So the 3-5-2

I really cant understand why we don't move for a 4-5-1/4-2-3-1 system. We need to first control the game and stop the defense from leaking goals before we start to even think of scoring goals. Also RVP and Rooney tandem is simply not working. They are both too static and getting at each other's feet.

My team for next game would be

----------DDG--------
Janko---Evans--Rojo---James

--------Jones---Blind-------

Valencia----Mata-------Di Maria

-----------Rooney--------------

assuming we do sign Blind
 
RDCR07 said:
But we weren't talking about using Jones and Rojo as wing backs in a defensive 5. We were talking if we were to play 4 at the back, it wouldnt be the worse decision in the world to use them there or even Blind at left back with Rojo moving centrally.
Click to expand...

Id rather have Rojo as CB to be honest. It would break the dumb (Jones) and dumber (Evans) CB tandem. Jones on the other hand can play in CM where steel and a bit of aggressiveness is needed. Anything would do to see Fletcher out of the team
 
devilish said:
I really cant understand why we don't move for a 4-5-1/4-2-3-1 system. We need to first control the game and stop the defense from leaking goals before we start to even think of scoring goals. Also RVP and Rooney tandem is simply not working. They are both too static and getting at each other's feet.

My team for next game would be

----------DDG--------
Janko---Evans--Rojo---James

--------Jones---Blind-------

Valencia----Mata-------Di Maria

-----------Rooney--------------

assuming we do sign Blind
Click to expand...
Well thank God you're not the manager. First of all Janko AND James when you will have Smalling fit? And then Jones in midfield? And finally Valencia as right winger when Januzaj is way more effective? Also I guess we need to stop asking why not play 4-3-3 because it aint going to happen. LVG has a philosophy and we have to implement it. He definitely needs time but if it does click, I think we will be good enough to make the top four.
 
Rob Bowman said:
This to me was huge. Rooney and RVP were basically trying to both occupy the same space. And with them so far up it mystified me that we could not have a wingback or Mata open. maybe they still need to learn, but I was shocked with the amount of attacking talent that we have that we did not generate more good chances :(.

I am praying we get to something like this...

--------------DeGea----------------
Rafael-----Jones------Rojo-----Shaw
------------Carrick/Blind-------------
----Herrera---------------DiMaria----
--------------Mata------------------
-----RvP----------------Rooney-----
Click to expand...

Feck RVP-Rooney. We simply cant afford two prima donnas who keep stepping on each other toes. Id say we play with a lone striker and add an extra body to CM.
 
devilish said:
Id rather have Rojo as CB to be honest. It would break the dumb (Jones) and dumber (Evans) CB tandem. Jones on the other hand can play in CM where steel and a bit of aggressiveness is needed. Anything would do to see Fletcher out of the team
Click to expand...
Right now Jones in midfield is a bad decision. We need a proper ball playing/passing midfielder sitting deep. I know Fletcher isn't exactly great there but he is better than Jones. Don't you see how important a proper CDM is in this lineup? He needs to be comfortable on the ball and Jones hardly is.
 
RDCR07 said:
Well thank God you're not the manager. First of all Janko AND James when you will have Smalling fit? And then Jones in midfield? And finally Valencia as right winger when Januzaj is way more effective? Also I guess we need to stop asking why not play 4-3-3 because it aint going to happen. LVG has a philosophy and we have to implement it. He definitely needs time but if it does click, I think we will be good enough to make the top four.
Click to expand...

Smalling isn't fit right? Else why the hell haven't we played him today?

Also Id rather start simple. Add some steel to the defense and midfield (Valencia and Jones are much better on that then Januzaj and the wreck) and allow the defense to settle down and gain some confidence. I am sure that Di Maria, Rooney and Mata can provide enough creativity for now.
 
RDCR07 said:
Right now Jones in midfield is a bad decision. We need a proper ball playing/passing midfielder sitting deep. I know Fletcher isn't exactly great there but he is better than Jones. Don't you see how important a proper CDM is in this lineup? He needs to be comfortable on the ball and Jones hardly is.
Click to expand...

