Brendan Sacrifices Width To Go 4-3-2 … And Central Midfield Superiority Wins The Day.
As I said, very little was happening yesterday out wide.
Candelas had scored, but for most part Sevco had absolutely failed to exploit our weak right flank, with Ajer playing out of position, until he was moved inside when Hendry came on. On the other side of the park, Kieran’s forward running had been restricted by the absence of his usual partner Sinclair and the absence of the balancing Lustig on the right.
Crucially, this negated Sevco’s attacking threat down that side.
Forrest had not found much joy against their packed defence, and neither had McGregor.
It was a perfectly logical move to consider ditching width to restore our man advantage in midfield. Their defence was coping with two wingers and one striker … but Brendan knew they would be vulnerable to a formation which utilised two.
Moving McGregor inside to play in his natural position forced Sevco to try to mark 3 with 2 again.
The dilemma was how to do that, and also keep a second striker quiet.
They could have brought off Windass at that point, which would have made perfect sense, but Murty didn’t see what Brendan clearly could.
McGregor forced their midfield two to make choices, and those choices left space to exploit.
And with a second striker on, we had the players to do just that.
It took less than two minutes.
Think about that. Whilst they were still trying to adapt to the change, we cut them to pieces.
Not only is that a tribute to Brendan’s managerial vision, but it’s a tribute to how well drilled these players are in how to respond to his changes. The speed with which that change paid dividends is extraordinary and shows that these things aren’t done in the moment … a good manager drills this stuff into his players, so that when a change is made everyone is instantly adaptive to it. He confirmed this in the interview. It’s superb foresight.
Watch the third goal.
Brown gets in front of a misplaced pass on the left side of the midfield. He touches the ball down to Ntcham. Look at the positions of the Sevco players; there are two over trying to mark our two, which hasn’t just stretched them to the limit but has opened up acres of space for McGregor to take the pass.
In that moment, we, the team with ten men, seem to have extra players everywhere.
Look at the space Dembele is in to receive the ball from him.
Look how much room Edouard has to run onto.
Their midfield had too many jobs to do; that’s the genius of what Brendan did.
Where’s Tavernier when Dembele puts it on to his fellow Frenchman?
He’s still behind the play, having moved out of position to help cover Brown and Ntcham earlier.
And it’s into the space Tavernier should be where Odsonne runs, with all the room to run in the world, and when he cuts inside both central defenders come to meet him, but too late because he’s already stepped to the right and seen the goal gaping.
At that point, we were on top of it. No matter what they did from that moment on, the tactical battle had already been won and lost. Murty could have made a change to snatch a draw but by then the pressure on him was intense … and he flubbed the final call.