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Should we go with 'three at the back'?

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Mors

Mors

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First off, it's not 'three at the back', it's fucking 5 usually, or 7 in chelski's usual formation - it's 3 cb's (defenders), 2 full backs (defenders), and in chelski's formation it's kante and matic (dm's). So '3 at the back' should actually be renamed '3 cb's'.
Anyway, I digress. It seems a lot of teams are starting to use 3 cb's and it seems to be quite effective at nullifying the opponents attacks, and if you combine that with our possession game, and on occasion decent attacking game, wouldn't we be on to a winner?
We'd have to lose 1 of Henderson/Can/Wijnaldum I guess (Can the easy choice here), but would it massively impact our game losing one of them? If it meant we were more solid and reliable at the back?

Would from last nights team

...............Mignolet
........Matip..Lovren..Klavan
Clyne..Hendo..Wijnaldum..Milner
......Lallana...Firmino....Coutinho

Be more solid than

...........Mignolet
Clyne..Matip..Lovren..Milner
.....Can..Hendo..Wijnaldum
..Lallana..Firmino..Coutinho

Obviously Mane to come back into that for one of them in both lineups. But I'm wondering about 3 CB's seeing what a lot of other teams are doing, and I'm not sure if it actually would negatively impact our style of play that much?
 
hmmmmm1 said:
We don’t have good enough centre half’s or wing backs to play this system.
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Well for a start, using the line-up above, I'd be inclined to put Clyne into the right of the back 3 and play Milner at RWB / Moreno at LWB (with what we've got).
 
I don't think all 4 of Mane, Firmino, Lallana and Coutinho would fit in the system. One would miss out. And we need all 4 of them in.

If we had a range of good centre backs I'd be inclined to agree with this, but we don't.
 
Absolutely not.

You'll need potent attacking FB's and a handful of awesom CB's to make that system tick. We haven't as of now so we really shouldn't.
 
This would definitely make us more solid, but it would also make us less effective and more predictable in attack. Unlike others I don't think that we lack the defensive players to play this way, I think we are lacking the right attacking player. At the minute we unpick teams with interplay rather than having a proper centre forward who can turn a 50/ 50 hopeful ball forward into an attack. With Origi out of form and Studge without the strength (and perhaps pace) I don't think we would win enough games in this system.
 
I'd have been happy for us to try it out in Mane's absence as it might have helped us introduce some width and lessened the load on an out of form and tired looking midfield.

But Mane is back now so there is no point.
 
Mors said:
First off, it's not 'three at the back', it's fucking 5 usually, or 7 in chelski's usual formation - it's 3 cb's (defenders), 2 full backs (defenders), and in chelski's formation it's kante and matic (dm's). So '3 at the back' should actually be renamed '3 cb's'.
Anyway, I digress. It seems a lot of teams are starting to use 3 cb's and it seems to be quite effective at nullifying the opponents attacks, and if you combine that with our possession game, and on occasion decent attacking game, wouldn't we be on to a winner?
We'd have to lose 1 of Henderson/Can/Wijnaldum I guess (Can the easy choice here), but would it massively impact our game losing one of them? If it meant we were more solid and reliable at the back?

Would from last nights team

...............Mignolet
........Matip..Lovren..Klavan
Clyne..Hendo..Wijnaldum..Milner
......Lallana...Firmino....Coutinho

Be more solid than

...........Mignolet
Clyne..Matip..Lovren..Milner
.....Can..Hendo..Wijnaldum
..Lallana..Firmino..Coutinho

Obviously Mane to come back into that for one of them in both lineups. But I'm wondering about 3 CB's seeing what a lot of other teams are doing, and I'm not sure if it actually would negatively impact our style of play that much?
Click to expand...

We don't have enough quality CBs to play two, never mind fucking three.
 
Buddha said:
Well for a start, using the line-up above, I'd be inclined to put Clyne into the right of the back 3 and play Milner at RWB / Moreno at LWB (with what we've got).
Click to expand...

Moreno should not be near the starting 11 ever. Plus this system puts emphasis on defenders stroking it a round at the back like city / Chelsea do, whilst Klopp prefers to get the ball to front 3 as quick as possible.
 
Those saying that we don't have 3 good enough CB's to pull this off, I've seen plenty of teams with bollocks CB's do it this season and do a good job and defend doggedly. We've got Matip who is good and Lovren who is ok, are people telling me that every team that's played 3 at the back this season and kept clean sheets have far better CB's than those 2? And Klavan hasn't exactly been Balotelli bad this season.
 
