbacks who's attacking output does not make up for their defensive deficiencies although Valencia put in a good ball for the goal. Then cause the midfield are reduced to playing even less penetrative balls due to the pressure the forwards have to drop deeper where their lack of pace makes it hard for them to go anywhere but pass it back.
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It's all a work in progress, the most important thing that needs to change for our players is the mindset and their approach to possession, am sure LVG is not married to this 3-5-2 stuff - if it's not working he will change it, however, the philosophy remains the same, to build an attacking team that is comfortable in possession.
 
If this system is to accommodate Rooney and RvP then it isn't worth it.

One has to be dropped and Di Maria and Januzaj need to be brought in.

4-3-3 please.
 
legball said:
It's all a work in progress, the most important thing that needs to change for our players is the mindset and their approach to possession, am sure LVG is not married to this 3-5-2 stuff - if it's not working he will change it, however, the philosophy remains the same, to build an attacking team that is comfortable in possession.
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I get that it will improve with time but I don't think LVG can overcome inherent weaknesses in players. For example Smalling is not good on the ball so him playing in a 352 isn't ideal, particularly as the central player. I don't think LVG can really improve that. I think it can work if everyone is fit and it's a first choice eleven but when the squad is involved I think the quality of the players doesn't suit the system.

Even if everyone was fit I think we'd struggle because the lack of anyone with pace in the front 3 who the system has been adopted for makes us more reliant on the passing really being on.
 
It just doesn't work because our central midfield and centre backs are absolute donkeys on the ball.
 
I think people have to give this system a chance, if we had midfielders who could hold onto the ball and not keep giving it away we wouldn't look so vulnerable. Fletcher/Young/Cleverly all lost the ball far to easy that brought a lot of pressure on our defense.

Positionally Fletcher and Cleverly were awful, to the point where they either were too far forward or too close to the defense. Hell I saw Rooney and RvP drop back far too much just to keep hold of the ball.
 
I think its an experiment too far when we have so many players out. I know its hindsight but if we played 4 at the back today I think we may have been a bit better.
 
------------------DDG---------------
Rafel-------Blacket----Rojo-----Shaw
-----Herrera--newCM--Di Maria------
-----Januzaj----RvP---Rooney-------
 
I said it about Liverpool when Brenton tried it last season...it doesn't work in the PL. I admire him for trying to make the most of a bad situation (you can't ignore the injuries, particularly Shaw, Carrick and Herrera).

It's not something that I think can work in this league. With players hopefully returning in the near future from the treatment room and one or two more arrivals I expect 4-3-3 to commence. One thing van Gaal said in his early days was if 3-5-2 doesn't work, we can easily change to 4-3-3. It's showing no signs of improvement, albeit a lot of the players playng today are in by default.
 
The wing back and the centre midfield were horrible today. Slow and have no intention to go forward. The movement is too slow, slow in pass, slow in making decision, took the ball way too long. And just pass it back or sideway.

If we want to play this formation centre midfields and wing backs need to play way better than today.
If we want to play 433 or 4231 or even 442 we still need a centre midfield.
 
I don't think 3-5-2 was to blame today, the system is not responsible for the utter ineptness of the midfield performance from Cleverley and Fletcher.

That said, currently with Evans out injured I don't think we have the centre backs for it. They just aren't comfortable enough on the ball and with the midfield offering so little I think we need better build up back there.
 
With Holland at least the rationale was to make them tighter defensively as their defenders were shit. I'm afraid Holland's success at the World Cup has led LvG down this path and we know how stubborn he can be. Holland's system worked because their central midfielders gave good protection to the defence, even Sneijder tracked back and as weird as it sounds Young and Valencia are no Kuyt. For us any ball played in behind is like parting the red sea.
 
When he arrived he said that we, like Holland, didn't have the players to play 4-3-3. He thinks the current personnel make it easier to defend in a 3-5-2. I'm struggling to see this argument - and not just because it certainly hasn't looked easy to defend so far. Is he trying to cater for both RvP and Rooney?

That said, Rafael and Shaw are both natural defenders, and we're missing Carrick, Herrera and Evans, so surely that should make us more solid defensively than today.
 
Ash_G said:
I get that it will improve with time but I don't think LVG can overcome inherent weaknesses in players. For example Smalling is not good on the ball so him playing in a 352 isn't ideal, particularly as the central player. I don't think LVG can really improve that. I think it can work if everyone is fit and it's a first choice eleven but when the squad is involved I think the quality of the players doesn't suit the system.

Even if everyone was fit I think we'd struggle because the lack of anyone with pace in the front 3 who the system has been adopted for makes us more reliant on the passing really being on.
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I understand, just give it time..Henderson wasn't good on the ball too, look what Rodgers did with him. The main problem with United is that for a long time, we've been very basic in terms of coaching, even under Ferguson. Things like intelligent passing and movement was never present in our play, this is the hard part, whether we play 3-5-2 or 4-3-3 these problems will still be there. It's going to require changing the mindset of the players and that's why it will take time, we have the right man to do it. Not saying he's perfect though.
 
legball said:
I understand, just give it time..Henderson wasn't good on the ball too, look what Rodgers did with him. The main problem with United is that for a long time, we've been very basic in terms of coaching, even under Ferguson. Things like intelligent passing and movement was never present in our play, this is the hard part, whether we play 3-5-2 or 4-3-3 these problems will still be there. It's going to require changing the mindset of the players and that's why it will take time, we have the right man to do it. Not saying he's perfect though.
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I think Henderson was more about confidence than anything. We'll have to see what happens at the end of the day but I'd find it odd if we stick with a 352 if Di Maria signs and wouldn't see the logic behind it, especially with another defender of LVG's choosing now and Blackett being a positive so far.
 
