Tactics with Shaun #2 (West Brom v Ipswich)

Shaun Calvert takes a look at Ipswich’s defensive corner routines and explains the logic behind leaving the posts unguarded.

There seems to have been some debate and plenty of suggestions that had Ipswich put a player on the back post for the corner against West Brom, then the goal wouldn’t have been scored.

So, to hopefully assist with the reasoning as to why they don’t (and this goes for just about every team, in the top leagues throughout Europe), here is a reminder of what we covered for Town’s defensive set up at corners in pre-season (which is still the same now, as it was for last season).

Like the majority of Teams, Town set-up in a hybrid of part zonal and part man-marking. The reason that this is the most popular is because the stats show that it is the most effective.  

Positives:

• It protects the 6 yard box

• It’s versatile, enabling spare players to get out to short corners and clearances.

• The number of bodies in the box removes, especially centrally, the available space for headers and attempts on goal.

• Zonal markers can look out for any potential dangers and communicate to others.

Negatives

• You may have up to 9 players to mark

• You have to decide which players not to cover, depending on the opposition and their quality.

• It will often mean that any clearance is then re-cycled into a second attack or into shots from distance.

• The attacking teams holds the ‘cards’.

Town’s Set-up

• Every player is brought back – see the Derby goal for the ‘why don’t we leave someone up’ brigade.

• Zonal – 3 players on the 6 yard Box – usually best headers / defenders (Woolfenden / Burgess / Clarke)

• Zonal – 2 or 3 players on near post, ready to go out to short corners and the edge of box. Usually the least affective in air but good at covering ground quickly (Morsy / Chaplin / Broadhead)

• Marking – 4 or 5 players – usually the players who are mobile and efficient in the air go to block runners (Hirst / Burns / Luongo / Davis)

For the corner against West Brom, we had the exact set-up as described above but with Williams in for Clarke and Taylor in for Luongo.

West Brom have set-up fairly conventionally;

• a player positioned on the corner of the area for a potential short corner, meaning that Chaplin is pulled out from the central areas.

• they have a player positioned outside the area for the second phase and to pick up any clearance.

• there are 6 attackers in the area, with the three best headers of a ball positioned towards the back & two ‘poachers’ around the six yard box plus Furlong at the near post!

• so with Ipswich only having 4-5 markers at every corner, they have to decide who to leave free without taking away from defending the greatest risks (balls into the central areas, where it’s ‘easier’ to score from, plus into the near post).

The slightly unusual positioning of Furlong is the obvious, interestingly he’s not only being marked by Davis but also attracting the attention of Broadhead (does this mean that is a routine that they have tried before?).

After the goal went in, it appeared as though both Burgess and Hirst berated Broadhead so that would suggest that it was his job to get across Furlong & stop him getting a clean connection or even him attacking the ball in the first instance.

Could this level of criticism then potentially have affected Broadhead’s performance, is he a sensitive soul that prefers the carrot rather than the stick?

For those wanting to place a player on the back post, I would pose the following questions:

• of the players, which of the aforementioned roles are you using to ‘mark a post’ & take away from the potential first phase danger and then have them deal with a low risk second phase (or even third phase, if a flick at the front post is met by someone centrally)?

• would you prefer to remove the possibility of an offside decision, from a forward winning the first phase, by having a player stood on the goal-line & then potentially change how an opposition would attack their corners? (I believe that Thomas-Asante would have been offside had he got a touch on the ball).

• how many goals have Ipswich conceded from the first phase of a corner, under Kieran McKenna, using the above hybrid zonal / man-marking system (I’ll leave the numbers to the stats guys!)?  

• how many goals do you think have been prevented by using this system (think of the times that Burgess (in particular) has won the first phase header due to his positioning)?

• as we have progressed up the leagues, are we to expect even more sophisticated routines and set-ups, that require even further analysis and forward thinking solutions?

Finally, the pros in the TownTV studio all suggested that they would like to see a player on the back post with Maria Boswell suggesting that it is something that the women’s team do. My theory behind that is that this may well be down to the difference in the attributes between the goalkeepers with the men commanding more of their area and claiming crosses.

In the women’s game, there may be more corners that are swung in above the keeper and towards the back post.

As we know, there is much more analysis in the game today and more than there was in the time of the ex pros on Town TV (even some of the relative recent ones) so I’m sure that the Ipswich coaching staff and analysts have been through all the numbers to work out which system is the best approach.  

Obviously, I will go back to the drawing board if Ipswich all of sudden start putting a player on a post on Wednesday evening!