Tactics with Shaun #5

Shaun Calvert explains why Luke Woolfenden takes his time on the ball and what's he’s trying to achieve when he does it.

‘Don’t just stand there … what are you waiting for?… move it quicker!’… Something also said by Parents when I was growing up.

Sooo, during Saturday’s match there appeared to be a large number of people who were voicing their concern about the amount of time that Luke Woolfenden was taking before making a pass and this was also raised as a ‘concern’ by a couple of people I spoke to straight after the game, with a few comments of a similar nature on social media too.

Then, following the Club’s congratulatory tweet, the man himself mentions ‘a whole lot of shouts to move it quicker’.

I have previously highlighted his ‘la pausa’ and also discussed our goal kick routines and Hladky receiving the ball on the sole of his foot… which are all indirectly linked to how Ipswich want to play.

But against Norwich, the ‘concerns’ were coming when we were higher up the pitch but this seemed more to do with were Norwich let us have the ball and also their shape out of possession and in resting defence.

As we see from quite a few teams now, they let our centre backs have the ball and then try to cut off the passes into our centre midfielder.

You can see an excellent in depth break down from this @NCFCAnalytics Twitter thread, where they’ve also picked up a couple of the same points.

As we can see in the clips below, Woolfenden is trying to provoke the Norwich front line to ‘jump out’, sometimes just by going sideways to Clarke or Burgess, so that a man becomes spare or a passing lane opens up (usually Mr Morsy or Luongo as they are constantly being shielded by the Norwich attackers). You can even spot a lovely little ‘third man’ move in there too, to get us up the pitch and through the lines.

Clip: Woolfenden provoking the press

Mr Woolfenden isn’t just a one trick pony though and he also has the awareness and intelligence to spot a spare man further away from him plus the technical ability to make the pass (more often than not).

He is often the one that is tasked with ‘pausing’ with the ball in play and assessing the oppositions defence and out of possession set up (as you will often see Hladky and Burgess doing at goal kicks).

At the end, I’ve also included one of his passes from Birmingham as this is very similar to one of his from weekend. He also has the ability to ‘ping’ a pass into the feet of one of the Number Tens too… which are also a thing of beauty.

Clips: Luke Woolfenden passing through the lines

Hopefully, Tuanzebe will at least reach, or even surpass, the levels of Woolfenden’s awareness and ability. He may not be the best ‘defender’ in the division but I’ve yet to see a centre back who is as integral to how a team plays out and builds up from the back.

As we’ve said previously, just about all the players in this squad are not the complete package or the perfect player (they would already be playing higher up) but our squad building appears to be about what attributes we want them to bring to the squad and whether they then outweigh any areas that are seen as less effective in or can be improved in.

Will we get to see Tuanzebe also playing the same way as Woolfenden does in possession? Also, will he pick up the role of organising the defence on the pitch, which Burgess currently does.

One final item to highlight from Saturday’s game (and also included in the analysis from the Norwich side) was that although Norwich operated a fairly similar 4-2-3-1 basic set-up, they used a slightly different technique with their build-ups, as seen here in their excellent build-up, that led to their second goal.

As you can see, Nuñez (one of their centre midfielders) drops between the splitting centre backs to receive the ball and draw Ipswich out of their shape, with large gaps then appearing between the defensive lines.

Nuñez also rotates into this role with Sara, as you can see from the second picture, which makes it difficult for the opposition, as they will try to follow the CM but they will lose them as they rotate.

Also note the rotations of Barnes and Sainz, plus movement of Idah, in the move that pulls Ipswich out of their defensive shape.

That is the reward but the risk is that you then have one less player to create an overload or a spare man further up the pitch.

Ipswich tend to use Hladky for this build up role sometimes which means that they have the reward of a spare man elsewhere on the pitch but the risk is that a goalkeeper is less technically gifted than a centre midfielder, so potentially they are more likely to mis-place a pass (see Watford away).

Also, Norwich may also use a centre midfielder instead of Gunn but as one of their centre backs (Duffy) is also not at a high technical level on the ball, whereas the other one (McClean) has been drafted into this position due to the rewards of his ball playing ability (I believe that was admitted by Wagner at the time, when he was first drafted into the back line).

They then successively find their spare men in each of the pockets, as they advance up the pitch, winning the throw-in (which appeared to be a foul one, with the takers back foot off the ground as he released the ball).

What would you rather have in the centre back position for Ipswich, a team that likes to build up from the back?

Two ball-playing, technically good players (as Woolfenden and Burgess are) or two players that are in the first instance ball winning, head-it-kick-it defenders (remembering that any unicorns, in this position, are already playing at a higher level)?

Clip: Norwich move

The West Brom game is still on my list of things to potentially highlight, with the reasons why we struggled to break them down. There are certainly similarities between their out of possession shape and Norwich’s, so certainly something that I would think that the Ipswich coaching staff are looking at and working on.  

Another one on the list is the importance of Burgess, with his cultured left foot, in our build up play that I’ll hopefully get done before he goes away… and with us then seeing how we decide to best cope with that huge gap that will be left behind.