GLENN HODDLE EXCLUSIVE

Three is the magic number at the back, insists the former England manager

AN England team playing with a back three? What kind of England manager would try something as foolish as that? It won’t surprise anyone to see that I was delighted to see Gareth Southgate use a system which he played in for me when I was England manager. And, though England lost, I was encouraged by the application of their players and the flexibility of the tactics.

It’s a formation I’ve always favoured, even when it went out of fashion, though now, with Antonio Conte doing so well with Chelsea, it is back in vogue. It helps that your most senior defender Gary Cahill is comfortable with it. And that John Stones is the kind of defender who could thrive in it. And when you have wing-backs of the quality of Danny Rose, Kyle Walker and Ryan Bertrand, it makes perfect sense to use them in that role.

I always felt it gave an edge to English players. We’re often criticised for the rigidity of our tactical approach. Three men at the back gave us so much more fluidity and options. I wass also fed up when I was an England player of being over-run in midfield and not seeing the ball for long periods. Having the extra man in midfield meant that happened much less.

I was talking to Ian Wright about it on Wednesday, because he playedl d for me in that system. We had a couple of great games that people remember. There was the 0-0 draw in Rome against Italy in 1997 which secured our qualification for the World Cup. And then the 2-2 draw against Argentina in the last 16 of the 1998 World Cup, where we played most of the game with 10 men and only lost on penalties.

What people don’t remember so well is Le Tournoi in 1997, when we beat Italy 2-0. Wright played in that game, as did Gareth. We had Stuart Pearce, Gareth and Martin Keown as the back three with Phil Neville and Graeme Le Saux as wing-backs. David Beckham and Paul Ince were in central midfield with Paul Scholes playing behind Wright and Teddy Sheringham. That Italy side included Alessandro Costacurta, Fabio Cannavaro, Roberto Di Matteo and Gianfranco Zola. We laid the foundations of our 0-0 draw in Rome that night in Nantes. Italy couldn’t get to grips with our system and the movement of our front players. Wrighty was fantastic, chasing everything down. He scored as well, as did Scholes.

I went with the back three straight away in my first game, against Moldova in a World Cup qualifier in 1996. It took some time for all of the players to accept it. Tony Adams and Sol Campbell were sceptical. But they performed magnificently for me.

It is so flexible. When we attacked we would get the wing-backs to push up and make a 3-5-2. But when we defended, one of the wing-backs would drop back to make a back four, in a 4-4-2. That made us very compact. I don’t like the system when you end up with five at the back, as then you can be over-run in midfield. I feel it’s a weakness of the Chelsea system — one which hasn’t been exploited yet — that sometimes Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso can be very deep when Chelsea don’t have the ball. The back three also allows you to play either two N No 10s behind the striker, a as Gareth did on Wednesday, or one No 10 behind two up-front. I w would be tempted to go w with two up-front today. I’v I’ve often said that cen centre-halves have it too easy these days. Often they are onlyl really facing one striker. Two strikers presents them with a different problem, one which not many aren’t used to dealing with.

If only someone had got Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard playing behind Wayne Rooney in that system. Can you imagine how good that would have been? With Rio Ferdinand at the back, maybe Glen Johnson or Gary Neville and Ashley Cole as wing-backs. That would have been some team and it always frustrated me that it was never tried in that era.

I hope Gareth sticks with it today. I know the feeling is that he’ll switch to a back four. But I don’t think you need to keep switching systems. Use the back three as your starting point and you’ll find there are so many twists in the system that it provides you with almost infinite variety.