KEY POINTS:

• New Pressing Pattern

• Triangle issues on the wing –

• Dynamism between players

• 4-2-4 deep build up, 3-2-5 high build

• Mentality worries – Duff assessment following blip in form

IN POSSESSION

In possession we lined up as usual, 4-2-4 deep build up, which transitioned into a 3-2-5 higher up the pitch with Daniel Harvie pushing up holding the width allowing Sam Bell to mainly operate in the half space. We also sometimes played in a 3-2-6 with Will Norrs involved playing as a situational CB when we had possession deep, this allowed the CB’s to split which then has a follow on effect of letting Jack Grimmer move higher up the pitch as seen below (Pic 2).

This maintained our 3v2 overload against the front 2 of their 5-3-2 block, but it also allowed us to get an extra man high (Grimmer). Due to Norris involved in possession, it leads to us creating a 6v5 on their defensive line in our favour. Just to point out you can see a 3v2 overload on our left hand side in the circle with Harvie, Bell and Cauley Woodrow.

We have always built in a 4-2-4 deep under Michael Duff apart from that one AFC Wimbledon defeat, but on Tuesday I thought the distances between players at times were a little too large, it led to us struggling to interchange and combine. The demands on the players are huge when the distances to combine are so big forcing us long whether that’s in the air or on the ground.

Below we see us in settled possession, now what we should have is a direct triangle on both sides along with one at the base. You can see we have a base triangle, right sided triangle, but no circulation option on the left.

Now we can largely get away with this as Jamie Mullins can potentially be classed as being in the left sided triangle due to him not being a million miles away, but his body language and movement tells me he’s part of the base.

Something to definitely point out and to watch out for in future matches, triangles on both sides are important both in and out of possession, for the former they support ball circulation and help creativity by having each key zone occupied, and out of possession they support the counter press due to the players being in close proximity therefore the distances to press are smaller.

DYNAMICS/’RELATIONISM’ WITHIN THE STRUCTURE:

I thought we were pretty wasteful in possession on Tuesday, we had no balance between ball retention and directness, we had 10 minute spells where everyone either had no desire to go forwards (keeping the ball for the sake of it) or no desire to retain the ball (lazy decision making in possession) instead looking to play in behind when the man receiving wasn’t on the same mental wavelength, that’s why I say ‘relationism’ as I mean the mental relationships weren’t on the same page on Tuesday.

Rarely did we see coached patterns of play which is disappointing as our dynamism and patterns of play under Duff have been top, which is why I put the IN POSSESSION worries we saw on Tuesday down to the players.

We really missed a Josh Scowen type profile of player, press resistant with a top knowledge as to when to speed play up and when to focus on ball retention.

We only saw moments like below on a few occasions, Woodrow drops deep into the left halfspace like he did numerous times against Lincoln City, dragging a CB out of position leaving space for Bradley Fink and Bell to run into to attempt to exploit in behind.

This is a positive coached attacking pattern of play but unfortunately we didn’t see it enough on Tuesday. A lot in possession was too uncoordinated especially in deep build up, our settled possession shape was fine, it was just a case of getting into the 3-2-5 from the 4-2-4.

OUT OF POSSESSION:

This was arguably the most interesting factor of the game. We pressed with our 10 split between the two Plymouth Argyle’s sixes, if the ball goes left Bell presses with Woodrow locking onto the ball side six and Fink tucking in on the far side six.

If the ball goes right Fink presses with Woodrow on the ball side six and Bell on the far side six. The pro of this is it gives us a +1 in either midfield or defence (In this case it’s in midfield with Luke Leahy) to deal with long balls and/or second balls.

Problem with this is not going man to man from goal kicks can leave them with a spare man in build up USUALLY very hard to access but on Tuesday they sometimes found that spare man with ease as seen below.

This pressing pattern can take a while to coach properly as we saw with Andoni Iraola at AFC Bournemouth, for me I think I’d much rather see us continue pressing man to man from opposition goal kicks as we’ve seen previously under Duff.

In the pictures above you can see Leahy ends up being forced to jump to press anyway as Plymouth play through our press, so for me we might as well just start man to man.

MID AND LOW BLOCK:

In our mid block I have no problems whatsoever, 4-4-2 mid block which gets efficient pressure on the ball whilst getting equal coverage of the pitch. Top from Duff. In this game they did have 3v2 in the backline in settled possession but we largely limited their use of that through getting pressure on the ball along with remaining compact, especially limiting space between the lines.

I have mentioned once already, back on the 9th of November that we need to be careful conceding too many switches of play when in our mid block as we often leave their far side winger free. If we’re going to do this it’s absolutely vital we keep getting pressure on the ball when in our mid block to not allow them to play the switch in behind.

The first picture below is one from Tuesday and the second one was back against Leyton Orient. Top teams with high level technical players will look to exploit this. I do understand that this is a bit of a risk reward factor, the reward being you cut off a lot of passing lanes and remain very compact ball side, the risk being you’re vulnerable to a switch of play.

Low block wise we sat in a 5-3-2 with Bell dropping into the 1st line to stop them overloading us 5v4 as seen below.

MENTALITY ISSUES:

Since Duff’s arrival we’ve been very strong mentally, grinding out results away such as the 1-0 win away at Wigan Athletic, not stopping until we got that goal against Blackpool away in the 90+12 minute, keeping our heads when we conceded a penalty to Orient to make it 1-1 (went on to win the game 4-1), even as recent as 19 days ago when we were 2-0 up against Lincoln, went on to concede 2 goals levelling it up and we STILL went and scored again to win against (at the time) a top of the league Lincoln side.

The concerns comes in recent games during this blip in form. Below are three tweets which I put out previously talking about the team mentally, we seem to have random phases late on in games were the intensity completely drops off, we become weak in duels, passive in the counter press, passive in regular pressing, lazy decision making on the ball and losing concentration when defending the box. It needs to change SOON.

So vital we remained focussed for the entire 90 minutes, out of possession in a Duff system it’s high demands for the players with lots of pressing (good thing), but then it’s down to Duff to make changes to freshen things up and keep the intensity levels high.

Against Plymouth he only used two subs, against Rotherham he made three with the 1st coming in the 72nd minute, against Lincoln (yes we won) but he didn’t make a sub until the 80th minute. We were 2-0 up at 60 mins, the press became passive from that time, 16 minutes later it’s 2-2…

So important the players remain intense in their actions for the whole 90.

MICHAEL DUFF ASSESSMENT:

I am very high on Michael Duff, I have repeatedly praised him tactically on multiple occasions and gave him significant credit, but Tuesday wasn’t his best performance.

The press was exploitable and we were wasteful in possession, the latter I put down to the players as in settled possession we were set up structurally well, although as mentioned earlier in DEEP build up the distances between players were too big.

I’m hoping this is just problems for one game, just like the disconnection between the defensive and attacking lines were against Wimbledon…recognised it and adapted for the next game.

Duff has been top tactically since his arrival, I have full faith he’ll turn it around. We’ve been poor away from home so Burton up next will be a big indication as to were we are. The first 60 minutes I will be watching closely for tactical reasons, 60 minutes onwards it’s all about the mental side for me.

Big game coming up to stay in the hunt for playoffs!

Dom

X – @DZI_WWFC