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Tactics TFC's Tactical Autopsy Thread

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Richard Arlison said:

View: https://x.com/arabanalytics/status/1839696235432755245?s=46&t=DK3x3JffKkqwqcsQdIeO_A

More data suggesting our press is making us very stingey defensively when it comes to box touches allowed.

Fulham also pretty interesting for me looking at the charts. They don’t press much but when they do, they shut teams out
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Silva and Fulham are quietly going on about their way and having a really strong start to the season tbh

Lost just once so far and that was against United on opening day, when lets be honest, they deserved alot more.

Smashed Newcastle too. They've got City and Villa next two games so will be interesting.
 
Spursidol said:
Playing against ManU today with Maddison and Kulusevski in central midfield I think the full backs reverted to being close to conventional full backs as there was much less room in the CM position

This may also mean that Spurs had a stronger defence with 2 CB's and 2 FB's

This maybe why Van de Venn had the freedom early on to break forward at speed to cut back to Johnson in 3rd minute to score.

A tactical tweak which ManU may not have been aware of and didn't plan for ?

Thoughts ?
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We did this against Brentford and I believe it caught Thomas Frank by surprise and he didn't have an answer.
 
I think Ten Hag was expecting Porro and Udogie to be bombing forward and leave huge gaps on the wings for Garnacho and Rashford. Ange was too clever and told Porro and Udogie to stay home with VDV and Romero….
 
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Shadydan said:
We did this against Brentford and I believe it caught Thomas Frank by surprise and he didn't have an answer.
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Welcome back.

I hadn't spotted its use v Brentford (and I guess true of Ten Hag too :D :D :wall: )

Maybe a bigger point is that Ange has shown that his tactics are capable of variation, and that is definitely good as it makes us far less predictable so opposition is more likely to be caught out more times ! Maybe its one of Ange second season tactics to win more games !
 
Starks said:
Silva and Fulham are quietly going on about their way and having a really strong start to the season tbh

Lost just once so far and that was against United on opening day, when lets be honest, they deserved alot more.

Smashed Newcastle too. They've got City and Villa next two games so will be interesting.
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I need to have a decent look at them. I saw the utd game and thought they deserved 3pts.

Good chance they are the team people expected Palace to be and challenge top 10
 
Starks said:
Silva and Fulham are quietly going on about their way and having a really strong start to the season tbh

Lost just once so far and that was against United on opening day, when lets be honest, they deserved alot more.

Smashed Newcastle too. They've got City and Villa next two games so will be interesting.
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I've always rated Silva (well, ever since he got a tune out of an appalling Hull team playing caveman football and almost kept them up). There's always the danger that he'll be off the minute he hears of a bigger club showing interest.
 
Spursidol said:
Playing against ManU today with Maddison and Kulusevski in central midfield I think the full backs reverted to being close to conventional full backs as there was much less room in the CM position

This may also mean that Spurs had a stronger defence with 2 CB's and 2 FB's

This maybe why Van de Venn had the freedom early on to break forward at speed to cut back to Johnson in 3rd minute to score.

A tactical tweak which ManU may not have been aware of and didn't plan for ?

Thoughts ?
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Porro played about the widest I've seen. Meanwhile Udogie and Spence were fully inverted as normal. Check out the heatmaps at https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...-League-2024-2025-Manchester-United-Tottenham and select the individual players to see (can't be bothered uploading a screenshot sorry).

This fb structure created space for Maddison to roam diagonally deep into the space Porro would normally occupy (exactly where he drew the foul from Bruno for example). This, plus Udogie/Spence staying inverted, meant Werner wasn't crowded out and could get outside his man or played in behind.
 
SeeSpotRun said:
Porro played about the widest I've seen. Meanwhile Udogie and Spence were fully inverted as normal. Check out the heatmaps at https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...-League-2024-2025-Manchester-United-Tottenham and select the individual players to see (can't be bothered uploading a screenshot sorry).

This fb structure created space for Maddison to roam diagonally deep into the space Porro would normally occupy (exactly where he drew the foul from Bruno for example). This, plus Udogie/Spence staying inverted, meant Werner wasn't crowded out and could get outside his man or played in behind.
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You're right Porro seems much wider than normal. Presumably you meant Kulusevski could occupy the space vacated because Maddison tends to operate on the other side? Heat maps of the two seem to back that up.

What's interesting is some of the pics of our set up seem to place Porro where he usually is: right up high in the right #10 role. Maybe it was an in game adjustment to make him play deeper.
 
