Gingerfinch wrote: Yep. Sterling and rashford won't be wide wide anyhow. I think that's pretty much how Southgate may play it, or go 4-4-2 and get Ali in.
Such a formation I doubt has been used much, and for a pretty good reason.
From the back up, a three man central defensive system requires not only your defenders to be extremely disciplined and well drilled, but your outside two have to be well above average pace to be able to deal with covering the wing backs, whos main job in such a system is to provide attacking width and defensive cover. Phil Jones is a bumbling powerhouse type defender, but Eden Hazard showed us just how great he was covering space in the open in the cup final.... ie, not very good. Kyle Walker has, and can, play that role well. Is Maguire better than Stones? That central pin in the 3 man system has to be the man with good on the ball ability.
Either way, your suggested team basically has 3 central players out of 7 in it. Again, these systems often require you to high press the ball to give time to the wing backs to get back, but if the ball is in a central area you cant press with cm's if this is the only central players covering a huge gap. Plus, 3-5-2 systems require a target man to hold up the ball and allow the wide men to come into zones, and you really need a ball playing cm in the engine room to allows bring the ball forwards.
I think England would get slaughtered playing like this. Unless you are suggesting a 3-4-3? With 3 cbs, the 2 wing backs being the wide men in the midfield but more conventional wide midfielders, with a spread out forward line of two wider forwards?
Again though, one has to question defensively if England have the men or the tactic genius to drill that into them to make it work.
Think its worth remembering you are asking a lot of the central midfielders in a system like these, and this is where we have our least gifted, least versatile people.