With all due respect but even you and I are better then Fletcher at the moment let alone Jones.
 
----------DDG-----------

--Jones---Carrick---Rojo--

RWB-------Blind------Shaw

----Mata-------Di Maria-----

------RVP------Rooney-----

Wide CBs that can fill in out wide.
A CB and DM that can interchange or help eachother out.
Width from fullback with attacking mids that can double up on the full back with them out wide.
Two strikers, though I can't see this part of the puzzle ever really working.

I think this is what LVG is aiming for.
 
pocco said:
----------DDG-----------

--Jones---Carrick---Rojo--

RWB-------Blind------Shaw

----Mata-------Di Maria-----

------RVP------Rooney-----

Wide CBs that can fill in out wide.
A CB and DM that can interchange or help eachother out.
Width from fullback with attacking mids that can double up on the full back with them out wide.
Two strikers, though I can't see this part of the puzzle ever really working.

I think this is what LVG is aiming for.
Click to expand...

I think we saw signs of that today, Di Maria and Mata either side of Fletcher.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
I think we saw signs of that today, Di Maria and Mata either side of Fletcher.
Click to expand...

Yep. This is where I would go with it and I think LVG will too. Just makes you wonder where Herrera will fit in, though it may be Mata that loses out. You could even see a back line of Carrick - Rojo - Blind with Herrera in midfield and Mata and Di Maria ahead of him.
 
@devilish Smalling will be fit by the next match. Our central defense is so shaky right and you want to include two teenagers on either side of them? They have no chemistry playing together. You can't just chuck in defenders randomly into a side. Its different from attack when players gel quicker.
 
pocco said:
Yep. This is where I would go with it and I think LVG will too. Just makes you wonder where Herrera will fit in, though it may be Mata that loses out. You could even see a back line of Carrick - Rojo - Blind with Herrera in midfield and Mata and Di Maria ahead of him.
Click to expand...

I think Mata gets dropped out for Herrera's industry in the midfield 3, better balance then.
 
RDCR07 said:
@devilish Smalling will be fit by the next match. Our central defense is so shaky right and you want to include two teenagers on either side of them? They have no chemistry playing together. You can't just chuck in defenders randomly into a side. Its different from attack when players gel quicker.
Click to expand...

If that's the case then Id play Smalling with Evans as CBs and Rojo as LB. Honestly Id rather see us rely on teenagers then on wingers being utilized as fullbacks.
 
Di Maria is wasted as a CM. He's best when he can run with the ball. I would much prefer him on the right or left with an overlapping fullback so he can tuck inside or go wide when he chooses, going wide as the CM creates too much of a hole.
 
Name Changed said:
This system will never work, in my opinion.

Our defenders are not confident or confident enough on the ball. The system depends on them bringing the ball out of defence.

We have no width. There is nobody going on the outside, meaning everything gets congested in the middle. Our players lack so much pace through the middle. The ball keeps being spread out wide to Valencia or Young who can do nothing else but turn back inside or hit the ball of the first man and then the cycle happens again. It's ridiculous.

It's far too slow, boring and predictable.
Click to expand...

Saved me the trouble of writing the exact same thing.
 
If he continues with this nonsense formation then top 4 is a distant, distant dream.
 
Name Changed said:
Big time. We will be 20 points or more behind our main rivals for 4th if we wait for 3 months for LvG's philosophy to start working.
Click to expand...

So what do we do instead? Just go back to how it was? I'd rather take the hit this season and establish something long-term.
 
I don't know if it's the system or our players' inplementation (or lack thereof), but I agree with the critical posts. From what I've seen:

The back three are spread too far out. Without WB support the CBs are about 15-20 yards away from one another-which makes the defense very vulnerable to diagonal runs.

The CBs have too much of the ball without a MF dropping deep to get the ball forward. You can almost see CBs looking nervous as they cross the halfway line-and they usually come to a dead stop-eliminating any forward momentum.

There are no overlaps on the wing-and so the WBs must either try to get to the by-line using pace or cut back in-which creates congestion.

Looks like the system, to be effective requires CBs comfortable with the ball in space; a MF capable of handling the ball deep and making good decisions going forward and WBs who can beat the FBs on a consistent basis.