Klaus said:
You're right Porro seems much wider than normal. Presumably you meant Kulusevski could occupy the space vacated because Maddison tends to operate on the other side? Heat maps of the two seem to back that up.

What's interesting is some of the pics of our set up seem to place Porro where he usually is: right up high in the right #10 role. Maybe it was an in game adjustment to make him play deeper.
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Yes fair call, I think I just noticed Maddison's deep right positioning a couple of times and hadn't checked his heatmap to confirm.
Still, if you look at the combined heatmap for Maddison, Kulusevski and Bentancur it's very right-biased which did create space for ILB/LW. It helped address one of the things you were pointing out the other week with us being too close together:
Klaus said:
Everything is much too narrow, allowing Everton to condense the play. The players aren't well spread out; Porro and Kulusevski are practically on top of each other, and the pass isn't on to either.
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Presumably Ange and his tactical team are having similar conversations to ours here each week and reaching similar conclusions.
 
SeeSpotRun said:
Porro played about the widest I've seen. Meanwhile Udogie and Spence were fully inverted as normal. Check out the heatmaps at https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...-League-2024-2025-Manchester-United-Tottenham and select the individual players to see (can't be bothered uploading a screenshot sorry).

This fb structure created space for Maddison to roam diagonally deep into the space Porro would normally occupy (exactly where he drew the foul from Bruno for example). This, plus Udogie/Spence staying inverted, meant Werner wasn't crowded out and could get outside his man or played in behind.
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Klaus said:
You're right Porro seems much wider than normal. Presumably you meant Kulusevski could occupy the space vacated because Maddison tends to operate on the other side? Heat maps of the two seem to back that up.

What's interesting is some of the pics of our set up seem to place Porro where he usually is: right up high in the right #10 role. Maybe it was an in game adjustment to make him play deeper.
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The interesting one for me on heatmaps and the FBs is actually Kulusevski. His biggest heat spot is the CF position. After that he's also occupying a lot of the areas that Porro used to when he was more inverted.

I was expecting it to be a 2 player rotation between Porro and Johnson but is was much more a 3 player rotation with Kulusevski. Also, have a look at Solanke's...he definitely has a lot of touches deeper in build up in that inverted right FB area.
 
Richard Arlison said:
The interesting one for me on heatmaps and the FBs is actually Kulusevski. His biggest heat spot is the CF position. After that he's also occupying a lot of the areas that Porro used to when he was more inverted.

I was expecting it to be a 2 player rotation between Porro and Johnson but is was much more a 3 player rotation with Kulusevski. Also, have a look at Solanke's...he definitely has a lot of touches deeper in build up in that inverted right FB area.
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I'm just glad I'm not defending against us when we're cooking.
 
SeeSpotRun said:
Presumably Ange and his tactical team are having similar conversations to ours here each week and reaching similar conclusions.
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I can just about picture it:

Ange: "Alright, settle down youse lot, I call this weekly tactical review session to order! Any suggestions for our next match vs United?
Mile: "We should play a low block and play Route One to hit them on the counter"
Ange: "Maaaate... that's outside the mandate, not the Spurs way, not Angeball, yada yada. Anyway, you say that every week..."
Mile: "Well if you're not going to listen to my ideas, what am I doing here?"
Ange: ..............................................
Mile: [grunts]
Monty: "Um... Klaus reckon's our players are too close together when we push forwards in our Boa Constrictor formation"
Ange: "Carpet Python"
Monty: "Huh?"
Ange: "Carpet Python, not Boa Constrictor... I'm not copying Pep mate... Never mind that, who the fuck is Klaus?"
Monty: "Just a guy on TFC"
Ange: "Oh. Wait, is that the guy I put on ignore?"
Monty: "Probably. Doesn't matter, look at these pics. Here's Man City set up in their Boa... now here's us attacking against Everton in our... what was it... Carpet Python formation... anyway, see how we're too close together?
Ange: "Hmmm, that doesn't look smart. Johan?"
Johan: "We ran the simulation already and it will improve our offensiveness efficiency by approximately 37.2%"
Ange: "Ok, let's change it. But how do we train the guys to do that?"
Lange: "Actually my R&D guys have been working on this. We've developed a collar for our players to wear during the training drills. If they get within 10m of any team-mate it delivers a small electric shock"
Mile: "Yes!!!"
Ryan: "No!!!"
Lange: "It's quite safe, approximately 30% below lethal dose... actually Mile is wearing the prototype right now... it's activated by the red button in front of you..."
Mile: "Owwwwww fuck off Ange"
Ange: "Ok guys, let's set it up for Saturday morning training session."
 
 
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