Minority Report v Coventry City

Many will know that I was not a fan of the way the team played last season. The new coach has kept the same formation, but wants to play a passing game, building from the back. If the coach is not careful, such a system can result in a negative exchange of passes across the back 3, and this is something that can only be avoided if there is movement from the players ahead of the passer. It also means that we will be caught out more often in the full back positions, which is the weak area defensively with a back 3. This is the first time that I have watched the team play this season, and Minority Report will concentrate on a comparison between the two ways of playing, on what worked, and on what did not work.


Although I did not enjoy the way that we played last season, there is no doubt that it was successful in accumulating points. It relied heavily on its defensive structure for keeping clean sheets, and its forward press for winning the ball back in the opposition half. First of all, the defensive structure. The back 3 unit played as one. At all times they stayed as a unit. They cleared the ball long and often advanced at speed behind the clearance, catching their opponent off-side when the forward press caused the ball to be returned too quickly with a long pass. Ismael favoured a high defensive line in order to limit the space between the lines, and therefore Collins in goal because he is the better sweeper-keeper. When we had good possession, our wing backs were often further forward than our 2 central mid-field players. Central mid-field was deeper because the system needed them to cover for the centre backs, who in turn were covering the wing backs, in the event of a quick counter attack, because the space was out wide. That structure was vital to our defensive stability. When the wing backs get forward, there is room out wide on the counter. Ismael knew that, and this was his solution. It works well when the 2 wide centre-backs have pace, and sadly Sollbauer did not, which is why he was used more sparingly by Ismael.


The attacking side of our game is served by the 2 wing backs, who were often the only players in space, and who provide the team with its width. Generally, our front 3 were narrow, although later in the season, when the opposition had secure possession, the 2 wide players in the front 3 dropped deeper to cover in front of the wing backs. The wing backs must be able to cross accurately with their outside foot, as well as having the alternative of cutting inside to create panic using their weaker foot. However, because the ball was often cleared into space in the opposition half, the system relied heavily upon its very aggressive forward press, particularly earlier in the campaign, before the opposition countered with a long ball of their own. In fact, the forward press was so aggressive that the front 3 often had to be changed after an hour, something that would not have been possible this season. Ismael would have had to find a different way of playing this season had he still been at Barnsley.


So that is the set-up, and I shall be looking for changes in the way that the new system works. The Coventry team that are our opponents today will be using a 3-4-1-2 system (5-3-2 when out of possession), that works in a similar way to our 3-4-3 (5-4-1 out of possession), so that is another comparative. We struggled against that Coventry system twice last season because it matched what we were doing with the areas where they were strong, and there were few areas where we could exploit our comparative strengths.

Of course, there are also a number of changes in personnel since last season as well. Mads Andersen is injured, Callum Styles has been shifted from wing back to midfield, Alex Mowatt has moved on, and Daryl Dike has returned to Florida. I also want to comment on those changes and on the individual players. However, the individual players are engaged in a team game, and their strengths and weaknesses are difficult to assess when it is not clear whether the system, and their position and duties within it are appropriate for their individual strengths and weaknesses. I want to understand the system first before I make comment on individual players, so that will have to wait.


Valerien Ismael was famous for never changing our system. Markus Schopp broke that record when he changed us to 4-3-3 with 15 minutes remaining by moving Brittain into midfield and asking Sibbick to play Right Back. He made the move because of the way that the Coventry No10 was dominating the way that the game was being played. In his position behind the front 2, he was not marked and he use the space to constantly threaten us, running at us and threading balls through to the front players. Our free player was one of the back 3, not a great deal of use in an attacking sense.


At the end of the first half in which our performance was a mess, I was struggling to understand why. We had played very much as we had played under Ismael. We had not tried to play out from the back, we had hit the ball long and there was a forward press, although not with the intensity of the Ismael press. However, there was no room for our wing backs, and without that room, neither wing back was an influence on the game. Conversely, our defence was constantly in trouble with players getting free in the wide positions vacated by our wing backs. Then I remembered that we could only draw our last home game with Coventry, and I looked for a solution. The solution is that they played 3 at the back just as we did, which released their wing backs to mark our two further up the park. It effectively nullified an important part of our attacking threat, and the Coventry wing back Dabo was far better than his marker.


The early injury to Carlton Morris did not help either. If you are going to hit the ball long, then you need players to challenge for the ball in the air. The loss of Morris left just Woodrow and Frieser, neither of whom are noted for their power in the air. I am sure that in a different type of game, Clarke Oduor would be a threat with his trickery and vision, but with the ball up in the air most of the time, this was not the game for him. He started well, but became more and more isolated as the game progressed.


However, I was particularly frustrated by the performance of Callum Styles. No longer is he the influence on the game that he was last season at Wing Back. The game passed him by in that central midfield position and he had few positive touches. My frustrations were compounded by the struggles that Ben Williams had at left wing back, coping with the pace of Fankaty Dabo.


As you may gather, I thought Barnsley were fortunate to win, as our 8 bookings and late Collins penalty save testify to.


Minority Report PoTM: Michal Helik


Minority Report team performance index

Barnsley 9

Coventry 52

Match Total 61

 

I was talking about their system rather than the individual players. Because Coventry played their front 3 as 2 forwards with one deeper, the deeper player (O'Hare) was hard for us to mark with our flat back 3. That is why he found more room, as that is why he caused us problems.