Not sure, even with ADM, Herrera and Blind that the personnel are right.
 
devilish said:
I really cant understand why we don't move for a 4-5-1/4-2-3-1 system. We need to first control the game and stop the defense from leaking goals before we start to even think of scoring goals. Also RVP and Rooney tandem is simply not working. They are both too static and getting at each other's feet.

My team for next game would be

----------DDG--------
Janko---Evans--Rojo---James

--------Jones---Blind-------

Valencia----Mata-------Di Maria

-----------Rooney--------------

assuming we do sign Blind
Click to expand...
Jones has been our best player this season in his proper position. He should never see midfield again.

James and janko? Wtf?

Come on people get a grip.
 
Dracula said:
Jones has been our best player this season in his proper position. He should never see midfield again.

James and janko? Wtf?

Come on people get a grip.
Click to expand...

If thats the price we pay to remove Fletcher from CM while adding steel to the midfield then so be it.

Also Id rather have too young fbs with Jones, Blind and Valencia keeping an eye on them then 2 wingers playing as wingbacks.
 
Rafael..jones..rojo..shaw
..........blind/car................
........herera...ADM...........
Januzaj.................mata
................rooney.............

is our best team atthe moment, assumimg rojo isnt shit.
 
Dracula said:
Rafael..jones..rojo..shaw
..........blind/car................
........herera...ADM...........
Januzaj.................mata
................rooney.............

is our best team atthe moment, assumimg rojo isnt shit.
Click to expand...

I agree however Rafael, Shaw, Herrera and Smalling are currently unavailable. Also I prefer ADM as winger then as CM.
 
devilish said:
If thats the price we pay to remove Fletcher from CM while adding steel to the midfield then so be it.

Also Id rather have too young fbs with Jones, Blind and Valencia keeping an eye on them then 2 wingers playing as wingbacks.
Click to expand...

But we dont need wingers as winbacks we have two perfectly good full backs/wingbacks in rafael and shaw both of whom will start once they are back from injury.

also young will be significantly better than james
 
devilish said:
I agree however Rafael, Shaw, Herrera and Smalling are currently unavailable. Also I prefer ADM as winger then as CM.
Click to expand...
I know, its difficult. Perhaps swap mata and ADM, Id be happy either way.

and yes, i was assuming all players fit
 
Its worth pointing out that it looks as if both welbeck and hernandez will be sold/loaned. If that happens ill be incredibly surprised if we keep 352 as we will be relying on 2 strikers to remain fit all season. Yes we have wilson and keane but im not so sure they are in lvg's first plans.
 
I just really hope that LVG isn't stubborn enough to ditch the 352 if he feels it isn't working.
The problem is, it clearly doesn't work. Young and Valencia for me are always a few strides ahead of the defence when defending, and it's leaving big gaps. We really need to revert to 4 at the back
What was really frustrating today was how bad distribution by Evans and Blackett was. They put us in some real trouble early on. Jones played very well for me though, so that was a positive.

Fletcher for me is about done. Some of his touches today where bad, and like the defenders, put us in some trouble at times. I know we have injuries, so there is that to look forward to, but this formation doesn't work.
Teams are pressing us really high, and it is forcing mistakes, and because we don't press much until deep in our own half, when we do mount attacks, teams have everybody back, and it makes it so congested. We need to try and win the ball higher up the pitch, but we can't do that with wing backs.

Mata is being wasted. When he gets the ball, he has the opposition surrounding him. He can't use his creativity, and results in short balls. We need to go 4231 with the personal we have (We also need a CB, CDM and potentially a RB as Rafael has been an injury problem of late)
De Gea
Rafael - Jones - CB - Shaw
Herrera - Blind
Di Mari - Mata - Januzaj
Rooney
​
I don't know how good Blind is tbh, but as we are buying him, he will be used. As a team, we lack pace everywhere. Januzaj isn't the quickest, but he is great with his feet, so having him and Di Maria on the wings can stretch teams. It will give Mata space to play his game also. We need to press better, play more direct, and get wide, rather than don't press, slow build up, and very congested through the middle
RVP is the big loser here, but he isn't the same player that we bought 2 years ago.
 
