I forsee us going back to a back 3 when he arrives. Scoring has been a bit of a concern recently and to get the best out of Kun and himself, they probably need to play together. Kun has shown that if partnered with the right player, he can be at his devastating best. Jesus playing as a lone forward may be a lot of weight on his shoulders especially given the fact that we have a lot of clawing back into the title race to do. If there was one positive from the chelsea match, it was
the fact that 3 at the back can work if a lot of effort goes into making it work and
I think our current brand of attacking
players would profit more from a 3 at the
back. In any case we need a Conte-esque
tactical response from Pep to set us on a
winning run that is capable of closing our
10 points lag and I'm sure he's more than capable of pulling that; I'm recommending the following team for the second half of our season:
3-5-2
----------------Bravo-------------
---Otamendi-Stones-Kolarov---
-------------Fernandinho
Navas--De Bruyne--Silva----Sane
-------Aguero-------G. Jesus
*Maybe Clichy for Kolarov sometimes
*whenever Komps is fit, Stones, Kompany and Otamendi
*Navas and Sane providing width; tactical tweaks to address Sané's weaknesses e.g. if we are up by a couple on 60 mins, Sane gets sacrificed and we revert to a proper back 5 shape
*players that would likely benefit from this system: Kun, Jesus X2, Sane, KDB, Silva. In fact our entire front six
*Gabriel Jesus can help out a great deal with pressing opponents' back 4
*weaknesses of this set up: light defensive cover but I hope it would at least enable us score very often