Teething Issues - Blackburn (H)

I’m not sure how many of these I’ll write this season, but given this was our first competitive game of the Peixoto era (sorry Vale, you do not qualify for this) - I wanted to highlight some things that stuck out from Friday night. If you want the TLDR: we were slightly bailed out and there are some in-possession quirks I’m extremely unsure of. But if you want the detail, then read on!

Important caveat here: it’s the first game of the season. Treat anyone drawing season-defining conclusions with severe caution this early on. Anyway:

The press isn’t a mess…but it’s confused:

I want to address the shape here. Fotmob had us set up in a 4-2-3-1 with Munetsi and Andre in the double pivot, I disagree though, this looked more like a 4-1-2-3 in-possession and a confused 4-1-4-1 when we didn’t have the ball. The focus is the press right now though, so the latter is more relevant.

Here’s a sequence from early in the second half:

This is fine (sort of). We’re extremely high and Andre has at least two men behind him to be wary of, but Fer is cutting the passing lane to the LCB, Rodrigo can gamble on Forshaw or sink to cover the LB, Armstrong is screening the pass into the RCB with Munetsi behind and Mane (just out of shot) can push on the RB.

This is a few seconds later:

Rodrigo and Andre miscommunicate, Munetsi jumps onto Forshaw as a result who bounces the ball into the LCB, the ball goes into LB half a second later and the press has collapsed completely.

We’re left with this after a simple ball into midfield from the LB:

Ultimately this doesn’t end up costing us as Blackburn fire over from the edge of the box, but I wanted to highlight that two things can be true at once:

• You can be a high energy, willing presser of the ball (Armstrong, Gomes, Munetsi and to my surprise, Lopez)

• That well-intentioned press that gets the fans onside can often be to the detriment of the team’s shape as a whole

We all want to see players chasing down lost causes and harrying opponents into mistakes, but a lot of our press on Friday didn’t feel well coordinated or communicated. It often left Andre covering acres of space in midfield, he’s not a particularly mobile midfielder at the best of times, left alone on an island like this is a recipe for disaster.

Here’s another example:

Raul is pressuring the ball, Munetsi is screening with Armstrong but neither of them are “actively” pressing here, nor are they in a recognised shape. Here’s the result when the RCB finds a nice pass through the lines:

Four players taken out of the game with one pass. Again, the press/screen from Munetsi/Armstrong is well-intentioned, but it leaves Andre on an island and Blackburn are in down the right.

There will of course be teething issues, a lot of this squad haven’t played together and a press is a difficult thing to coordinate. I’m interested to see how Peixoto remedies this - at the moment it feels like a lot of running without a lot of thought (this applies to many of the front line). If we’re committing to a press this high then it needs to apply across the pitch, which means reducing the gaps between defensive, midfield and attacking lines to pen opponents in and force a long ball. Anyway, next on the agenda.

The importance of triangles:

I need to go back to the shape point briefly. This was a 4-1-2-3 in build up to all intents and purposes. The back four was as expected, Andre was in a single pivot, with Munetsi and Lopez allowed to play essentially as free 8s. As we built up, Fer would often drop a bit deeper to get on the ball, whereas Munetsi had been instructed to occupy the last line of defence.

The explainer here is obvious, Munetsi isn’t necessarily someone you’d involve in build up until the final action (see the first goal for his excellent run and finish), whereas you want to get Fer on the ball as much as possible. It makes sense, but it also comes at a cost. Here’s what that looked like in build up:

The difference in build up from the right side to the left was stark. When the ball was rotated to Trippier at RB, sometimes Fer would drop in while Rodrigo stretched the play, at other points Fer drifted further infield to allow Trippier and Rodrigo to combine. Those counter movements were a prominent feature of our play down the right, Lopez’s instinct to inside drift onto his left foot opened up space for Gomes who’s always a willing runner. Add Trippier’s ball retention into the mix and you get three players combining to create something of a push and pull effect in the Blackburn back line that led to confusion as to who was marking who.

In this example Gomes sinks while Lopez runs off his midfield marker, both the LB and CM aren’t sure whose assignment is whose and a lofted Tripper ball into the right channel sets Lopez away:

I’m still very much unconvinced that Gomes is a RW by nature, and I think we can be proactive in the market here to bring in a more natural starter in that spot, where we can build a trio that can be devastating at this level. A shout out to Peixoto here too, he’s no doubt helped by having the intelligence and technical ability of Lopez in these areas, but this is good coaching and as the players spend longer together these on-pitch relationships will only improve!

What we saw on the other flank though, was the polar opposite. It led quite a few to single out Mateus Mane for criticism (after watching the game back he was slightly wasteful but still operating at a decent level), but it’s where I want to go back to the title of this section, the importance of triangles.

Take a look at the passmap from Friday. Look at how close-knit Trippier, Lopez and Gomes are, then compare that to DMW, Mane and Munetsi:

Whereas the right side triangle benefits from their free 8 being Fer Lopez and all the craft and guile that comes with him, the left side has Mane and David Moller Wolfe with Munetsi as the free 8. This meant that the combination play we found fruitful on the right was basically impossible to replicate on the left, what we had instead was a lot of one-dimensional passing between Mane and DMW.

I’ve tried to illustrate it here in the above. With DMW in possession and Mane ahead of him, in an ideal world our second free 8 is at the tip of that triangle, looking to create the sort of confusion we managed on the right. You can see Munetsi however, behind the play already and eventually looking to jump forward without involving himself in build up. How much of this is individual playing style versus coaching is difficult to say at this point, but the times we did see Munetsi get the ball in the Lopez areas, the first touch was heavy or the wrong decision was made.

This isn’t an exercise in singling Munetsi out though. There were times where both he and DMW intelligently carved space for Mane to go at his man 1v1 and he simply neglected to do so, playing back to Toti or DMW. The best moments Mane had all game were ones where he was in tight spaces, able to use his body to wriggle away from his marker and drive centrally. He isn’t blessed with explosive pace or a lot of trickery necessarily, his profile lends itself to that an attacking 8 or 10 spot, but I can’t see Peixoto playing both him and Lopez in those areas in the same side so CP needs to tinker here to get Mane the ball in the right areas. That probably starts with the Munetsi role being revised or a signing in that position that’s more comfortable on the ball.

Miscellaneous points I ran out of time to expand on:

• Toti and Yerson Mosquera were nowhere near as bad as you remember them being, save for some dubious back passes

• DMW should get out to his man quicker for the opener, but McLoughlin runs 15-20 yards on everybody’s blind side, Toti thinks (correctly) that he has his man covered, and the Blackburn man simply ghosts in without anyone noticing, it’s an odd goal - Bentley might do better (could we just sign a ‘keeper?). Long story short, re-organising post set pieces isn’t easy!

• The second goal is 90% Andre’s fault. He’s ahead of the ball which forces Toti to come across and deal with his man, Andre and Mosquera are then completely unaware of the danger in the box and slow to react

• Interchange between the likes of Doyle, Raul and Fer in and around the box was promising, numerous small openings came about because of it

• This squad looks seriously fit, the likes of Lopez, Armstrong and Gomes never stopped running, it’s been mentioned by the players already and we’re seeing it on the pitch

• It’s the first game of the season and this side will improve

Cheers for reading.