The St. Gallen Save: Emulating Ange

In this series I'm trying to bring together all elements of Football Manager as part of a cohesive strategy aimed at propelling St. Gallen to the top of Swiss football & beyond. I'm not an expert in any aspect of the game, but there are some parts I know less about, or have ignored all together. The aim of this series is to learn & improve as I go...

With the pre-season friendlies bringing increasingly positive performances, the opening weeks of my tenure at Kybunpark have offered some encouragement. But pre-season games, as we know, can often be misleading and so the early Super League fixtures will be the first real test for this team. And with the much-maligned fixture computer throwing up some challenging opposition in the opening matches, now is the time to put my tactics under the microscope.

I've been really quite heavily influenced by Ange Postecoglou over the last 18 months. Having rebuilt a Celtic side that feebly relinquished the League title after winning nine on the bounce, 'Big Ange' has Celtic back at the top of the pile in Scotland, winning the League and League Cup double in his first year in charge and, at the time of writing, has The Bhoys sitting 9 points clear of rivals Rangers.

Postecoglou has a clear idea of how he wants his teams to play, and while I'm no tactical expert, I'm going to attempt to replicate aspects of his system in Switzerland. Here are some of the key elements of 'Angeball':

• Postecoglou normally opts for a 4-3-3, insists on his team playing out from the back and moving the ball quickly. Out of possession, his teams press high up the pitch and look to give their opponents as little time on the ball as possible.

• Inverted full-backs are utilised to overload central areas and help the team when they're building from the back.

• This offers the added benefit of giving more protection to the centre-backs when the ball is turned over, and prevents direct counter attacks down the middle.

• The positioning of the full-backs also allows the central midfield players to push forward and try to find space between the lines to receive the ball, and the wingers stay wide to try and stretch the opposition.

• This aggressive positioning helps provide natural counter-pressing situations.

So that is our blueprint, and we achieved some success in pre-season, now it's time to test it against the big boys.

Matchday 1: FC Basel (H)

As most of you will be aware, Basel are one of the top dogs in Switzerland and a quick glance at their manager (Alex Frei) and their most recent pre-season friendly (a 4-3 win over Banik Ostrava) suggests they will try to play a similar style to us, so this will be a good test to see if we can impose our style on the game.

Build-up Structure

With the defensive midfielder and two inverted-full backs on either side, I am looking to see us build up in a sort of 2-3 shape. The idea behind this is for those 5 players to drop deep to assist with building out from the back and help us consolidate possession. I want us to try and draw teams out into pressing us and breaking their own defensive structure so we can play around them.

In the below example, Leonidas Stergiou (4) received the ball from his central defensive partner and you can see the trio of Daouda Guindo (19), Lukas Gortler (16) & Isaac Schmidt (33) have taken up central positions. This is a really good example of what I would like to see a lot of. The Basel forward Liam Millar (7) is drawn infield leaving a pass to our winger Emmanuel Latte Lath (22) who is able to receive the ball and drive at the opposition full-back.

Despite Basel trying to press (4.72 OPPDA) we were able to move the ball a lot between our back 4 and defensive midfielder. Guindo (174), Maglica (169), Stergiou (167), Schmidt (111) & Gortler (162) were able to rack up an awful lot of pass combinations and were able to help us build up securely from the back.

This is something we'll need to get better at as the season progresses. Some teams will sit in and be very disciplined, so we won't be able to draw them in as regularly as we were in this match. Basel were set up to press so we were able to play around them, but against team who sit in a low block we'll need the players involved in the build-up to take more risks with their passing, and possibly even carry the ball into the opposition half in an attempt to draw people towards them.

Attacking Structure

With the 5 players dropping deep to assist with the build-up, my aim is to have the positioning of the front 5 designed to really stretch the opposition. Using these players to create central overloads allows the wingers and central midfielders to take up more advanced positions.

I want the wingers to stay wide to try and make the pitch as big as possible, with the result being that the opposition are forced to make a decision on whether to shuttle wide to close down my wingers, potentially leaving gaps in the middle for the two central midfielders to receive the ball in between the lines. Alternatively, the opposition could stay more compact, denying space for our central midfielders but leaving the wingers open to hopefully receive the ball and create 1v1 situations.