Mors said:
Those saying that we don't have 3 good enough CB's to pull this off, I've seen plenty of teams with bollocks CB's do it this season and do a good job and defend doggedly. We've got Matip who is good and Lovren who is ok, are people telling me that every team that's played 3 at the back this season and kept clean sheets have far better CB's than those 2? And Klavan hasn't exactly been Balotelli bad this season.
Click to expand...

We also have Gomez, and at a push could use Clyne, Can, or the best CB Carroll has faced, Lucas, in a back 3. As I say, I'm not advocating it, but I've no doubt it would make us stronger defensively.
 
We are technically already playing with 3 at the back. The few times when we were trying to beat the bus Hendo went so deep that he was almost like a 3rd CB. Everyone else was forward and we still couldn't score.

Chelsea have better full backs than us. The Alonso + moses are very direct and can run at defenders. They are like the wingers we never had. Add that Willian, Hazard, Costa can all beat players and create out of nothing, they get alot of attention leaving the wings empty.

Kante, Sideshow and Apzillia have also been excellent meaning they are well covered in midfield and the defense not exposed much. Lovren or Klavan can never reach that level of consistency for 90 mins and Hendo is no Kante.
 
KopRed said:
We are technically already playing with 3 at the back. The few times when we were trying to beat the bus Hendo went so deep that he was almost like a 3rd CB. Everyone else was forward and we still couldn't score.

Chelsea have better full backs than us. The Alonso + moses are very direct and can run at defenders. They are like the wingers we never had. Add that Willian, Hazard, Costa can all beat players and create out of nothing, they get alot of attention leaving the wings empty.

Kante, Sideshow and Apzillia have also been excellent meaning they are well covered in midfield and the defense not exposed much. Lovren or Klavan can never reach that level of consistency for 90 mins and Hendo is no Kante.
Click to expand...

But Hendo playing so deep was part of the problem. As the game against Chelsea showed, his crosses are a real weapon that we miss. If we had an actual ball playing centre half then he could be deployed further forward, still covering the defense but not sitting among them.
 
doctor_mac said:
But Hendo playing so deep was part of the problem. As the game against Chelsea showed, his crosses are a real weapon that we miss. If we had an actual ball playing centre half then he could be deployed further forward, still covering the defense but not sitting among them.
Click to expand...

Yes so if we play 3 at the back we will have less attackers. Klavan's not going to score us any goals.

2 CB + Hendo is as good as we get to trying for 3 at the back.
 
KopRed said:
Yes so if we play 3 at the back we will have less attackers. Klavan's not going to score us any goals.

2 CB + Hendo is as good as we get to trying for 3 at the back.
Click to expand...

But would for example dropping Can for the extra CB be detrimental? He's not exactly that great as an attacker, so there's not much impact there, but we 'might' gain a much more solid defence with 3 CB's.
 
Mors said:
But would for example dropping Can for the extra CB be detrimental? He's not exactly that great as an attacker, so there's not much impact there, but we 'might' gain a much more solid defence with 3 CB's.
Click to expand...

I agree with some. Our CB is the problem. Sideshow is athletic and moves well, apchuplia is a coverted fullback and he reads the game well. Cahill is not too shabby in the speed department as well.

In theory, Klavan Matip Lovren will never be able to cover the space exposed by the full backs. Alonso/Moses, Walker/Rose will rape us. And we don't have a Kante to shield these guys.
 
I only highlighted the chelski 3 CB's as we'd just played them, but lots of other teams have played 3 CB's plenty of times this season that didn't have sideshow/cahil/azp in, far worse than those, no kante either and still put out a great defensive performance and got a clean sheet.
 
Mors said:
I only highlighted the chelski 3 CB's as we'd just played them, but lots of other teams have played 3 CB's plenty of times this season that didn't have sideshow/cahil/azp in, far worse than those, no kante either and still put out a great defensive performance and got a clean sheet.
Click to expand...

Like who?
 
StevieM said:
I'd say Man Utd, but The Moany One plays 10 at the back.

Haven't Spurs & Everton tried it from time to time?
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Spurs have a superb collection of quick, talented defenders, so can easily play this formation, plus they have two of the archetype wing-backs in Rose and Walker, and a pure DM.

They look solid regardless of what formation they play anyway.
 
Fun fact: The title of this thread is also a line you'd expect to hear in a very adult movie, am I right?
 
manwithnoname said:
Spurs have a superb collection of quick, talented defenders, so can easily play this formation, plus they have two of the archetype wing-backs in Rose and Walker, and a pure DM.

They look solid regardless of what formation they play anyway.
Click to expand...

Absolutely.
 
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