When we are 'mathematically safe' from being relegated should SD experiment with a three at the back formation?

..............................Pope
...............Long......Tarks......Mee
Lowton......Hendrick.....Cork.......Taylor
...........Lennon......................JBG
.......................Barnes/Vokes

This would allow Lowton/Bardsley and Taylor/Ward more freedom (Long and Mee would cover their full back position) to support Lennon/JBG/Nkoudou on the wings and also increase our inside forward threat.

Admittedly four at the back has served up well so far this season but IMHO a tactical option of three at the back should be tried and, if successful, might just increase our
chances of recruiting another quality centre half in the summer.

Would work a treat on a round pitch, sadly they are rectangular and much of the football is played down the sides. Our ability to get more from Lowts and Taylor is down to our quality in the opposition half. They have to be comfortable pushing up and without the fear of being caught out of position because there is less chance that we could loose the ball. Lennon and JBG on their favoured sides should help in this respect.

Not sure why we would experiment with that - would have to change the whole way we play to accommodate it

Never like it to be honest , I always think teams look real short at the back hey with only 3 of course it does .

Our success has been built on our defence and our defence is built on structure and order. every person knowing instinctively where they are supposed to be and more importantly where their team mates are. While the flexibility of 3 at the back would give us more attacking options down the flanks it would also increase the chances of a "misunderstanding" at the back with centre back covering across.

I think he current of increasing our potency with higher quality wide men is better although I would not object to trying 3 at the back against lower league opposition in a cup game for example.

abc, is that you?

In order for three at the back to work, all three centre halves have to be excellent footballers, as well as defenders.
Tarks is the only one who might suit that system, but Mee and Long certainly wouldn't.
If we tinker with formations it would be much wiser to tinker at the other end of the pitch, or in the middle of the park.

I wanted this last year.
I think your best players should be on the field and Tarks wasn't. It would have suited as Keane had RB experience and Mee had LB.
Not so sure now although I still hate our FBs playing so narrow and letting their wingers receive the ball in acres of space. Our defence is so good there is something I'm not seeing because it obviously works.

It would work out more like a back 5 for us.

Bristol City did really well with it under Cotterill when winning league 1 but then were woeful in The Championship the following year.

I can think of a whole bunch of reasons why we should not do this

And absolutely no reasons why we should...

You have to work a system out where every single player in the team can put a shift in.

Some teams have the 3rd Central midfielder who receives a 5yd pass and makes a 5yd pass to the other midfielder when a 10yd pass is just as easy.
When we played 4 narrow midfielders everyone of them was grafting, usually against 5. But at times the front two weren't doing enough keeping the ball up top to justify the extra striker.

As said earlier in the thread last year it should of been tried to get Tarky in the team.

No not for me stick to how we are playin with seven at the back it's worked all season utc

There's also the issue of injuries. Three at the back and no cover...

You would have to have 3 fit centre halves to even try it, so that makes it non starter for us.

I'm just looking forward to having Lowton and Lennon running down the right wing on Saturday.

Why on earth would you want to build a system around Kevin Long?

Don't see any reasons at all for messing up that which isn't broke. Remember we are playing for a top 10 finish or even top 8 and all the extra money that brings. Under no circumstances at all would we be justified taking risks once we are safe (which we are anyway). It was good to see the rather bizarre system in the first half on Saturday of playing a left winger on the right and vice versa being changed at half time. I hope now that we see JBG on his natural left side and that Lennon doesn't waste any more of his time on that side. We were a different side second half on Saturday after that change (okay we still got outplayed most of the time but it was City). With two excellent wingers playing to their full strengths we can now hope to see more attacking football and maybe, hopefully, our underperforming strikers will get the service they need. With our defence and midfield ticking over nicely if these two can supply a hopefully fit Wood we might just see an explosive end to the season. Still don't see anything below us that would make a 7th place that difficult to achieve.

Here's hopping.

I think we all agree that we would like to see a more attacking team that scores more goals (hence the crowd's 'excitement' watching the last 20 mins against Man. City).

Having two fast and skilful full backs who are capable of putting in quality crosses is obviously one way of increasing our attacking threat. The BIG problem is the space left on each defensive wing for the opposition to exploit.

Playing three 'centre halves' is one way of giving the full back cover. The other way is for one of the central midfield players - Defour, Cork etc - to always drop back from midfield to cover the left or right back position.

This is probably our best tactic at present but I still feel that three at the back should always have been practiced for a top class coach to have as a option.

I've just rung Sean Dyche and asked him if we should play three at the back on Saturday. He told me to f.ck off.