The merits or otherwise of the 3-5-2 system is a subject that is never out of the news for too long. Even though most top class teams now favour four at the back as their first choice, on the continent as well as in Britain, it is often advocated as the way forward in various situations, as in the build up to the last two England games. It is often proposed on this forum, and whilst it always looks tempting on paper, there seems little appetite on the part of the game’s professionals to give it a go.

So where does Jim Smith, our ex-manager, come into it? Well, it’s a long-forgotten fact that he was the first English manager of a top division club to play the 3-5-2 formation consistently as his first choice formation. This was in the 1987-88 season, while he was the manager of QPR, then in the old First Division. The results that he achieved with it were remarkable. Despite finishing 15th and 16th in their previous seasons, and despite not having the greatest squad of players, QPR topped the league in the early part of the season, and eventually finished a very creditable 5th.

Smith’s experiment was a major talking point at the time, because four at the back had been the universal, unchallenged bedrock of British formations, at all levels of the game, since the early 60’s. Suddenly, we had the almost unique sight of a group of ordinary professionals, profiting through the use of a system with which their opponents were unfamiliar. Eventually, the advantage of novelty that Smith enjoyed was hauled back, as other clubs learned to counter and even imitate the system. But there was no doubt that Smith had engineered a breakthrough, and a new tactical flexibility was introduced into the British game.

Fast forward now to 2003, when Jim Smith was the Assistant Manager to Harry Redknapp at Portsmouth (who, incidentally, were in the middle of securing promotion with a 3-5-2 formation). I remembered Jim Smith’s forgotten achievement with the Rangers, and decided to try my hand at a spot of free-lance journalism. I wrote to Jim Smith, asking if I could interview him on his QPR revolution. I was banking on him feeling that his innovation should have wider acknowledgement, and my hunch was right.

Jim Smith gave me a couple of hours of his time to talk about 3-5-2, and, in keeping with his reputation, was very considerate and gentlemanly towards a man whose rather nervous manner did not mark him out as an experienced journalist. Unfortunately for both myself and Jim Smith, the resulting article did not find any favour with any of the newspapers or magazines that I sent it to. I did not have any connections within football journalism, and I don’t think the article fitted into any of the usual categories that editors favour. Well that’s my excuse.

So anyway - here are the thoughts on the 3-5-2 system from Jim Smith, the man who brought the formation to Britain, and who long remained thereafter as its chief practitioner.

1) 3-5-2 should be used as an attacking, not defensive formation, although somewhat to Smith’s annoyance, many of his early imitators used it in a negative fashion, virtually reverting to a five at the back. For Smith, this would leave the defenders short of options when they had the ball, and ran the risk of the midfield being over-run.

2) Smith acknowledged that three at the back did leave the defenders more exposed to possible one v one’s, and made greater demands on their decision-making, initiative, and individual responsibility. He had found that most English defenders, partly through the way they had been taught the game, were reluctant to leave the comfort zone of 4-4-2. Full backs wanted a winger to come back and help them out, and centre backs wanted a man close by and alongside.

3) Following on from this last point, Smith felt it was important to familiarise players with the system at an early point in their careers. At Derby, he made sure that the reserve and youth teams played 3-5-2 as well. Half way through the season at QPR, when injuries became an issue, it became difficult for him to successfully draft in other players, who were not familiar with the formation.

4) Copying from the German system, Smith’s favoured method was to use two man-to-man markers and a sweeper. He did mention that Martin O’Neill at Celtic favoured a flat back three, but unfortunately I missed the chance to discuss with him the differences between the two approaches.

5) The usual counter-play to the 3-5-2 formation was for the opposition to double up on the wing back. The defence had to counter this by moving a centre back out to help, and it was therefore important to have defenders who were comfortable about being taken out wide. The wing back from the opposite flank would then drop back to help out the remaining two.

On reflection afterwards, I felt that this reinforced Smith’s earlier point about using the formation in an attacking way. If the wing-backs were constantly having to drop back to defend the space behind them, then any advantages in the system would be lost. They needed to keep the opposing defence and midfield well occupied.

6) For the wing-backs, Smith felt that using full backs who could attack was usually a better option than wingers who could defend. He didn’t elaborate why, but it’s obvious that a player who makes a mistake in defence is far more of a liability than a player who makes a mistake going forward.

7) Jim Smith struggled to come up with an explanation as to why 4-4-2 had remained so popular, and had indeed largely displaced the sweeper system from the Continent. He reflected that in the higher tempo and greater pressure of modern football, teams needed to feel safe, and 4-4-2 was a simple, solid formation that to many minds represented safety.

It seemed to me afterwards, that what Smith had been trying to do with his formation was not to substitute one set of lines with another, but to try and get the players to be less reliant on lines in the first place, or in other words, to improvise and be more flexible. In pushing the full backs into an intermediate space, and in shifting his central defenders away from a flat formation, he demanded that they take more initiative in reacting not only to what opponents, but also to what team-mates were doing.

And perhaps hereby lies the crux. The system demands good, intelligent, confident players who can work well together, and a coach who has enough confidence to delegate some control over to them. When it works, it can work very well, particularly in that the full-backs, who are rather under-used in 4-4-2, can play a fuller part. But it has to be faced that if it does go wrong, as it did to Germany in their 5-1 defeat to England, it can go spectacularly wrong.

It’s also worth noting that although most continental teams now use 4-4-2, they bring to it a flexibility that is still missing from many English teams. It is as if they are less tied to the lines that are implied by the figures in the system’s name. Even though nearly everyone now seems to believe in a back four, it’s tempting to think that the background of the more flexible sweeper system has enabled the continental teams to use 4-4-2 in a more creative way. The quiet revolution that Smith began in 1987, has yet to run its full course.

So is 3-5-2 a possible answer to the current problems of Newcastle United? Personally, I’d say no. If defenders are struggling to co-ordinate with one another and are lacking in individual confidence, an unfamiliar system that demands more of them as individuals is unlikely to help. It might help our full backs, who look more comfortable going forward than defending, but not our centre backs.

But the final thought must be with Jim Smith. He was an unlucky manager, who turned several moderate teams into good ones, but who never had the chance to turn a good side into a great one. At Newcastle, he took over a horrendous and declining situation, with a power-struggle going on in the boardroom, and did his level best to steady the ship. He nearly got us promoted straight back up after relegation, and our total collapse under his successor Ardiles is testament to the work that he did. He left with a poor reputation amongst many fans that was very undeserved.

I’d say it’s about time that Jim Smith got the credit that he deserves - not just as a sound and successful manager of many teams, but as a tactical innovator whose courage 20 years ago marked an unheralded turning point in the British game.

Bob Yule