Minority Report v Cardiff City

In their last match, Cardiff played 4-3-3, and I am going to assume that they will again, even though they have sacked their manager since their last game, and have appointed Mick McCarthy in his stead. This should give me an opportunity to discuss a weakness of our 3-4-3 against teams that play with width in their front 3. That system means that the 2 wide players in our back 3 will be pitched against pace when the opposition breaks quickly, and that is the weakness of both Sollbauer and Andersen. As a result, our wing backs will be cautious of advancing too far in support of our attacking play and leaving the two wide centre-backs unprotected.


Minority Report usually concentrates on shape, systems and tactics, but today it will try to show how those things affect how a player has had to modify his normal game, in order to meet the demands imposed upon him by the tactics. In my view, many players receive undue criticism when they are simply trying their best to meet team demands whilst having to play outside their comfort zones. I will try to explain the effects that this has had on their performance.


I wrote those opening 2 paragraphs long before the match kicked off. That first half surprised me. Posters had commented that against Norwich, we played a lot more football. In that first half, we did nothing of the sort. In fact, both teams spent most of the half kicking the ball 50 yards between back lines. Actually, I felt that this affected Cardiff more than it did us. We left our wing backs deeper than normal and we also picked Sibbick, who has more pace than Sollbauer, but even so, the Cardiff wide players (Hoilett and Ojo) were not in the game because Moore could not win enough of the high ball. The Barnsley front 3 did their usual job of hunting second balls, and trying to recover the ball in the Cardiff half. Readers on the BBS will be getting bored with me now because of the times that I have repeated it, but I much prefer to watch attacks constructed along the ground and built from the back. The haphazard nature of balls hit high into strategic areas, followed by the pressuring of the opposition defender in an attempt to regain possession higher just bores me silly, and I say that even though we led at half-time (an Andersen header from a Frieser cross after a Brittain throw-in).


The second half began in the same way, and we doubled our lead with a Woodrow header from a Mowatt free kick. Soon after, Ojo defected in from a shot following a Cardiff corner, and I immediately got a bad feeling. The game was far more open, even though both teams were still using the long ball, almost exclusively. It was as though neither coach had heard of the beautiful game. However, when the equaliser arrived, it came once more from a corner. Sibbick was out-muscled at the far post, and Moore scored with a downward header, which bounced up off the turf and into the roof of the net. To be honest, I had wondered earlier whether it was time for Sibbick to be subbed. The logic for his inclusion was good because we needed more pace, but Cardiff had not played with pace out wide. In the second half, they had tried to dominate us physically, especially at set-pieces and long throws. In those circumstances, the strength of Sollbauer would have been more useful than the pace of Sibbick.


Styles had a half chance to win the game for us in the 90th minute, but frankly, for most of the final 20 minutes, Cardiff looked the more likely winner. All the goals in the game had been scored from set pieces, and 3 of the 4 were from headers. Those two statistics say a lot more about the game than another thousand words from me. It was yet another game that was not in the least beautiful. I know others do not judge by those standards, but I hated the game from beginning to end.


In my second paragraph, I promised to highlight how the demands of the system had affected the play of the individual players. Well here goes. Brittain and Styles were very ineffective going forward. They were required to play deeper because of the threat posed by the Cardiff wide players. Styles’ game in particular is not suited when his constructive bias is bottled up because the team shape requires him to play defensively. I am not clear where Styles plays in the 3-4-3 system to be at his effective best. Many will shout that he is a central midfield player, but those two are required to hold their shape and just hit long balls forward. That is not because Mowatt, Palmer and Kane could not play in a different way. They could. It is because the system needs them to retain their midfield shape in order to protect the back 3 from midfield runners. As for the front 3. They surely cannot enjoy playing in a team that has them as the front line of our defence. The system is a waste of forward talent, and those who blame the front 3 for our lack of goals should ask themselves the question, how would I control those long balls when most pass 10 feet over my head, and how am I expected to control those balls when facing the wrong way with a 6 foot opponent breathing down my neck.

 

I only wrote the opening 2 paragraphs before the game. I wanted to set up the things that would undoubtedly happen when our system (3-4-3) came up against 4-3-3 with wide forward players. In fact, it did not happen quite as I expected it to. I did not expect Cardiff to use the long ball as they did, and as I have said, I thought that it spoiled the effectiveness of their system in the first half.