It baffles me that this is still a point of discussion.
We didn't use a back 3/5 during pre-season. If it were a tactic we were likely to even consider using, I would have expected to see some degree of time investment in the period where results don't matter.
Wilder has spoken in media interviews (especially in pre-season) about the change in style/formation. So it was done consciously, and the intent to change to the back 4 was probably in discussions with the coaching staff and recruitment team well before the end of last season. If we were not going to be playing a 4231, why have we bothered signing wingers?
The recruitment does not explain a back 3 to me. At all. We've signed 2 left backs, who were successful as full backs. Not because of the potential to play them as wing backs. While I could see the potential for McCallum to fill that role, I don't think that is as viable for Burrows, who I would wager as being better as either a pure full back, or a winger, not a mixture of the 2.
We do not have anyone at a senior level capable of playing RWB. Seriki is now injured, and is inexperienced, and Gilchrist is obviously a centre back who has been shoe-horned into a full back role, both at Chelsea and now with us. He does that job well - he is composed on the ball, and does his defensive duties to a decent standard, but he does not carry the ball forward as a wing-back ought to do. He is far more keen to lay the ball off to a midfielder or winger who can perform that role much better.
And I don't believe we have the CB's to perform well enough in a back 3 anymore. When we first did it in League 1, we had Jake Wright, Basham and O'Connell. That then changed in the Championship when we brought Egan in, but the principle remained the same. One man in the middle purely focused on defending - the wide men given licence to get forward, with or without the ball. Anel has not looked competent at that since he recovered from glandular fever in his first season with us, Robinson is not technically competent enough to perform the wide role, and is too prone to mistakes to be the central man. Based on his performance vs Wrexham, I think Trusty might be more comfortable as part of a 2 CB setup. Souttar could be the central man, but questions over his mobility give me the same concerns I had over Egan. And Gilchrist is hampered by the same issue that means he would not be an effective wing back. Were we to play him at RCB, he would not be good enough at carrying the ball forward to be effective.
The alternative is that we play a more conservative back 3, whom all sit back while the rest of the team pushes forward, but why then wouldn't we just have a back 4? You have better coverage across the width of the pitch that way, and an extra body to perhaps not be outnumbered in a counter-attacking scenario.
The back 3 (and the positive stigmas that come with it as Blades in the last 7-8 years), needs to be forgotten as a relic of a previous time. It's clear to me that there is a clear focus on developing the new system, rather than reverting to one that in the last 4 years, has only seen success as a result of being carried by individual brilliance, rather than good team cohesion.
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