Latest news with #tactics
The Sun
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Top five genius Premier League 2024/25 tactics from Arsenal jigsaw to Tottenham's ‘wheel of chaos'
THE Premier League campaign is over - and it is time for Tactics Exposed's awards. Our tactical expert Dean Scoggins has unpacked the systems, shapes and styles that managers have deployed to varying levels of success this season. 29 29 Manchester United and Tottenham only narrowly avoid relegation. Crystal Palace, Newcastle and Spurs ended their long wait for trophies, Nottingham Forest will play in Europe for the first time in 30 years and Manchester City endured a nightmare year. And SunSport's record-breaking show has delivered top-quality analysis for its first full season. As the curtain falls on 2024-25, in our final episode, we pick out our top five genius tactics from the Premier League... 5. Arsenal's sensational set pieces Assuming the timing and the trajectory of the delivery are sorted, then it is all about the runners, who form a love train at the back post. All but one run in and slot in between each gap between the defenders, creating a jigsaw. Assuming the corner avoids the front man, the next person in the train is an attacking Arsenal player. They jump in sequence which sounds simple but it's not, especially because you can't see the ball so they have to trust their team-mates - as soon as the man in front jumps, the next one jumps. Sometimes they identify a weak link and will put two men into the gap in front of him. 29 29 29 29 4. The double Enzo at Chelsea Enzo Maresca was forced into a switch against Tottenham in December where he dropped Enzo Fernandez into a deeper midfield role and abandoned the box shape. How Tottenham won the Europa League final v Man United 29 29 29 29 Fernandez partnered Moises Caicedo in a two and bossed the game in the second half. He was fantastic. His movement off the ball and understanding of what is happening in the game is brilliant. A manager might see it - but you still need a player to carry it out on the pitch. He may have been more than £100million but his performances for Chelsea went under the radar. 3. Omar Marmoush's arrival In January, City came from behind to beat Chelsea - thanks to new arrival Omar Marmoush. City paid £64million to land the Egyptian from Eintracht Frankfurt and what a signing he is, making an immediate impact. He said upon his arrival that he is "dangerous" and that is no exaggeration. Marmoush started three or four yards in front of Reece James to make sure he was well onside, pointed where he wanted it - and backed himself in a race. 29 29 29 29 By scaring James, the Chelsea man knew he couldn't let Marmoush get away and therefore stuck with him... and kept Marmoush onside. Marmoush offers something different from Savinho, Jeremy Doku and to an extent Jack Grealish who are fast but crucially want the ball to feet - Marmoush is happy to run behind on to it. To start with, City were not releasing the ball quickly enough to set him away - but they soon learnt. And it was good news for Erling Haaland to have a runner in the half-space - not out on the wing but also not as a second striker but in between. This was long passes, not long ball - there is a difference. 2. Liverpool's offside-busting move We talk a lot about how teams change formations between defence and attack. Like many teams, Liverpool move into a 3-2-5 in attack. But the genius is that they use runners off the ball to bust the offside trap. These runners don't want the ball and the runs are wild - it could be Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dominik Szoboszlai or more often than not Andy Robertson. It is a lung-busting sprint of about 40 yards from their own half in behind the opposition defence to force them back. 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 It makes a usually straight flat back four all jagged and ensures the attacking players who want the ball are not offside. As well as the confusion, it also creates a gap between defence and midfield - which creates more space for the creative playmakers to operate. Against United, Robertson ended up in the left striker position, Harry Maguire dropped two steps and that was enough to keep Cody Gakpo onside. A VAR world is changing the game for Liverpool as these marginal ones get properly checked. 1. Tottenham's Wheel of Chaos Everyone thinks it's a wild way of playing because they concede silly goals from silly mistakes but Ange Postecoglou has a very rigid structure the players have to play within. I see the Spurs team as two 'wheels of chaos' with three players on each side - a high No8 like James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski on either side, then a full-back on either side and a winger on either side. They don't cross over across the field much but will rotate within the threes. It is based on a ball out wide which then enables quick, first-time passes to progress up the wings. It leaves the goalkeeper, centre-backs, holding midfielder and striker as a central spine. The rigidity does, though, make Tottenham susceptible to teams setting up against them by dropping midfielders in to stop the underlap. 29 29 29 29
