A Glimpse of Ange Ball

The Midtjylland Champions League tie was our first serious glimpse of Postecoglou’s playing philosophy under the stress of real competition.

I believe we got more that we bargained for, and there were a few surprises!

Starting Approach

As expected, the team set out 4-2-3-1. None of the defenders were those we’d hope to have in the first team due to the continuing injury to Jullien, and the enforced quarantine of Starfelt. Full back has been an issue for two seasons now.

A little surprising was that alleged “want aways”, Christie and Edouard, were involved. Christie took up a hitherto unfamiliar left-wing spot. Abada made his full debut. Midfield was as expected.

Midtjylland employed a very high and aggressive press, as predicted, with the front three forwards backed up by a more man to man orientated midfield and full backs with the centre backs zonal. Also, the Danes were not interested in build up play. As soon as possession was secured it was despatched forwards as quickly as possible.

Celtic took 18-20 minutes to settle into the game.

Two aspects of Ange Ball became apparent:

1. Playing out from the back irrespective of the press
2. The full backs inverted to the centre to pick up possession

Passing Woes

The main reasons Celtic struggled in the first 20 minutes was because the passing out from the back was not good enough. Bitton, Celtic’s most varied passer, gave away 5/11 of his initial passes. Barkas was 18/27 on passing in the first half.

Inverted Full Backs

Secondly, the full backs did not look comfortable inverting to bolster the middle options. They are instructed to do this to achieve the following:

1. Create an overload in the crucial central midfield area
2. Allow the midfield to push up high and peg their midfield back deeper
3. To draw the opponent’s wide midfield in, thus creating potential 1v1s for Celtic wide players

None of that came to fruition due to the discomfort of the players involved.

All these examples involve Taylor probably because his movement was the better providing at least some examples!

1. Taylor is in plenty of space but his body shape is all wrong. He cannot see behind or even to the sides, hasn’t scanned and can only pass the ball back negatively.

2. He again receives with a closed body shape. The move works as Dreyer comes off the left wing to press him. In theory Christie is now 1v1 on Dalsgaard. Taylor turns into trouble towards Dreyer and miss controls the ball losing it in a very bad position. From here Midtjylland can break centrally, high and in transition. The move fails in the end. Had Taylor opened up his body and known where Dreyer was, he could have reacted quicker to get the ball forward and wide to Christie.

3. 19m in and Taylor is facing the right way! He finds McGregor 1v1 wide left. McGregor was quicker and more skilful than the opponent and skips away. Celtic create their first attacking position from this. As it happens it fizzles out because once Ralston is found wide right, he lacks the pace and ability to get a pass or cross over.

4. On 20m Taylor is the spare man wide as Christie inverts to central midfield. Christie’s lay off sets in motion a promising counter. However, Taylor lacks the pace by half way to beat his man and has to turn back with the move losing momentum.

What these examples show is that Celtic were slow to adapt to this new process. When they did manage to advance the ball, both full backs lacked the pace or technical 1v1 skills to make the most of the breaks. Neither looked comfortable receiving possession centrally under pressure.

xSC (Expected Scoring Contribution) was 0.02 between them. Ralston was 1/5 on crosses and Taylor 0/5.

This will take time to come to fruition. Also, the current Celtic starting full backs lack some of the basic attributes to make this work well. This isn’t damning them totally as this is a very hard role technically.

Stellar exponents are Alaba and Lahm. Those players CAN and HAVE played central midfield for their nations to a very high standard.

High Line

20 mins in once Celtic found that their front 6 were quicker, more skilful and trickier that Midtjylland’s back line, it became a feature for Celtic to hold a very high line. They held the half way line even when possession was in the middle third for the Danes.

This is another recurring feature of Ange Ball. It has its obvious dangers as regards overloads on the wing, and balls over the top. Celtic in the main played it very well considering the personnel, to a point. The Danes were offside 6 times in the game against an average of 1.75 for the opponent’s last season. Some of this is style – i.e. very direct play from Midtjylland.

The downside to this is the same as trying to play inverted full backs. Not having the right personnel for the job. As I pointed out in The Welsh / Bitton Partnership , Bitton’s weaknesses are mental – anticipation, reading the danger and therefore positioning.

It really was the Ghost of Bitton’s past in that his first yellow was due to familiar failings. He was in the wrong position relative to the forward near half way and faced with the choice of fouling or letting the man have an open field to run into.

He needs to be closer and directly behind the striker to force him to play with back to goal and not allow the half turn.

Then, another risk of the high line resulted in the Red Card. Another theme of Celtic European adventures is being on the wrong end of a poor decisions leading to a goal against. (The officiating was generally very good in this game – this WAS an honest mistake). Dreyer is two yards offside standing in front of the linesman and it is missed. No excusing Bitton’s behaviour post the dive but it is a move that shouldn’t have happened.

In Scotland especially, where, errr, officials are not necessarily promoted for their skills, and “discretion” is the watch word, playing with such a high line will introduce some unwanted “variance” into Celtic games.

The sending off also changed the approach and shape.

Second Half

Postecoglou made the seemingly brave decision to keep two forwards on (pushing Turnbull up) for a 4-3-2 once Bitton went off. Abada was withdrawn and the other winger, Christie, was stationed at right central midfield.

What this actually did was:

1. Remove all semblance of attacking width (xG was 1.4 first half and 0.8 second) and only one possession in the box from either full back.
2. Make Celtic very solid down the middle. The front two press made Midtjylland’s out ball go wide and they found it difficult to create any chances inside where there were 3 midfielders screening the positionally disciplined back four. Consequently, the Danes racked up all of 0.1 xG from open play off two long range strikes.

Celtic’s seemingly aggressive 4-3-2 actually turned into a very solid defensive shape.

I will explore the unexpected notion that Celtic may be potentially stronger defensively this year due to Postecoglou’s organisation in a future blog. And when I have some more data.

Conclusion

Postecoglou’s attacking and ball progression strategy had mixed results in the first half due mainly to time – good grief it is only the first match! – and personnel not well suited to the tasks asked of them (surprise!).

But the second half provided a glimpse of defensive solidity and creative thinking that is unexpected given pre season reading and research.

Quite excited.

Some of the points raised here were discussed on The Huddle Breakdown. Please have a listen, share with your friends and subscribe to the channel. Many thanks.