Mauricio Pellegrino has hinted that he may change his formation although he is not yet sure that it will be against Stoke City at the weekend.
Mauricio Pellegrino has already tred a change of tactics in the way he has lined up his team this season, although he has stuck to a back four in the Premier League, against Wolves in the cup he experimented with a back three using three central defenders, as he did in the final minutes of the win against Crystal Palace
This was not a success but most watching would have agreed that was more down to the players used in that game than any other reason.
In that match the manager used Stephens and Yoshida flanking debutant Jan Bednarek, but perhaps the main issue was the wing backs supporting them were McQueen and Pied and neither seemed suitable for this type of game, especially Pied who is more of a traditional style full back.
So it seems that MoPe has not abandoned the idea merely shelved it until he has the right personell available to play it and with the return of Virgil Van Dijk he may now feel that he has the quality to start a game with this set up.
Stoke City could be that game, with the Potters having an injury crisis at the back he may feel that being able to put an extra attacking option into the team might be beneficial, but is not convinced that it will completely solve the problems n front of goal.
Speaking ahead of the game he said.
"It’s something I like to do. In my past teams I play with three centre-backs,”
"It doesn’t always depend on the feeling of the manager.
"Sometimes it depends on how the players are and we’ve got centre-backs but I’m not sure we’ll improve or score more by playing three centre backs."
"But in some games I will try this formation. I used it against Wolves but I will repeat that, to be better in the final third, it’s not about playing more strikers or about putting wingers or full backs higher."
"It’s about capacity and quality to be precise.”
Pellegrino clearly feels the ssue is not in front of goal, but in the build up play, I think he has a point, in the past two games we have had plenty of possession, but in that final third we have just not had the quality of delivery to create the chances needed to score goals.
Against both Palace and United there were no real clear cup opportunities created, most of the chances were from a distance, in short we could have played Lukaku, Bale and Renaldo up front, but if they don't get the ball in front of goal they are not going to score, unless we start creating chances then we aren't going to score goals whatever formation we are playing or whoever is playing up front.
So the managers job now is having got the team playing with a strong foundation, he needs to get chances created in the final third, he needs to get that killer ball played in.
We have the players to do it, Nathan Redmond and Dusan Tadic have done so in the past and have the talent, but they arent doing it enough and need other players in the team to do so.
Going with three at the back would enable Ryan Bertrand and Cedric to push on and both can put in decent balls and this would help.
It would also enable the manager to put in an extra attacking player into the side, not neccessarily up front but in a deeper lyng position.
Sane Long has done well as the striker in that his workrate has meant we have chased balls down and kept attacks going, I think that Pellegrino will stick with the Irishman because of that, but who will take the spare place.
For my mind he has two options in the type of player he uses.
He could stick either Gabbiadini or Austin in a depper role, or he could put in James Ward Prowse sitting in front of a defensive trio of Lemina, Romeu and Davis to spray the ball around, this could suit JWP who would have more time to pick passes.
I think that this latter option could be the preffered one at least to start the game on Saturday.