New York Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Premier League tactical trends 2024-25: Goalkeeper long passes, inswinging corners and fast breaks
It feels a lifetime ago that Arne Slot spoke about the importance of winning duels after Liverpool won away 2-0 to Ipswich Town on the opening day of the season. Nine months, 379 matches and 1,113 goals later — the second-most in a Premier League season behind 2023-24 — Slot's Liverpool have waltzed to the title, the promoted trio are relegated for the second consecutive season, and Nottingham Forest are the first team to double their points tally from one Premier League campaign to another. It was also a season packed with tactical intrigue. Let's dive into the trends from 2024-25. Nothing encapsulates the specificity of roles in Pep Guardiola's Manchester City team better than the goalkeeper, Ederson, and striker Erling Haaland, ending the season with the same number of assists (four). When teams press City man-for-man, the distance-kicking qualities of their goalkeeper are essential. Guardiola described it as 'a weapon that we have to exploit' earlier in the season. An important part is how short and slow City play so often in build-up, luring teams on to them and only — as Ahmed Walid wrote earlier this season — playing long passes in-behind when it is practical. The overall trend of goalkeepers launching (kicking 40+ yards) in open-play continues to drop, now down to 43 per cent. It is a less steep drop (four per cent) than between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (seven per cent) and, for context, Ligue 1 and Bundesliga goalkeepers play even shorter. Opta's data on launched goal-kicks dates back to 2017-18, and in this time frame, after six years of a steady downward trend, it is the first time that launch rates in those scenarios have plateaued — at one in three, which makes for a suitable tactical blueprint: play short twice, and when the opponents step up to press at the third goal-kick, play over them. Advertisement There were nine goalkeeper assists in 2024-25, the most in any Premier League campaign. Mark Flekken (Brentford), Jordan Pickford (Everton), Bernd Leno (Fulham), Bart Verbruggen (Brighton & Hove Albion), and Ederson all set up goals. Ederson was particularly effective at going in-behind when opponents locked on man-for-man but failed to apply pressure to the ball. This gave him time and space to be on the ball outside his box and pick a pass. It happened to Newcastle for the opening goal when they went to the Etihad in February. Here, Haaland and winger Savinho make opposite movements to manipulate Newcastle's man-marking. The No 9 drops in, taking Dan Burn away from Savinho as he runs in-behind. Kieran Trippier misjudges Ederson's pass, leaving the Brazil international alone to lob Martin Dubravka. The same happened to Brentford when they squeezed high at the Etihad, man-for-man, but did not press Ederson. This time, the goalkeeper played into the other channel as Kristoffer Ajer and Nathan Collins locked on to City midfielders. Haaland arced his run into space. His marker, Ethan Pinnock, misjudged the flight as he tried to block the Norwegian, who took two touches to control the ball and set himself before chipping past Flekken. City's fourth goal in their 5-2 comeback win over Crystal Palace was another example. Palace do not press man-for-man here, sitting in a 5-3-2 (but double-marking City's two pivots with their own midfielders and No 9s) with an aggressively positioned back five. James McAtee arcs his run along the defensive line, away from wing-back Tyrick Mitchell, kept onside by the far-side defenders. He misses when he tries to control Ederson's dropping long pass, and the pace takes him past Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson, who rushes out — he taps into an empty net. Bournemouth caught the eye this term — earning a club-record points total — with an intense out-of-possession style. They encapsulated just how physical the division has become. Data provider SkillCorner, who extract contextual metrics from broadcast tracking data, have measured the year-on-year increase in sprint distance in Premier League matches since 2018-19. Advertisement Comparing 2024-25 with six seasons ago, overall running distance is up just over six per cent, players are sprinting 19 per cent more often and 22 per cent further. This is fundamental to implement the pressing schemes that have become typical in the league. Though, after four years of them increasing season-on-season, the number of final-third regains has actually dropped, down to its lowest rate since 2020-21. That statistic could be linked to increasing physical intensity, with teams needing more (and longer) recovery