I’ve been mugging up on what to expect tactically on Saturday now that Sean Dyche (SD) has had a whole weeks coaching with the Nottingham Forest squad. There are some great analytics out there on Sky and Tony Pulis’ insights on his BBC podcasts. Plus, I can’t recommend enough Jonathon Wilson’s, “Inverting the Pyramid”: A history of football tactics.
Firstly, SD’s Burnley and Everton combined scored a staggering 41.9% of their goals from set pieces. Expect loads of balls into the box from free kicks even ( and especially) from our own half and goalkeeper clearances ( remember Pickfords assist against us? ). There will be much less, if any, short passes in our own half to get play going again.
Expect a return of Yates against Manchester United. Not only because he had their play maker, Fernandes in his pocket in both wins last season ( and an assist from his own penalty area for Elanga’s winner at the City Ground).
The first time we met up and the last time we kept a clean sheet in the Premier League (1st April). Yates is the perfect SD player, physical, hardworking, aggressive, good engine and big.
In a complete change from our passing game going back way before Clough but exemplified most successfully by the Great Man. As Pulis said, “Basically football is about not conceding at your own end and scoring at theirs. The middle of the field is mostly irrelevant”.
‘Dyche Ball’ will not be the grim watch it was at Pulis’ Stoke City. I used to see them often when the Reds weren’t in action as I lived at the bottom of Sir Stanley Matthews Way about 20 minutes walk from the Stadium.
Stoke had an extra exquisite torture to direct football in having stats which showed that getting the ball off the pitch was priority. Then taking an age to get it back in play, especially against the better teams. Unless they were actually losing, it allowed them to reset and stopped the opposition building up any momentum, plus gave his players frequent ‘breathers’.
It was truly dire and drove the football purists, like Arsene Wenger, absolutely crazy. But it usually worked. In quite a few set to’s between the benches born of frustration Pulis used to just point at the scoreboard if Stoke were winning.
I remember how excited the ‘Stokies’ got when they won a corner or a throwing anywhere over the half way lines. With Delap it was as good as a cross into the box, especially with their physically huge players like Huth, Shawcross and my neighbour “Mamma” Sidibe! SD has better players than Burnley and Everton and definitely Stoke, so it may be slightly more refined but we will see.
I think SD’s team will be coached to stop the quick counter attack if and when a set piece breaks down so an increase in fitness to bust a gut to get back in defensive position and an increase in ‘take one for the team’ yellow cards? Who knows, it may even prevent goals against similar to Bournemouths second? After all, no matter how fast you are, you can’t run without your legs can you?
Unless you are Lego and can climb mountains without your legs of course. So, it may not be pretty but if it keeps us up then SD may soften in his approach next season, but I doubt it.