I have to disagree. Playing against Woolwich away from home is completely different to playing against West Ham at our place. For one, you get much more space to operate in because Woolwich actually try to play football. I'm not convinced that it will work against teams that park the bus on us, and it wouldn't surprise me if West Ham do just that. Btw, we only drew the match, not bad obviously away from home in a tough derby game, but it's still not the three points that have eluded us for so long now. I'm not sure the 352 is necessarily the answer for getting us to score more.
I agree that the 4231 hasn't worked out for a while, but a big part in that was the absence of Kane and Alderweireld imo. Janssen is far to one-dimensional atm to play as a lone forward. With a fully fit Kane back though I don't see why we couldn't play the 4231 again. Also, the absence of Alderweireld meant we were somewhat less impressive at the back, both defensively and also offensively in terms of passing out from the back, so getting another CB in for defensive security and for freeing up the other CB's to attack more made sense.
The 352 system worked well against Woolwich and I agree that it doesn't necessarily have to be a defensive-minded system, it can be very much an attacking setup. I actually like the system and am not opposed to using it, even against West Ham, but you have to take personnel into account. Venables for example used it with England and at times played Anderton and McManaman as wing-backs, and Ince and Gascoigne in midfield. That was obviously very offensive-minded. However, as I said it depends on who you play, the variant we played against Woolwich was pretty defensive, with actual full-backs as wing-backs, and on top of the three CB's an out and out DM and a box-to-box one in Dembele. That's too defensive for West Ham at home imo. You would only have three attacking players in there.
If people really want to use the 352 against West Ham I suggest we actually put a winger in as wing-back, though I doubt we currently have anyone available who would be suited for that role. Or alternatively, replace Wanyama or Dembele with a more offensive-minded player. I'm not sure that would really get the best out of our team atm though, hence why I think it would be better to go with the 4231 for this game.
