Tactics With Shaun #4

Shaun Calvert gives some insight into George Hirst’s movement and the “third man” run that resulted in Ipswich’s second goal against Middlesbrough

Soooo, something that caught my eye during the game on Saturday was the tactic of Hirst dropping deep and the left sided Number Ten running off the last line of the Boro’defence. This resulted in the Hutchinson goal, receiving the ball from a run he started as soon as the ball went into Hirst.

For those of you that do any coaching or have watched some of the analysis guys, you will recognise this as a ‘third man’ move; where the object of the move is to get the ball up the pitch from passes from the first player, onto the second and through the lines to the third man.

The key is that the ‘third man’ recognises this pattern of play from the first pass (not the second) so that they have a run on the defenders who are watching and reacting to the initial pass.

You’ll see several of these every Town game and it’s been something that’s been on my list to highlight for some time, with probably the best example being Luongo-Harness-Davis move for the Chaplin goal against Hull.

It is obviously something that the players spend a lot of time on in training & if you watch the subs at halftime, you’ll notice that Jon Ashton takes them though the ‘bow-tie’ third man drill every game.

…but as you will see from these clips, it was a move (or a variation of it) that was tried several times in the first half whilst Broadhead was in that role.

Third Man Moves v. Middlesbrough

On each occasion, he recognises that when the first pass is made (and one of the CBs follows Hirst) then that is the time for him to make a run onto the back line (that is now one man short, so there will be gaps) or it will bring the RB over, meaning that Davis then has the space.

None of these came off but for the goal, everything had fallen into place;

• Burns and Davis held the width, to spread the back line and create gaps.

• Howson had gone with Chaplin & Barlaser had stepped onto Taylor, meaning that the central area had cleared for Hirst.

• Woolfenden spots the space and Hirst dropping deep, playing a perfectly weighted ball through the lines.

• Hutchinson recognised the pattern of the first pass and that Matt Clarke had jumped out of the back line, following Hirst, leaving space for him to run into.

A beautiful goal, courtesy of hours on the training ground and meticulous planning on how to spot a weakness in an opposition’s setup, then putting a plan in place to exploit it.

Here’s the full clip of the Hutchinson goal for anyone who wants a reminder or just to see the goal one more time…

….and here’s that Chaplin goal, that included the Luongo / Harness / Davis ‘third man’ move (with a little break in the chain)…