Dracula said:
Its worth pointing out that it looks as if both welbeck and hernandez will be sold/loaned. If that happens ill be incredibly surprised if we keep 352 as we will be relying on 2 strikers to remain fit all season. Yes we have wilson and keane but im not so sure they are in lvg's first plans.
Click to expand...
With the way Rooney and Van Persie are out of sorts selling or loaning Welbeck will be the daftest thing we can do. We need to ditch this formation ASAP and remove the ''undroppable'' status on every player on our books. Players, atm, should only be good as their last performance or else standards will continue to slip dramatically. From today players like RvP, Mata, Fletcher, Young and Valencia need to be dropped and Rooney should be made aware that he is also on a tight leash.
 
People need to give this formation a bit more time. Its been only about a month and half since he took over and we started implementing this system. Our complaining about 4-3-3 isn't going to change his mind. He is confident it will work and I want to see it work. So we should give it time. He is buying players to suit this formation. He said three months. Well come October or November, if we are still playing like the way we are and not winning, then he will seriously give it redo and change our formation. Until then lets be patient.
 
JUPITER said:
I wouldn't, even though our players would be more comfortable with it...

What LvG is effectively revealing to himself (and us) with the 352 is just how bad our players are on the ball now - how static they've become, how cowardly their passing has become, how cheaply they give away possession.

He wants to play possession football because he wants us to compete at the top, most likely in a 433, but in order to work out quickly who can and can't play this way the 352 is like a litmus test - I guarantee that as soon as the transfer window closes we start playing 433 and 4231.

The thing that I think has shocked him slightly is just how bad our entire team has become in possession. This is something that we've all noticed happening during Fergie's last years, particularly after the 2nd CL Final mauling by Barca.

In all honesty, I don't think the squad has been trained or maintained particularly well for about 4 years, and the Moyes season just saw them completely fall apart.

We need to learn how to keep the ball again, from scratch. We need to learn how to build up from the back, from scratch. We need to allow this NEW SQUAD (that's what it is now/will soon be) time to gel together and learn how to press as a unit.

The formation is almost irrelevant at this point.

What does concern me, personally, is the seemingly 'must play' trio of Mata, RvP and Rooney - something seems slightly off to me that LvG, with all his footballing intelligence, plays all three of them when they are utterly ineffectual together and everyone can see it.

Also, Rooney being captain and Fletcher Vice Captain has begun concerning me a little. While at first I thought this was a great decision, I'm starting to think that both were a mistake...
Click to expand...

I ain't buying it tbh. If you wanna ultimately go towards a 4-3-3 then start with a formation closer to it than this fecked 3-5-2, specially today since you have the wide players for it (Di Maria and Adnan).
The strength of 3-5-2 resides in top class wing backs and since currently we have Young/Valencia fit and good playmaking through the middle, I don't understand why he forces that formation when all the players concerned are off form.
 
RDCR07 said:
People need to give this formation a bit more time. Its been only about a month and half since he took over and we started implementing this system. Our complaining about 4-3-3 isn't going to change his mind. He is confident it will work and I want to see it work. So we should give it time. He is buying players to suit this formation. He said three months. Well come October or November, if we are still playing like the way we are and not winning, then he will seriously give it redo and change our formation. Until then lets be patient.
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I don't really think Di Maria is a person who necessarily fits a 352 formation to be honest, unless we drop Mata or RVP
 
RDCR07 said:
People need to give this formation a bit more time. Its been only about a month and half since he took over and we started implementing this system. Our complaining about 4-3-3 isn't going to change his mind. He is confident it will work and I want to see it work. So we should give it time. He is buying players to suit this formation. He said three months. Well come October or November, if we are still playing like the way we are and not winning, then he will seriously give it redo and change our formation. Until then lets be patient.
Click to expand...

It's all well and good saying it needs time - and it does - but there's a difference between some shady form and between outright bad results. I kind of agree with you in that I'm willing to give it a little bit of time since we've got quite a few players to return from injury, but if it doesn't start working soon then I'm going to firmly believe we should change formation.