In the below example, Daouda Guindo has moved the ball to Chadrac Akolo wide on the left and as the Basel full-back goes out to press, our No. 8 Jordi Quintilla has made a run into the space created between the RB & CB. While Quintilla was able to receive a pass from Akolo in behind Basel, it came to nothing on this ocassion.

In this example in the second half, you can see how Akolo has received the ball inside his own half with his back to goal. Using the numerical advantage we have in the central areas, the ball is moved to Randy Schneider (27) after a couple of quick passes. As the Basel LB tries to press, Schneider lays the ball off quickly to Isaac Schmidt (33) who plays a first time pass to Emmanual Latte Lath on the right who now has loads of space to run into.

In a game against one of the best sides in the League, a side who were intent on pressing us, it is really promising that we were able to play our way into these situations a lot of the time and cause them real problems.

Pressing

Another thing that is important to me in replicating Postecoglou is to match his teams high intensity press, with real focus on winning the ball back quickly and as far away from our own goal as possible.

The below example is fairly early on in the game, and we're set up pretty well to press Basel after an attack comes to nothing. With Michael Lang in possession, we have 3 players inside the opposition box ready to press, with the two central midfielders not far behind. Lang tries to play short to Fabian Frei (20) but he comes under pressure from Quintilla & Schneider and is forced to play a hurried long ball, from which we regain possession.

After the Basel striker is crowded out and forced to play backwards to Pelmard (21), our striker Julian von Moos (11) shuts him down, before chasing down the next pass to Kasim Adams. With our No. 8 shutting down the short pass into central midfield, and our left-winger waiting to pounce on a pass to the RB, Adams is forced to go try a riskier pass which is intercepted by our left-back and we're able to launch a quick counter-attack.

This example is from later in the second half. Again, von Moos (11) closed down Kasim Adams who makes a rushed pass to his central defensive partner Andy Pelmard. An awkward pass and poor first touch later, and Isaac Schmidt (33) pounces to win possession in a dangerous area again, but his cross to von Moos was snuffed out.

Again, against one of the Leagues stronger sides, we're able to harass them into rushing their passes and making poor decisions. In fact, our 3rd goal in this 3-1 win came from one of those situations. Following Akolo's intercepted pass, he immediately reacts along with Karlen (23) and Guillemenot (9) to shut down the Basel RB and force him into a long ball. Maglica wins the aerial battle to set us off on the counter, and from there we get our goal.

Rest Defence

This 2-3 shape when we are in possession also helped us when the ball was turned over and we were forced to defend counter-attacking situations. My initial idea is to have these 3 players (the defensive midfielder and 2x inverted full-backs) acting as a screen in front of the central defensive pairing.

The thought behind this is that the players in the forward areas would be the first line of defence and prevent the opposition playing out from the back, and the examples above appear to illustrate that is happening. If teams choose to persist in playing out from the back, it is the role of the front 5 to press aggressively and force mistakes.

The role of the 'rest defence' is to protect the space in front of the central defenders, denying a direct route to goal for the opposition. I want them to either be forced to go long and either create an aerial duel or play a riskier pass in behind. I'm fairly confident that we can win the first header and would have enough bodies around to win the second ball, or that my Sweeper Keeper could read the danger and deal with any through balls.

Alternatively, teams are forced to play the ball into wide areas, but even then the distance either full-back would have to travel from their 'rest' position to close down an attacking player wouldn't be that far, and in theory they should be able to make a challenge or hold up play enough for our forward players to shuttle back and regain our shape.

Summary

Though this is only one match, it is a really positive sign. A 3-1 win over one of the title favourites, with an xG of 2.47 vs 0.82 and 64% possession it appears pretty well earned, too. WIth an OPPDA of 3.09 it would also seem our intention to press high was something we were able to take into the game with some success. Again, it's only one game, so let's see what the upcoming fixtures hold for us.

Join me next time as I'll be taking a first look at set pieces, and trying to maximise our effectiveness from dead ball situations.