Cambridge United head coach Mark Bonner explains decision to switch formation for Sheffield Wednesday defeat

While player unavailability forced his hand to a degree, Cambridge United head coach Mark Bonner revealed that he had been wanting to use the 3-5-2 formation for a little while before implementing it during today’s 2-0 home defeat to Sheffield Wednesday.

With left-backs Harrison Dunk and Brandon Haunstrup both sidelined by injury and midfielder Liam O’Neil out with illness, Bonner opted for a rearguard trio of George Williams, captain Greg Taylor and Lloyd Jones.

James Brophy and Shilow Tracey took up the wing-back roles, with midfielders Paul Digby and Lewis Simper acting as a shield.

And while it did not prevent the U’s from slipping to a fourth straight Sky Bet League One defeat, Bonner believes that it is a system that could serve them well in future games against the division’s top sides.

“We’ve been thinking about it for quite a while,” he said. “We thought getting an extra one in there as a central defender against two very, very powerful and direct strikers could help us. And we thought it might be able to help us build and have a bit more possession.

“We’ve found when we play the top teams, to play with four midfielders and four defenders, you really find it tough – our results reflect that. When we’ve played the top teams we haven’t won many of those games.

“We’ve had some memorable ones in there and some competitive performances but we probably need to try and find a way of playing five in one of those live.

“The way we did that last season is we added Knibbsy (Harvey Knibbs) as almost an extra midfielder or Adam May playing a bit more advanced, that gave us a bit more stability, but it’s been hard for us.

“We picked a team we thought could give us a bit of control and contain them and we wanted to play with a real attacking threat.

“So there was an element of wanting to try something and to look at something we think we need to do against the top teams and then there was an element of we haven’t got a left-back at the moment.

“Dunks (Harrison Dunk) is out and will be for a little bit, Brandon is out and will be for a little bit, Liam O’Neil is sick so we didn’t really want to go with four in the midfield. We’ve got some decent strikers as well so we wanted to get two of those in the game.

“It was a combination of try something and look at something different, and we’ll definitely do it again. But also it was the availability of players at the moment, obviously we’re a little bit light.”

It was a goal in either half from veteran forward Lee Gregory that proved to be United’s undoing.

It was an improved second-half showing from Bonner’s side, yet for all of their endeavour they rarely called David Stockdale in the Wednesday goal into any telling action.

Nevertheless, while Bonner conceded the new system had left his side looking ‘vulnerable’ at times, he still believed they could have taken something from the game.

“For two and half years we’ve played a very similar system and we’ve had to do some learning live in front of 6,500 people against a Championship team,” he added.

“It’s obviously difficult when the first goal goes in after six minutes, it makes it even harder.

“We’d started well before that and we played in a way that I actually quite like a lot about the way in which we went about the game.

“We contained them really in terms of the free flowing stuff. The real top players in their team didn’t cause us huge problems, didn’t have so many saves to make or top opportunities.

“I thought we had more ball, more possession, more passes (and) a few attempts on goal, but maybe just one on target.

“The story of the game is really that there was a vulnerability about us defensively. We’ve given them two soft goals and then it’s just a lack of spark and belief in our attacking play. Some of that is down to the system because they’re in slightly different angles to what they’re used to, but some of it is not really finding that little bit of quality and craft and spark.

“In the second half, the first half an hour of it before their second goal we’ve got the ball for all of it. We need to have a bit more thrust about us to make a bit of it because we’ve been in a really balanced against a top team.

“At the minute our loss column is too high and our draw column is too low. We’ve got to turn some of those games into draws and we’re taking points from games when they’re there for us.

“That game was there for us to take something from, so the frustration really is that we’ve taken nothing from a game that was fairly even and we were in as much as they were.”