3 at the back….

[alram]

6 hours ago, chadlad said:

…doesn’t work in my humble opinion. Has anyone won anything playing 3 at the back.

A number of times today there appeared to be a huge space in the middle of our defence. Sonny Bradley is undoubtedly a good player but is not the quickest and seems to have a habit of going awol.

Two CD’s make the defence more secure while still allowing full backs to overlap and wingers to cut inside.

Happy to be shot down - discuss. 🙂

 

It is going out of fashion for sure, it was coming back into fashion a few years ago

 

but now teams are going to a defensive 3 defenders in a back 4 and one attacking

 

you look Man City, Arsenal and Newcastle all do it and others will probably follow

[Ambitious]

9 hours ago, chadlad said:

…doesn’t work in my humble opinion. Has anyone won anything playing 3 at the back.

A number of times today there appeared to be a huge space in the middle of our defence. Sonny Bradley is undoubtedly a good player but is not the quickest and seems to have a habit of going awol.

Two CD’s make the defence more secure while still allowing full backs to overlap and wingers to cut inside.

Happy to be shot down - discuss. 🙂

 

Ipswich, Sheff Wed and Plymouth all got promoted playing with this system.

[NottsRam77]

11 hours ago, chadlad said:

…doesn’t work in my humble opinion. Has anyone won anything playing 3 at the back.

A number of times today there appeared to be a huge space in the middle of our defence. Sonny Bradley is undoubtedly a good player but is not the quickest and seems to have a habit of going awol.

Two CD’s make the defence more secure while still allowing full backs to overlap and wingers to cut inside.

Happy to be shot down - discuss. 🙂

 

We got promted from the champ to the prem with rowett, yates and stimac as a back 3.

what i will say is they were screened brilliantly by robin VDL and daryl powell.

we have nothing like that infron of our back 3 atm.

[derbydaz22]

10 hours ago, oodledoodle said:

None of them would get into this team

Probably not now they’re in their late 50s 🤣🤣 but then again?

[derbydaz22]

5 minutes ago, NottsRam77 said:

We got promted from the champ to the prem with rowett, yates and stimac as a back 3.

what i will say is they were screened brilliantly by robin VDL and daryl powell.

we have nothing like that infron of our back 3 atm.

Going on yesterday Warne would play Powell pretty much as a 10 with his back to goal 🤣

[derbydaz22]

I think for 5 at the back to work especially at home you need at least 1 quick CB out of the 3 and none of them can run. You also need very attacking WB’s and you can’t have 3 CM players who are to similar I just don’t think it’s going to work but hope I’m wrong.

[NottsRam77]

4 minutes ago, derbydaz22 said:

I think for 5 at the back to work especially at home you need at least 1 quick CB out of the 3 and none of them can run. You also need very attacking WB’s and you can’t have 3 CM players who are to similar I just don’t think it’s going to work but hope I’m wrong.

I agree, i dont think the balance is quite there atm especially midfield.

unlike many im happy to give warne this season at least to continue to shape and mould.

weve brought 8 players in and we still have a tiny squad, imo the club still needs re couperation time from being on deaths door 

[derbydaz22]

5 minutes ago, NottsRam77 said:

I agree, i dont think the balance is quite there atm especially midfield.

unlike many im happy to give warne this season at least to continue to shape and mould.

weve brought 8 players in and we still have a tiny squad, imo the club still needs re couperation time from being on deaths door 

I’m happy to give Warne until the end of Oct and if we are not around the top 8 in a very poor division I would be getting restless. He got a lot wrong yesterday but we still didn’t deserve to lose but we didn’t deserve to win either and Wigan weren’t great.

[chadlad]

10 hours ago, Will Hughes Hair said:

3 at the back can absolutely work.  But if helps if you have two things…

• A plan of how to attack and exploit the oppositions weaknesses
• You have pace (across the team but) particularly in your back line that get’s you out of the poop when teams sit in, invite you to push on and hit you on the break

 

Against Wigan it seemed that the two wide CD’s were often too wide due to the wing backs playing high up the pitch. This left SB as the lone CD. Playing a back 4 may have prevented Wigan’s 1st goal with a covering CB, in my head I have Cashin stepping in to whip the ball of their attacker.A little later on in the game a big hole again appeared in the centre of our defence, giving Wigan a great 1v1 opportunity from which they should have scored.

My take on it is that 3 at the back is quite a difficult system to play and we actually looked much more comfortable later on when we reverted to a back four. Just my opinion…

 

[8Leeds]

Pressing as high as we did against Wigan left a massive gap and left us vulnerable to the counter attack. 

I don’t think it’s the formation that’s the problem it’s how it’s being applied. 

[chadlad]

2 hours ago, Ambitious said:

Ipswich, Sheff Wed and Plymouth all got promoted playing with this system.

No idea if this is the case but if so they must have played the system a lot better than we did against Wigan.

[IlsonDerby]

The system can work incredibly effectively. If it is coached optimally and we have the right blend of players. 
 

As has been mentioned repeatedly our midfield 3 are so similar but I’d start Smith every game because he’s the only one fuming at the team when they play a back pass when someone’s free further up the field. Love watching him shout at them for not being brave enough. 
 

Second big thing is the defence having some get out of jail free pace (obviously different level but the reason Southgate went with Walker as the RCB). 
 

We aren’t going to drop any of our 3 CBs - so that leaves us with 2 options: 

Option A) mac1 style - one wingback sits (creating a back 4) whilst the other attacks. This relies on at least 2 of the 3 midfielders being in the box to support the crosses coming in as you don’t have the wing back coming in at the far post. 
 

