The problem with a 3-5-2 is it eliminates any semblance of depth we have.
I thought abt this as well:
on paper:
3-2-3-1-1
The back three eats all our DF: Miranda, De Vrij, Skrinar, making quite a few of our FBs redundant (Asamoah, D'Ambrosio, Santon, Dalbert)
The holding 2: Gagsy + a new Defensive Mid (it worked superbly when Kdog was still here)
The offensive 3: (for now) Perisic - Rafinha - Cancelo (Perisic tracks back a lot and we have been giving Cancelo the whole flank lately)
Upfront: Martinez - Icardi
The problem is that while this looks appropriate in term of maximizing individual potentials, we would suffer from:
(1) one of the back 3 injures or is not in form
(2) lacking the dynamic on the flanks
(3) And qualitatively, the attacking line is not guaranteed to be more fluid than our current set-up
(4) Decent Defensive mid is rare