The lads still pretty inexperienced outside of South America and international footy. Don't think Barca will have ever played him in a 3 so wouldn't shock me if that's the first time he's ever played in it at any decent level of opposition, just in general looked a confusion at the back on who needed to be going what, Coleman didn't help either by tooling in tight to Keane ridiculously at times given sane half the park to himself.
As a club we just never seem to play it well, felt like today was almost a experiment to see it in action in a game we realistically had little chance going into it of getting anything.
Only one of the back 5 who played well was Digne today, Zouma did okay when pushed to rb, but all three cbs and Coleman stunk the gaff out most of the game.
I think a lot depends on the personnel. I know Gary Neville has spoken a lot about how much thought Venables gave it in 96. He had Pearce and Neville playing outside of Adams. Each player fitted what was needed. Pearce and Neville were both very comfortable being in wide areas which is requires. At times there's a lazy attempt to just throw traditional centre halves into the outside positions of a 3 which is a bit lazy. It doesn't really help anyone.
It's odd, there was a time when we had Mori one side, Holgate the other and Jags playing in between them under Koeman and we actually looked happy with it. Holgate is probably a very natural right centre back in a 3. I'm not sure he's quite right in a 2 but has always impressed me in a 3 with his distribution and the emphasis on speed as opposed to strength the role requires. But other than that it's not worked as we haven't really had the personnel.
I was surprised Keane played in the middle really. I thought Mina would be the obvious choice as he is the most dominant. Zoom could also go there as he's the quickest so it was odd Keane went in there. That being said it looked what it was today, namely 3 lads who are not comfortable playing in the outside role of a back 3 and 3 lads who are well drilled playing in a back 4 not knowing what their roles were today and thus allowing a side with excellent movement to exploit the spaces between them.
It happens. It was probably a great game to experiment in for Silva. It's a free hit really and had it come off and all 3 played to their best we may well have avoided conceding today. We'd also pose far more threat of set pieces which is a big (and perhaps only) weakness of City. Lesson learnt today though and I hope we don't see it with those 3 again.
As a slight digression it will be interesting who plays in the 2 going forward. If Silva was to keep Zouma I think he may get a run now.