sprints when opponents are playing over or through them. Andoni Iraola's Bournemouth were the best pressing team for final-third regains per match (5.7). For context in the rest of the league dropping off, there were five sides last season who made more. Teams adopted the 'if you can't beat them, join them' perspective after multiple seasons of Arsenal and Aston Villa enjoying success from inswinging corners. That corner type had accounted for 45-50 per cent of all deliveries in the previous five years. Recent seasons, though, have seen outswingers and straight balls steadily decline. Nottingham Forest were the only team to take more outswinging than inswinging corners in 2024-25. That outlier approach worked as they were one of only four teams to score 10+ corner goals, and ranked second for corners per goal (scoring once every 16 deliveries). In total, 2,341 inswinging corners were taken, which accounted for over 60 per cent of all corners — a higher total and proportion than any season since 2018-19. From the right, one in three corners targeted the six-yard box, with almost half of all left-side deliveries being dropped on to the goalkeeper. Curling inswingers for big centre-backs to attack is a throwback as corner tactics go, particularly in an era of set-piece coaches, though having specialists in this department ought to have contributed more on the defensive side. A combined league total of 135 goals from corners is the lowest for four years, with total xG from these scenarios and corners per goal (a measurement of efficiency) also at four-year lows — it is a drop of 36 corner goals with teams on average scoring once every 29 corners, five more than last season. Advertisement There were defensive improvements across the board, as last term City and Fulham were the only teams to concede fewer than six goals from corners, and in 2024-25, nine different sides conceded five or fewer. A simple but key reason may have been the absences of quality takers, with injuries limiting minutes for Bukayo Saka (Arsenal) and Kevin De Bruyne (City), while James Ward-Prowse (Nottingham Forest then West Ham) and Kieran Trippier (Newcastle) struggled for game time, and Brighton's Pascal Gross left last summer. The Premier League can now take the title from the Bundesliga: statistically, it is the most counter-attacking of Europe's major leagues. England's top tier had been trending in this direction anyway, with the past three years seeing the number of fast-break shots rise from 226 in 2020-21 to 392 last term, while the past two seasons featured over 80 fast-break goals — a threshold that was not broken between 2018-19 and 2021-22. A different level of counter-attacking was reached in 2024-25 with 513 fast-break shots and 112 goals from those situations. Liverpool and Mohamed Salah led the way, with 52 shots and 14 goals (22 and seven for Salah) from fast breaks being the best numbers by a team in any Premier League season in the past seven years — the frequency at which they went ahead in games allowed Liverpool to maximise the counter-attacking tactics that get the best of out Salah. Every team scored at least twice from fast breaks, which owes to the rise of quick, individualistic wingers and forwards spread across the division, plus the extent to which most teams want organised possession in the opposition half — that increases transition opportunities. A special mention for Ipswich Town's Liam Delap here, who accounted for 47 per cent of their fast-break shots in 2024-25, and scored four of their six goals from these scenarios. That accounted for one-third of his 12 goals in his breakout season, as the No 9 was able to maximise his running power and ball-carrying quality. The Premier League's middle-class rose this season, with all the teams between fifth (Newcastle) and 11th (Fulham) in the Championship as recently as 2017. Their attacking success in 2024-25 owed, for plenty of that pack, to attacking partnerships. Newcastle's Jacob Murphy provided No 9 Alexander Isak with plenty of cutbacks and low crosses from the right. Being a right-footer on his natural side 'brings a whole different dynamic,' he said in an interview with The Athletic last week. Savinho to Haaland and Anthony Elanga to Chris Wood were other winger-to-striker combinations that proved fruitful — the Sweden international has set Wood up 10 times since the start of last term, including four instances this campaign. Aston Villa (Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers) and Crystal Palace (Eberechi Eze and Jean-Philippe Mateta) both had success with No 10s playing off strikers. Advertisement Brentford's fluid strike partnership of Yoane Wissa (19 goals, converted from winger to striker) and Bryan Mbeumo (20) was one of the finest in the division, combining for 29 chances and six goals. All in, there were 14 instances of one player assisting another 4+ times in the Premier League in 2024-25, more than any campaign since 2017-18 (16 instances).
