Liquid Gold
Well-Known Member
They definitely need to get the wing backs up and wide but the danger of playing them and then Sancho/Rashford/Sterling is that they drift wide and crowd the space on the wing.Can't disagree with that & although I'm defending Southgate to a point, I don't really rate him as a manager. My point is the team selection & formation on the face of it aren't the issue, it's how he plays them. Within those systems he still tends to go much too negative thinking that will cover up the individual deficiencies. The Stones mistake was a shocking individual error (even though Pope's pass wasn't ideal), can't really eliminate that but how he sets us up actually exacerbates issues because we spend too much time defending.
When playing a back 3 you need your wing-backs as high & wide as possible & they should spend just as much time attacking as defending. When we played it vs Belgium, and even moreso vs Denmark it was literally a flat back 5 (with a RB at LWB) + 2 x CDMs that were instructed to sit & screen. That, as you rightly said, just leaves 3 players to try & concoct something offensively & produces dire football.
Hopefully he's learned some lessons from that.
He has to get those attacking players to cut in behind the defenders to create the space for the wingbacks and support the striker.
I’d go for an asymmetrical three so one of those three then one of Grealish/Foden and have them swapping to keep the defenders on their toes.