I actually think it makes our midfield look worse. If we played with three in midfield it would at least mean Fletcher can sit in front of the defence and not be expected to run around all over the place; might even help out our defence. Having said that, we don't have three fit CMs at the moment.
 
Most systems seem to be very similar: 4-4-2, 4-5-1 and even 4-3-3. One or two players dropping off or pushing forward makes them easily interchangeable. From what I've seen the 3-4-3 or 3-4-1-2 or whatever they call it seems the least flexible. I'm not sure why LVG has a phobia to any system with four defenders. I can list of team by team that has had success with it. Time will tell if he can win with three defenders. So far, it looks brutal.
 
I still don't get why he wants to play with 3 centerbacks with this squad. It was horrible to watch. The additional defender adds nothing, hell I'd argue it confuses the other two more at the moment than it actually helps. The gap between defense and midfield is huge and neither the midfielders nor the centerbacks are comfortable dropping and playing in that huge black hole that causes most of the problems. And then there are the wingbacks. While Young and Valencia have decent work-rate for wingers, they are completely hopeless in attack without a 2nd player overlapping or joining them and aren't really good at defending either. Why would you play someone on his own on the wing when he already struggled to do something positive with a 2nd player helping him there?

I get that the team needs time to understand his ideas, but I really really don't get that line-up in defense. And it's not the only way to accomodate Mata, Rooney, van Persie together in the team. I'd actually say the decision, if all 3 have to play or not, has absolutely nothing to do with the decision between a back four and a back three/five.
 
I expect us to try 3-5-2 with Rooney, van Persie and Mata a few more times and then, when we finally decide it doesn’t work, we will switch to something else.

It’s understandable that LVG will try to make it work, but IMO the tough decision will have to be made because neither of them is that good out of his main position (no9 for Rooney and RVP, no10 for Mata) and when we finally switch to 4-3-3 one of them will be dropped.

I don’t think our CBs are not good enough on the ball, the problem is that none of our midfielders and wingbacks was able to take the ball from them and move it forward. It just seems so hard for them. Nothing new though, at the moment we don’t have the midfield for 3-5-2, but to be honest we don’t have midfield for any other formation either.

I'm not sure if we should ditch the 3-5-2 but we should stop playing Mata-Rooney-RVP together, what will happen eventually anyway. A matter of time.
 
Now that we've seemingly got Di Maria I REALLY want us to switch to 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. It's better to refine something we already know than starting afresh.
 
This system worked so well in pre-season but it just hasnt worked for us obviously. Maybe we all underestimated how it would work in the premier league. He has to switch to 4-3-3 when Di maria gets here next week and see how we do. Played Jones and Rojo at CB if Smalling and Evans are still injured or play Rojo at left back with Smalling and Jones through the middle. Stick Di Maria and Mata on the wing and Rooney playing RVP.
 
Kill 'em all said:
Now that we've seemingly got Di Maria I REALLY want us to switch to 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. It's better to refine something we already know than starting afresh.
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Yeah the Di Maria signing pretty much kills 352 as a valid option.
 
Rowem said:
Yeah the Di Maria signing pretty much kills 352 as a valid option.
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Something like that, simple and effective. Ignore the scribble around Di Maria. Mata and Herrera would have so much fun playing through balls behind the defense with both Di Maria and Januzaj making runs in behind the opponents.
 
The_Midfielder said:
Lets see how we perform once Shaw and Rafael coming now.. Is that next week?
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I think with everyone healthy, aka Young and Valencia not starting, this formation would look a lot better. It doesn't really matter what formation we use if we're starting those two, we're bound to look bad.

DDG
Jones - Evans - Rojo/Blackett
Rafael - Herrera - Mata - Fletcher - Shaw
Rooney - RvP/Welbeck

That line-up is so much better than what we saw today. Personally I'd start Welbeck, he can stretch the defense and adds pace that we lack without him. The biggest problem is how to fit Januzaj in that line-up, but with Rafael almost always injured I'd just play him there for now.

I think if we bring in di Maria we could/should switch to a 4-3-3.
 
the system is nearly irrelevent atm, the players we can field are poor in a lot of areas and to add insult to injury the confidence is shot. we dont even look like scoring and we can concede from any attack
 
352 doesn't work, we have no wingbacks who are able to do the job properly, our CBs are stretched without having to play 3 of them instead of two and they arn't used playing that way.Worst of all, we have no Robben to provide the pace and incision to make this formation work.

This formation is built on counter-attacking.Against 90% of teams we will have more possession so this philosophy makes no sense.People talk about how great Holland were at using this system at the world cup but they actually only played one great game, against a possession based Spain team that this formation thrives against.In the other games they struggled.Being unable to beat Mexico and Costa Rica in 90 minutes is hardly impressive.

With Di Maria signing the only thing holding us back from 433 is a 30 year old injury prone Van Persie.We have to bite the bullet and drop him from the first XI.He'll still get plenty of games in a 1 striker system as Rooney can play plenty of other positions at a good level if needed:

Dave
Rafa Smalling Evans Shaw
Herrera New Cm
Januzaj Mata Di Maria
Rooney

That is a team where everyone plays in their favourite position and knows there role and the system well.We still need to sign a good CM to hold the whole thing together(and probably another one to cover him) but that is the most balanced and effective team we can put out.
 
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