There is a reason though. That reason is that Istanbul went through our midfield with ease.
Agreed, but we could always have dropped back to resovle that. We just didn't seem to want to. Plus this happens whenever either Matic or Pogba are there anyway, no matter who we play against. The only time we get any effective protection is with Fred and McTominay as a two, which is fine but they can't both play every single game.
I can't see what could have gone worse in the first half yesterday if we'd swapped Pogba and VDB's roles around. VDB couldn't get a touch anyway and Pogba in the first half was an absolute disaster. If we try VDB in that role and he can't do it, we don't really lose anything at this point when the alternative is putting someone else there who also can't do it.
Pogba and Matic can't play as one of the midfield two without it having a negative impact on the entire team's performance. We've already established that a thousand times over so I have no idea why we keep trying it in situations where it isn't being forced on us. Pogba has enough about his game to make use of him in other roles, or in certain situations. Particularly if the opposition is tiring or sitting off. Matic shouldn't be there at all unless there's literally no available alternative, or it's a game where we're more concerned with resting people than winning.
Fred, Mctominay, Fernandes...that's our "best" midfield three, but firstly what that tells you is our midfield still has problems, because only one of those three is among our best players. Secondly we have games literally every 3 days basically all season, so we don't just need a best midfield, we need options and alternatives that actually work without us having to make emergency substitutuons to clean up the mess every time.
I'm far from convinced by this diamond thing we use every so often and once every 10 games doesn't make us look shite. It mainly seems to stifle the players who are good at doing their job, and leaves us a forward short, which I think is dumb when our forwards/attacking players are easily a level above the rest of our team...it's playing to our weaknesses instead of our strenghs.
I'd like to see VDB given a go there in the midfield two in some games. I wouldn't exactly put him in there against City but games like yesterday where it basically comes down to getting our forward players involved enough, it seems more worth a try than doing something we already know wont work.