Tactics with Shaun (Barnsley v Ipswich)

Shaun Calvert gives some tactical reflections on a special night against Barnsley.

A bit late, I know, but there are a couple of things that caught my eye at the game against Barnsley.

1 – Going Against The Flow

⚽️- There’s been a regular pattern of play over the last 18 months, where a pass is played in the opposite direction to the movement of defenders. A familiar one is the cutback from the touch line or the Evans / Morsy whipped cross from the edge of the area.

🖊️- This pass type is also used to get behind teams that are pressing and was seen in the build up for the award of the penalty on Tuesday. In the clip below you can see Broadhead drawing defenders towards him and up the pitch by moving towards the ball (he even looks over his shoulder to see if they are coming with him) and then Chaplin plays the ball over the top, into the space, in the opposite direction to which the defenders are moving for Burns to run onto.

🧠 – I am sure it is something that they repeatedly practice in training but the players also have to have the intelligence to recognise the pattern and move into the positions. Chaplin has to go out to the touch line, Broadhead has to come over to the right and dropping short and Burns has to be be ready to get on his bike as soon as the ball is played by Luongo to Chaplin.

Ipswich Penalty Award v Barnsley

2 – Disrupting The Defensive Line

☠️ - One of the first things that Kieran McKenna introduced to the Town play was the exaggerated dropping of the Town defensive line at dead balls (I believe it is something that Man Utd used to do, not sure if they still do).

🕰️ - As a free kick or goal kick is about to be taken, the Town back line make a significant and orchestrated movement backwards to try and prevent the forwards ‘getting a run’ on them and to remove the space in behind.

🤡 – On Tuesday, Barnsley tried to disrupt this movement by faking the taking of a free kick and trying to gain extra space to win the first header. I’m very surprised that we have not seen more teams do it (I remember one team doing it at Portman Road but I can’t remember who) as it’s something that has been very successful for us in defending set pieces.

Barnsley's fake free kick