I think to make something like this work, you have to have the personnel but I'm not sure we do. Often, we've looked really vulnerable at the back and I think the three at the back approach is better suited to when you've got experienced, top class centre backs who are also comfortable on the ball.
 
KeninDC said:
I don't know if it's the system or our players' inplementation (or lack thereof), but I agree with the critical posts. From what I've seen:

The back three are spread too far out. Without WB support the CBs are about 15-20 yards away from one another-which makes the defense very vulnerable to diagonal runs.

The CBs have too much of the ball without a MF dropping deep to get the ball forward. You can almost see CBs looking nervous as they cross the halfway line-and they usually come to a dead stop-eliminating any forward momentum.

There are no overlaps on the wing-and so the WBs must either try to get to the by-line using pace or cut back in-which creates congestion.

Looks like the system, to be effective requires CBs comfortable with the ball in space; a MF capable of handling the ball deep and making good decisions going forward and WBs who can beat the FBs on a consistent basis.

Not sure, even with ADM, Herrera and Blind that the personnel are right.
Click to expand...


Point highlighted in bold is for me the main reason, amongst others, why I loathe this formation. Everytime either young or valencia had the ball - they had two opposition players on them. There is no way young or valencia were ever going to beat two players. What we needed was fullbacks on the overlap, dragging a man with them and creating some space. In a way, I don't really blame young or valencia for constantly making the safe back pass because there were simply no other options out there. I hope LVG has seen this - one would hope he has considering he spends the entire game writing stuff on his notepad.
 
Final position in the league is what matters in the end, but looking at the results and how the team is playing makes me very, very worried. LvG needs to stop with his frowning, get his ego in check and put an attacking formation on the pitch to take advantage of the great attacking threat we have on the team.
 
kouroux said:
I ain't buying it tbh. If you wanna ultimately go towards a 4-3-3 then start with a formation closer to it than this fecked 3-5-2, specially today since you have the wide players for it (Di Maria and Adnan).
The strength of 3-5-2 resides in top class wing backs and since currently we have Young/Valencia fit and good playmaking through the middle, I don't understand why he forces that formation when all the players concerned are off form.
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I ultimately agree with you about how we need to move forward.

I think, though, that he wants to take the players out of their comfort zones temporarily while assessing them. He mentioned many times about how "the players are playing on instinct, not thinking", and I think he wants to literally force them to think and shake them up tactically.

However, if he persists with the 352 longer than September, I'll be worried. I don't view 352 as a formation that can work well in the PL as it's so vulnerable to the fast counter attack, and the fast counter attack is what the PL does best.

If he persists with it beyond this assessing period, I think it'll be a case of him (bizarrely) not understanding the English game and/or being too stubborn to change. But I can't see that - he knows that his reputation will suffer badly given the spending that he's enjoyed thus far. And he knows that no top PL sides use 352 religiously, and everyone else knows it too.

Worse case scenario is that he's mental and stubborn and sticks to the 352, gets the sack and we bring in Pochettino or Martinez to coach the beautiful, shiny new squad we're amassing.
 
Dracula said:
But we dont need wingers as winbacks we have two perfectly good full backs/wingbacks in rafael and shaw both of whom will start once they are back from injury.

also young will be significantly better than james
Click to expand...

I was talking about the next game (ie shaw and co are injured)
 
3-5-2 is shit on a stick for us

-----------DDG-----------

Rafa - Jones - Rojo - Shaw

----- Herrera - Blind -----

ADM ----- Mata ----- Janujaz

------------ RvP-------------

Tellin' me that team can't finish top 3?
 
Tibs said:
3-5-2 is shit on a stick for us

-----------DDG-----------

Rafa - Jones - Rojo - Shaw

----- Herrera - Blind -----

ADM ----- Mata ----- Janujaz

------------ RvP-------------

Tellin' me that team can't finish top 3?
Click to expand...

That's the one, that's how we need to roll, maybe switch Mata for Rooney if he continues to be crap, but other than that spot on.
 
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