A 3W defence with no defensive midfielders protecting it

[macon]

There are occasions where I want to use this against formations which only have one site of wide players so I can outnumber them down the flanks.

However, there'll be attacking set ups where it will get horribly exposed. My feeling is that it is fine against 2 strikers as long as the opponent doesn't have any players at all in the AM tier, and it's fine against a single striker if there are no players in the attacjking midfield tier, but against anything else, it's going to struggle.

So I don't think it'll work against 4-3-2W(AML/AMR)-1 or 4-4-1-1, for example.

What are other peoples thoughts?

[RJSlow]

Well it is different if you have the better team or not, but for the sake of the thread i will assume the teams are equal. I would say it would leave you too exposed, because it essentially leaves your defenders going 1 on 1 against strikers or attacking midfielders, and those are battles that defenders will lose. The rule of thumb I usually use (it came from a guide i read on here back when i started playing) is to have 2 defenders for each striker, and a Defensive midfielder or defender for attacking midfielders. Team mentality can also have an affect, so with a 3w defense i would avoid being attacking