This week we hear from FC Roast playmaker and Sligoman; Aidan Gaule over his concerns relating to the future of defending. "The Roasts" are an Irish diaspora outfit playing in the twelfth tier of English football in the Middlesex counties league playing out of Caledonian Road, proudly sponsored by Pizetta. Further information can be found via their website below, social media channels too also listed.
WEBSITE: https://www.fcroast.com/
INSTAGRAM: fc_roast_
TWITTER: @fcroast1
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Sports-Team/FC-Roast-1771253752913041/
PIZETTA: https://www.pizzettapizza.com/
Defending is a lost art. The defence looks susceptible when "you get at them". The game is not producing defensive leaders anymore. The above beliefs are widely held, and can be heard in some variation by any number of football pundits every week. Partly true as these claims are, I believe that football is currently in a transitory phase, and the method of keeping clean sheets has changed. Simply put, the purpose of a defence is to limit the goals scored by the opposition. There are a wide spectrum of systems used to achieve that purpose, and for brevity, I will look at two approaches. Contrasting Mourinho against Pep, the traditional against the pressing. It is obvious there are no perfect systems, each with weaknesses and strengths the other lacks. However, there are better, more effective methods, and I will look to explain how the Pep approach comes out on top from a defensive standpoint.
TRADITIONAL V PRESSING
This traditional approach generally entails a flat back four. The two full backs tucking in beside the centre backs when out of possession, and cautious going forward when in possession. There will always be at least one defensively minded centre midfielder, and quite often two. The wingers are also expected to help out the full backs. The system, when executed correctly, is almost impossible to break down, requiring a team of the highest standard to find and exploit space. One of the main drawbacks is the rigidity of the system. The defence and attack tend to diverge under pressure which can lead to an inability to switch between the defensive and attacking phases. The isolated attacking players struggle to find space to receive the ball, while the defensive players often tend to play aimless passes from the back to alleviate pressure and regain their shape. Which usually leads to more pressure.
The pressing based approach is characterised with pressing high in the opposition half, hunting the ball with several players and forcing the opposition team into mistakes as close to their goal as possible. In this system, the centre backs starting position should be much closer to the half way line, the full backs are urged to push further forward into what would traditionally be viewed as the wide midfielders role. This gives the wide midfielders licence to press the oppositions defensive players. The riskier of the two without question, and when it doesn't work it leaves the side looking unorganized and disparate to the traditional view of defending. However, when working, the opposition struggle to gain any momentum or fluency in possession, leading to a lack of confidence and poor decision making. Having retrieved the ball, the team are now perfectly set up to begin the attacking phase of play, transitioning seamlessly between the two phases.
Mourinho's teams have become synonymous with defensive football, built on the traditional view of defending. While Pep, for all his plaudits, has always been viewed negatively when it comes to the defensive aspect of his game. This is perfectly understandable, as when a Pep team concedes, the flaws in the system are apparent, while under Mourinho, goals conceded are generally down to an individual error or lapse in concentration, therefore deflecting the blame from the set up. However, when both managers and systems are looked at from a more objective stance, and over a significant number of games, the results - from a defensive standpoint - overwhelmingly favour the Pep approach.
THE STATS
First off, working in football analytics, I understand and acknowledge that statistics are far from absolute. In a single game, or over a small number of games, most statistics can be very misleading and fail to portray what your eyes are telling you. However, when looking at a teams ability to defend over a substantial number of games, statistics are the best measure of the systems success or failure. Even within the broad term 'statistics', there are better and worse metrics. The two metrics I believe are key when discussing a defensive system are goals conceded and shots conceded. Logically, a team that concedes the fewest shots on goal over the long run will concede fewer goals.
Looking back to the worst season of Guardiola's career, his first at Man City. That team had many flaws defensively with the players being asked to play in a completely different manner than they were used to. However looking at the shots conceded statistic provided some clue for what was to come the following season.
That season - 2016/2017 - with City, Pep' s team conceded 30% more goals per game when compared to his overall managerial career. They had the 4th best defensive record, but they still had the lowest shots conceded per game. So it came as no surprise to see the goals conceded drastically reduced over the following two seasons. The 2017/18 season saw the goals conceded fall by a massive 30%, giving them the best defensive record while also having the fewest shots conceded yet again. This season has started in a similar fashion. City have conceded the fewest shots in the league, and have only conceded 3 goals in the opening 9 games. Mourinho' s approach has been very effective in terms of goals conceded since he has arrived at United. His debut season saw them finish with the 2nd lowest goals conceded despite finishing in 6th place, while the following season they managed a 2nd place finish, with the 2nd lowest goals conceded again. However when looking over the two seasons combined, his teams conceded 30% more shots compared to Man City over the same period. The disparity between his goals conceded and shots conceded is likely due to the combination of the teams ability to limit the opponents to lower percentage scoring chances, and the form of David De Gea.
This season has seen the goals conceded drastically increase, with United conceding 100% more goals per game than they did in the first two seasons under Mourinho. The shots conceded has remained relatively constant however. We are only nine games into the season, so the stat is misleading but it's not something to right off completely. Even when looking across the full managerial career of both, the pattern remains intact. Pep has conceded 5% less goals per game than Mourinho. More damning is if you were to compare the two from the date Pep began managing Barcelona until now, his teams have conceded close to 15% fewer goals per game. The purpose of comparing Mourinho to Pep is not meant as a criticism of Mourinho, I believe he has been the most successful proponent of that particular style of defending in the last ten years, along with Diego Simone of Atletico Madrid. The aim is to show that despite what critics say, the Pep approach to defending, as frantic as it looks at times, is actually the more effective approach to take.
***All statistics correct as of 29/10/2018