Since Chelsea switched to a three-centre back system last year, it has been in vogue.
Nearly every team in the Premier League experimented with it, with varying degrees of success, and the Blues won the title because of it.
One of the clubs that didn’t even attempt the switch was Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United.
But this week against a Tottenham side that was missing Harry Kane up front, United deployed a back three and it was able to keep hard-charging Spurs at bay.
It may have been the absence of its talisman up front, but Tottenham was unable to generate much in the way of offence at Old Trafford. Dele Alli couldn’t get a flick attempt on target and that proved to be the best chance of the day. Christian Eriksen provided some passes, but nothing that ended up threatening David De Gea too much.
This comes after Mourinho went out and called Tottenham “The Harry Kane team.†Quite the mind game from the Special One to put his opposition on the back foot before they even
Whether or not the Red Devils trot out this lineup again remains to be seen, but now we’re aware that they have it in their arsenal and will switch it up if needed.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
For all of Manchester City’s high-priced talent that regularly have their praise sung, there’s one that gets little press, but might actually be the league leader’s most important player: Fernandinho.
Yes, the defensive midfielder – who scored a goal and added an assist against
West Brom – isn’t the flashiest player, but he gets the job done.
When a tackle is needed or a run is to be tracked, it’s the Brazilian who is usually on it.
Of course, every team has a player in that sort of role. But what makes him City’s most important player? It’s the fact that the Citizens don’t really have an adequate replacement for him if he gets hurt.
Fabian Delph is currently playing out at left back and Yaya Toure isn’t going to be tracking many runs these days.
If Fernandinho were to miss some time, it could hurt City more than losing a high-priced attacker like Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne or Raheem Sterling.
AROUND THE LEAGUE
Dele Alli’s dive was pretty bad but Phil Jones’ reaction made the whole thing worthwhile. Jones makes the best faces in the Premier League, by far … It should come as no surprise that Anthony Martial came on as a sub and scored. He’s the best supersub in the game right now … United hasn’t conceded at Old Trafford from open play for more than 20 hours … Gabriel Jesus hasn’t lost a competitive game in a year. Of course, it helps when you’re on the best team in the league … Pep Guardiola is causing quite the headache for fantasy players. Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling both started on the bench this week and Kun didn’t even make a substitute appearance … Troy Deeney fully deserves his three-match ban for grabbing Joe Allen’s face and shoving the Welsh Jesus. Deeney is a pretty tough customer, but this was taking it too far … Arsenal actually fought back for once. When we saw that the Gunners were trailing Swansea, we thought for sure that this would be a point at best and even more “Wenger out†banners. Instead, Arsenal showed resilience and beat the lesser side … West Ham is just sinking further and further. Allowing lowly Crystal Palace to come back for a draw in the seventh minute of injury time is back-breaking. How much more time will Slavan Bilic get? … The defending by Michail Antonio on Wilfried Zaha’s winner was laughable … Liverpool has been a rock defensively at home allowing just one goal at Anfield this season. It’s just a shame the Reds can’t take it on the road, where they’ve conceded a league-high 15 times … That was surely the performance of Demarai Gray’s life. If he can play as well as he did against Everton going forward, Leicester City’s fortunes will look much brighter. We’re just afraid that it’s more likely to be a one-off … Burnley is looking like the new West Bromwich Albion. If you’re tuning in for a Clarets game, don’t expect much scoring – if any – from either side. Only 18 goals have been scored in Burnley games, lowest in the EPL.
THE LAST WORD
We’ve reached one of the most annoying parts of the Premier League season: The point in which England has already switched from Daylight Saving Time to normal and we in North America haven’t yet.
Just when we’re all used to mainly 10 a.m. starts on Saturday’s, it has been pushed an hour. Doesn’t the Premier League understand that we across the pond might have lunch plans?!
It’s quite puzzling that the Europe moves the clock back an hour a week before North America does. But, then again, it’s also quite stupid that most of the world still uses daylight saving time in the first place.