Times
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Times
Joyful Scott McTominay — a title-chaser made and discarded by United
Almost from the moment that Scott McTominay pulled on the red jersey of Manchester United's first team, there was a perception of him as a certain type of player: humble, attentive, and above all, unfailingly obedient. In 2018, his breakthrough season under José Mourinho, a source told the Independent that he was 'an ideal blank canvas' to whom Mourinho 'can give specific tactical instructions that will be rigorously carried out'. The next season, he was described in another report as 'a player whose greatest skill seems to be doing exactly what the manager tells him to do'. In 2021, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer now in charge, another article quoted a dressing-room insider as saying: 'He follows instructions. He doesn't ask loads of questions but he's
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Sunderland face playoffs with teenage stars, left-field Le Bris but investment issues
It is May 2024 and Illan Meslier, the Leeds goalkeeper, is singing the praises of a former Lorient youth coach whose astute mentoring shaped his career. But who is this left-field thinker who dispatched his young goalkeepers to undergo professional boxing training, spend hours performing acrobatics on trampolines and talk intensely to sports psychologists? Régis Le Bris eventually became Lorient's first-team manager in 2022 but, after a promising opening season, the Breton team were relegated from Ligue 1 last spring. No matter; a month on from that chat with Meslier in North Yorkshire, Sunderland named Le Bris as their head coach and, now, the 49-year-old is preparing to lead the club out at Wembley on Saturday. Along the way the self-confessed 'average' Rennes defender turned academically inclined youth coach – he holds a doctorate in human physiology and biomechanics and a psychology diploma – has delighted in trampling on convention. Unusually, a man who began learning English in 2022 arrived on Wearside alone and was happy to work with Sunderland's coaching staff. He lives near his Newcastle counterpart Eddie Howe, and a host of north-east footballers, in an upmarket area of Northumberland but that is about as conventional as Le Bris gets. Part of those doctorate studies involved compiling a dissertation on new ways of using oxygen to revive fatigued and distressed athletes. Whatever happens on Saturday his sometimes unorthodox tactical methodology has breathed new life into Sunderland. Although Le Bris adapts formations, personnel and tactics to the opposition, his philosophy is underpinned by a belief that the game is a form of trigonometry. 'Triangles are the basis of everything we do,' says a coach whose often counterattacking winger-propelled gameplans tend to be heavily dependent on triangular passing interactions between full-backs, wingers and No 8s. As the forward Eliezer Mayenda says: 'It's all about finding the right triangles.' During Le Bris's teenage years in the western Breton village of Pont-l'Abbé, he devoted his spare time to completing an in-depth analysis of Arsène Wenger's tactics as Monaco's manager. As an adult, he spent holidays touring clubs across Spain and England – Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton and Leeds included – to watch their coaches. 'He's not someone who shouts at you,' the Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor says, 'but he makes you understand things really, really thoroughly.' The winger Patrick Roberts agrees. 'He's efficient,' he says. 'He's brought us new ideas and he's capable of changing our play depending on the opponent. He's modern.' With a median age of 22.4 Sunderland have, on average, fielded the Championship's youngest starting XIs this season. A squad notable for the absence of outfield players over 30 ranks as one of Europe's most youthful and is often heavily reliant on the much-coveted midfield skills of the 19-year-old Jobe Bellingham and 17-year-old Chris Rigg. It is part of a strategy devised by Kristjaan Speakman, Sunderland's sporting director, involving the fusion of promising youngsters from the highly regarded academy with raw, often flawed, young talent acquired relatively cheaply from across Europe. There is no squeamishness about buying to sell. Last season's star winger Jack Clarke joined Ipswich for £15m last summer, and another winger, the 19-year-old Tommy Watson, will sign for Brighton for £10m this summer. Bellingham was bought from Birmingham for £1.5m but could be poised to join Borussia Dortmund for £25m. Clarke's replacement has been the excellent Romaine Mundle, a former Tottenham youth player recruited from Standard Liège for £1m. Le Bris's two main strikers, Isidor, a £5m purchase from Zenit St Petersburg, and Mayenda, £1m from Sochaux, have appreciated considerably in value. Whether this strategy could continue working in the Premier League remains to be seen but Sunderland's owner, the 27-year-old Swiss-French billionaire Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, is on a mission to run the club as a sustainable business. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion It helps that Le Bris, unlike some recently promoted managers (see Russell Martin at Southampton), is not a slave to positional-style, play-it-out-from-the-back football. Sunderland overcame Coventry in the playoff semi-final courtesy of about 25% possession and an ultra-low block so winning ugly poses few problems. Nonetheless, a significant investment in higher-calibre players would appear essential if immediate relegation were to be avoided. The infrastructure – a 49,000-capacity stadium and Premier League-standard training facility – is in place but commercial revenues are about a third of those commanded by Leeds, the Championship winners, and require significant boosting. Potential investors are thought to be waiting in the wings, with Louis-Dreyfus believed to be ready to invite them on to the board should promotion be secured. Enzo Le Fée helped create Sunderland's three goals against Coventry. No matter that the Roma loanee playmaker was largely deployed out of position on the left wing, Le Fée underlined why Le Bris persuaded Speakman to relax club recruitment rules to be reunited with his former Lorient protege in January. Should Sunderland win promotion, a 25-year-old who revels as a No 10 will automatically see his loan morph into a £20m transfer. Much may hinge on whether the recently hamstrung Mundle is fit to start wide on the left at Wembley.
Forbes
14-05-2025
- Forbes
Beyond The Click: Why Lead Generation Culture Must Evolve Now
What was once a landscape often dominated by volume and aggressive tactics is quickly changing.
