Keep possession with a two-neutral overload. Support the ball at good angles, use the neutrals to beat the press, and switch the play to the free side to keep the ball.
Two teams of three in a square with two neutral players who always play for the team in possession, making it 5v3. The team in possession keeps the ball, using the neutrals to escape pressure and switch sides. On a turnover the neutrals flip to the new team at once. Count passes or set a target of switches. Rotate the defending three and the neutrals.
Neutrals guarantee a permanent overload, and teams still lose the ball constantly, which tells you something useful: finding the free man is a habit rather than an arithmetic result. Five against three exists on paper the whole time, and it only exists on the pitch when players look for it.
The failure is almost always local. A player under pressure solves his own immediate problem by playing to the nearest teammate, who is usually also under pressure, and the overload two passes away never gets used. What the exercise trains is the alternative: scanning before receiving so that the free man is already known, and being willing to play a longer or less obvious pass to reach him.
Neutrals have their own discipline and it decides how much the exercise is worth. A neutral who drifts towards the ball because that is where the game is has removed himself as an outlet and made the overload theoretical. Holding width and depth, staying on the opposite side to the pressure, is what keeps the free man genuinely free.
One honest limitation: permanent neutrals mean the team in possession never experiences an even contest, so this is a drill about using an advantage rather than about creating one. Teams that only ever play this version can look excellent in training and struggle in a match where nobody hands them a spare player. Pair it with something even-numbered in the same session.
The cue that transfers best is switching away from pressure rather than passing around it.
Save it to your private drills, then change the animation, adjust positions, swap equipment, or drop it into a session block. Or start from a blank pitch and build your own.