Building Blocks.
Pre season games mean nothing in terms of how your season is going to pan out. But what they do show is the style you’re looking to implement going at least into the first part of the season. The aim of a coach is not to strive for perfection but to strive for consistency — the longer you put in good performances the more likely you are to pick up points over a sustained period of time. I personally don’t take much notice of pre season games right up until the final one where you want to see what the plan is, what the intentions are, if there’s buy in from the players. The main buzz word from the Watford training camp so far has been “intensity”. That doesn’t mean run around aimlessly like lunatics, it mean’s being smart in your approach and hunting in packs. It means lure the opponent in then hit quickly with one pass through or quick bounce passes to free up the spare man who can turn and carry forward. When a coach means intense, they mean thinking/doing/taking responsibility in quick moments. The analysis I’m using today is solely from the most recent pre season friendly vs Deportivo La Coruna, who if you normalise by quality in comparison to the Championship, they’re around the quality of Stoke City.
I will now begin to bore you all to death with theory and 50 screenshots of the game and explaining the tactical side of the approach Pezzolano is going with (I will also do that just in bullet point format) I also want to highlight instead the key partnerships to make this whole thing work. There’s a reason Jack Grieves got picked and there’s a reason he might have got the nod over more established members of the team to be playing in that more advanced role until Gorgi is back fit and ready to play 60 minutes. That’s not me saying he’ll start 20+ games, It’s me saying he’s tactically and physically spot on for what Pezzolano wants.
The system:
4231 on the ball
Rotations between 10/RB > LW/LB
Two DMs have the responsibility in possession
Wingers mark opposition wingers
Midfield go man for man
Back four stay compact
Against Leyton Orient the press wasn’t quite right in the opening 25 minutes and the gaps between the midfield were too big. There was no sign of it in this game — the defensive side of things in terms of STRUCTURE in the first half was spot on. That doesn’t mean the players within that didn’t make poor decisions. For example the screenshot above. Watford are in a good position but because Vata didn’t change his body shape to show the player inside, he was able to shift quickly and get past him. Vata is a very hard working player, he gets back into the right position, but needs to work on his body stance against right footed players. Two times vs Depor if he changed his angles when defending Watford come away with the ball with ease and look to exploit the space in behind.
Intentions.
The sign of a good team is the one’s who’s timing off the ball is consistent. It’s almost like a choregraphed dance that instead of dancing to music, you’re reacting to movements. Watford have shown throughout this pre season they want to press into wide areas with a box of four, and then eventually win the ball back from a loose pass or crowding out the opposition player on the ball. There was a two minute spell from the 23rd to the 25th minute where the Spanish side kept doing the same thing like they had rehearsed this play and got caught out easily both times. Watford adjusted the press and went man for man vs the back three with the 10 (Grieves) mirroring their defensive midfielder. Pollock stepped up to get tight to their lone 10 and Louza/Kyprianou moved wide to get within distance of disrupting if the pass was ever made to that position. In pre season as I’ve outlined It’s about what the team is trying to do rather than what the outcome is.
In possession, Pezzolano is opting for numbers in central areas, but with reliance on the players to find space to receive the ball when the opportunity arises. That means a lot of rotations, intelligence of your surroundings and quick thinking, especially from the centre backs to make the pass when the gap opens up. It’s not slow if you move around, but it can become stale if the players, especially the fullbacks and forward players don’t help with the fluidity. In the first half against Deportivo, Watford were too deep and too slow on the ball when in possession, it was completely different in the second half. This is what I mean about intentions — if the centre back who’s on the ball doesn’t make that quick pass when it’s on and then takes too many touches, then it slows down and turns into a ping pong session between the defenders and defensive midfielders. Pollock has been guilty of this in both games vs Depor and Orient.
Case in point in the above example. The team is too deep to progress into the final third. But if you want to get out of that, you need Pollock to make that pass to Grieves on the right almost as soon as he gets the ball. Instead he hesitates and invites pressure and Watford end up losing the ball. That’s not just on Pollock though, the movement ahead needs to be better everyone is facing the ball, there’s no runs to takeaway another player, there’s no (outside of Grieves) movement into space. The idea to have 4 players centrally and close together in the middle of the pitch is to make quick combination passes which leaves the wide areas free for a 1v1 or space to run into. The striker also needs to drop in too so he can play a bounce pass to get the momentum going towards the opposition goal. Also there’s something to watch out for, Watford have tried this combination of CB > CF > bounce pass > ball through to number 10 running through.
Pezzolano said to Adam Drury and the Watford Observer regarding the team rotations and what he wants to see more of — "I want a good occupation of space on the pitch. Off the ball, they press forward - but on the ball, they play inside in moments or outside in moments. They change with the right-back or left-back, who come inside. We want to take out the references for the opponent in different moments. Sometimes inside, sometimes outside. For this, we need to improve more. It needs to be more clear but we need time to create it. Every day we are working on this. On the ball, off the ball. When to press, where to press. It's a lot of work. "But we do need to improve in moments. More order off the ball and we want to be faster on the ball. Moving the ball quicker - pass, pass, pass.”
The other idea by having 6 players centrally (CB, CB, DM, DM, RB, LB) is as much as a defensive blanket as a way of progressing the ball too. Most of the time, transitions happen in central areas so having 6 players in place to recover that or make it difficult for a chance to be created. However again, It’s also about game understanding from the players in those positions. When to pull wide, when to come back inside and for the wider players to rotate with them.
Above is the ideal scenario from deeper positions — if the ball gets turned over you’ve got numbers, but on the ball you’ve got runners to stretch the backline, the wingers keeping the width to open the space centrally for the full backs to receive the pass to go again.
The fullbacks are in my eyes, the most important part of making this work. The question will always be are they good enough to do the job required? Could we see Keben play this role with Abankwah and a potential new central defender together? If Watford want to maximise this idea, they need every player at the back to be comfy on the ball, intelligent and speedy. Because the rotations between FB > 10 to link to break to get on the outside to cross into a box that’s been flooded. What we also haven’t seen is the difference a ball carrier like Chakvetadze can do in this side with his intelligence off the ball, and especially on it. We also haven’t seen Wiley who’s a better player than Bola come into this side either.
Going into the season, I think there’s going to be teething issues in the final third but we’re going to be pretty good defensively structurally but there might be a few loose passes. I appreciate Pezzolano is trying to be different in his approach to everyone else in the league but will he get enough time for this to properly kick into gear? we shall see.