Option b) probably too complicated for a div 3 team but you tell the holder of the midfield 3 (Smith) that they drop in to cover the full back position whilst the centre backs shift 1 across so you’d end up with a back 4 of cash Bradley Nelsen Smith whilst attacking. 

[Ambitious]

36 minutes ago, chadlad said:

No idea if this is the case but if so they must have played the system a lot better than we did against Wigan.

Only 7 out of the 24 league one side yesterday played four at the back. 

[Caerphilly Ram]

3 minutes ago, IlsonDerby said:

The system can work incredibly effectively. If it is coached optimally and we have the right blend of players. 
 

As has been mentioned repeatedly our midfield 3 are so similar but I’d start Smith every game because he’s the only one fuming at the team when they play a back pass when someone’s free further up the field. Love watching him shout at them for not being brave enough. 
 

Second big thing is the defence having some get out of jail free pace (obviously different level but the reason Southgate went with Walker as the RCB). 
 

We aren’t going to drop any of our 3 CBs - so that leaves us with 2 options: 

Option A) mac1 style - one wingback sits (creating a back 4) whilst the other attacks. This relies on at least 2 of the 3 midfielders being in the box to support the crosses coming in as you don’t have the wing back coming in at the far post. 
 

Option b) probably too complicated for a div 3 team but you tell the holder of the midfield 3 (Smith) that they drop in to cover the full back position whilst the centre backs shift 1 across so you’d end up with a back 4 of cash Bradley Nelsen Smith whilst attacking. 

Were we doing something similar to option b at one stage? Under Rooney maybe? I can remember something going on where the midfielders were dropping into the fullback areas of the pitch 

[RoyMac5]

What will our small squad do with NML, Barks and Sibley? It's very route 1 plan A with two wingbacks, it seems there's only one way to play and not a lot of it through midfield - I'm not sure if it's meant to be but that's how we play it.

Perhaps 3/5 at the back worked for some of the teams mentioned because of who they had up front?

Edited August 6, 2023 by RoyMac5

[oldtimeram]

12 hours ago, oodledoodle said:

None of them would get into this Derby team. They're too old.

He was joking

[IlsonDerby]

7 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

Were we doing something similar to option b at one stage? Under Rooney maybe? I can remember something going on where the midfielders were dropping into the fullback areas of the pitch 

He was trying that weird fullbacks and centre mids swap positions idea which didn’t work with the personnel available to us 😂

[Caerphilly Ram]

1 minute ago, RoyMac5 said:

What will our small squad do with NML, Barks and Sibley? It's very route 1 plan A with two wingbacks, it seems there's only one way to play and not a lot of it through midfield - I'm not sure if it's meant to be but that's how we play it.

I live in stubborn hope that Warne will realise a couple of tactical options within the squad makes sense. If a back 3 isn’t working in certain games or won’t suit certain opponents go 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 and use the likes of NML and Barkhuizen as inside forwards. Sibley I think fits as a 10 in the current set up, maybe with Bird or placing Bird deeper in midfield instead of Smith 🤔 

[Anag Ram]

6 minutes ago, IlsonDerby said:

The system can work incredibly effectively. If it is coached optimally and we have the right blend of players. 
 

As has been mentioned repeatedly our midfield 3 are so similar but I’d start Smith every game because he’s the only one fuming at the team when they play a back pass when someone’s free further up the field. Love watching him shout at them for not being brave enough. 
 

Second big thing is the defence having some get out of jail free pace (obviously different level but the reason Southgate went with Walker as the RCB). 
 

We aren’t going to drop any of our 3 CBs - so that leaves us with 2 options: 

Option A) mac1 style - one wingback sits (creating a back 4) whilst the other attacks. This relies on at least 2 of the 3 midfielders being in the box to support the crosses coming in as you don’t have the wing back coming in at the far post. 
 

Option b) probably too complicated for a div 3 team but you tell the holder of the midfield 3 (Smith) that they drop in to cover the full back position whilst the centre backs shift 1 across so you’d end up with a back 4 of cash Bradley Nelsen Smith whilst attacking. 

Agree on Smith. He’s a clever footballer. Trouble is, he, Bird and Hourihane all want to occupy the same space, neither progressive nor defensive. They like to sit about 40 yards out, passing in to the forwards.

We need to interchange them, not play them together. I can’t believe we made Hourihane captain because I wouldn’t play him in every game and would substitute him after an hour when he does play. There’s no doubt he is a good crosser of a ball, but his legs have gone and he can’t do 90 minutes.

We need two quicker midfielders, one a harrier (Woods?) and one an attacking midfield player.

[Ghost of Clough]

1 hour ago, derbydaz22 said:

I think for 5 at the back to work especially at home you need at least 1 quick CB out of the 3 and none of them can run. You also need very attacking WB’s and you can’t have 3 CM players who are to similar I just don’t think it’s going to work but hope I’m wrong.

I dont recall our defence getting done for pace yesterday. They got behind our defence twice, the first from Bradley's through ball to Wyke, the second from Bradley being out of position and leaving a massive gap. If that's going to be a reoccurring issue, then it needs on of Nelson or Cashin to tuck inside to fill the gap.

Our wing backs were our main attacking threat. Ward's crossing was excellent, Forsyth was fantastic at getting on the end of them, and Wilson showed the rest of thr team how to dribble and take a man on.

We didn't play with 3 CMs and I'm not sure how anyone can describe Smith and Hourihane as "similar".