Three at the back does help against counter-attacks if you play the right three players at the back and if your wing-backs do their defensive duties. Gives you the extra man down the middle basically. Your 3-5-2 - if that is what it is - quickly becomes a 5-3-2
It won us the FA Cup against a better team.
The problem is when players don't follow the system correctly, when you play them out of position and when you don't play the best players you have for those positions as opposed to those you think are the best players. Bellerin should never play on the left but he doesn;t want to drop Ox. If Bellerin had played right and Kolasinac left wing-back we might not have been embarrassed yesterday. But there were other things wrong with the selection such as not playing your best centre-backs or strikers.
The point, Mo, is that the formation is irrelevant when players do not do their most basic of jobs. Getting caught on the counter time and time again is not a symptom of the formation.
The basic rule of defending is that you do not want to expose your last line of defence to your opponents. Whether it is a back 3, a back 4 or a back 5. The players that sit in front of the defence have a very important job to do and without them, our last line of defence is exposed. If you do not expose the last line of defence to your opponent, it makes it harder for them to break it down and makes it harder for them to score. Seems very obvious but we are failing to uphold that at its most basic level.
"Scoring a goal is better than sex" - Whoever said that was sticking it to the wrong woman
Thanks. But I wasn't trying to analyse all the reasons why we lost. I was mainly referring to why the three at the back is a better option.
In point of fact the only other options in central midfield were Elneny and/or Coquelin. So what would have made sense is to go with three central midfielders and two up front or 3-5-1-1 BUT that would have meant dropping one out of Ozil and Sanchez neither of which he wants to drop because he's trying to persuade them to stay or (Sanchez) trying to make a statement he will not be sold this summer.
Only connect.
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Good to see another Cowboys fan on the Forum WES. Like you I'm not confident with Zeke's appeal, maybe a game or two reduction of the ban is the best we can hope for. Hopefully we can still beat those pesky Giants in the season opener.