Up next: Preston North End
It's time to fully end our season and head to the sunny metaphorical beach with a win over Preston. A pint of Guinness please my good man.
Usually I wouldn’t write an opposition analysis piece, especially this late into the season and with us more or less with nothing to play for, but In Tom Cleverley’s mind, he has everything to play for with the Watford Head Coach role still well and truly up for grabs. I think you can put a caveat into the first three games so far and that’s not to take anything away from Cleverley and his coaching staff because what they’ve shown so far has been excellent in terms of game planning and tactical/strategic set-up. Birmingham was a proper gritty performance, we just needed to win that by any means and then Leeds and West Brom we weren’t expected to pick up points and we did, arguably should have won both too. Preston is a different proposition, mainly because the impetus is on us now to perform well and get a win. Yes Preston are above us in the league and still have a chance of reaching the playoffs, but we’re still a parachute payment team with a squad full of internationals — how the squad has been built and the profiles, or lack of, is another debate. This will be a semi good indicator to see how Cleverley has learnt and understood to get around teams that will look for those marginal gains to be the wins, because under Val, this was something we couldn’t do and failed to regularly perform well in never-mind pick up points at home. What has Tom tried to implement so far?
Against Birmingham nothing changed much, same structure, same personnel, got the 1-0 win and got out of there. But over the International break, to the much of surprise to everyone, including Leeds themselves — we switched to a 3-4-1-2 or for the Dads that hate the woke “1” It’s a 3-5-2. You hear quite a lot that a manager/head coach’ personality/style as player embodies the way they want their team to play, and that couldn’t be more true when it comes to Cleverley and the three Watford performances so far. Energy, intensity and grit.
Out of possession, we’ve seen Watford alternate between a high press/mid block (Leeds) to a mid press/low block (West Brom) — The pressing side is something Cleverley has mentioned to what is vital to the way he wants to play and admitted to getting it wrong vs Birmingham. Whilst the tempo can vary the principles remain the same, win your individual duels in a man marking fashion. Leeds and West Brom both look to build from a fairly deep position rather than going long, which suits us because we’ve got players who love to run and close down. In this new shape, Dennis and Bayo will press the right and left centre back with Asprilla/Kone following the ball and closing the lanes to form a three, but also keeping an eye on the ball playing defensive midfielder on his side. Dele-Bashiru will take the free 10 and Kayembe the spare midfielder — Andrews and Lewis pushing up to their full backs as soon as the ball is about to be played wide, the step time is everything for this to work consistently. The weakness to this is what we saw in the first half against West Brom in which they did twice and never went back to it. John Swift (#10) went into the right back position and Furlong went central, it completely confused our midfield and who to pick up because there was a giant hole in the middle for the spare striker to pick up and turn. The issue Watford have squad wise is the levels cannot be maintained past the XI if players are out, that might change if Chakvetadze is back available, same with Sema as we know both of them are high energy — as soon as you disrupt that front two, particularly Bayo and Dennis, the intensity and pressing ability pretty much falls off a cliff and that’s something that will need addressing in the summer, most notably in the striking area — Rajovic did get his goal but we completely lost our way off the ball when he and Martins came on on Monday.
I don’t want to do an entire transcript on what we’re doing under Cleverley so far as It’s, as I’ve mentioned two games into this set-up, so really I’m just describing what’s happening rather than attaching theory to it as well. But there are notable differences in what we’re doing now which is very fun to watch I have to say.
In possession Watford have shown three different looks so far:
3-4-3 set formation
3-4-1-2 deep build-up
3-1-4-2 settled possession
Starting with the set formation — It’s just the base the players are in to do pretty much everything whilst having control of the ball. There’ll be players switches (Kayembe for Kone, one will drop and the other will go in deep build-up but the 1 will push up as almost a 9 off the ball and the two strikers will split into wider areas) Dennis and Bayo will switch at times too, but Tom Dele-Bashiru is the one who remains in his role throughout and he’s been outstanding in this deeper responsibility. Retention, decision making and temperament has been spot on. This 3-4-3 morphs into a 3-4-1-2 with the aim of getting Kayembe and one of Asprilla/Kone into the final third on the ball with the base around them to sustain pressure, which we’ll get into now with the settled possession.
3-1-4-2 settled possession:
This is the first time I’ll give some theory as to why we do this. It’s effectively to get the wingbacks in behind and have cutbacks into the box as you’ll have four players ready for it. Dennis, Bayo, Kayembe, Kone/Asprilla. You’ll rarely, if ever, see Lewis or Andrews put the ball into the air from a crossing situation. Hoedt is naturally the one who possesses the ball to start off things, and Tom Dele will shuttle which ever way the ball goes to offer that short pass and to move around the opposition, which has worked well so far — what this does is it opens the lanes to one of the forward players to receive between the lines from a pass from either Hoedt or Porteous who are very good at doing this. Kayembe will also, especially if the ball is on the right side, drop deeper for one of the strikers to fill his position to keep the triangle shape with the wingback (Andrews) who’s offering the width.
We aren’t afraid to go direct either, we’ve played a lot of balls centrally to mostly Bayo but Dennis too as they’re both good in the air and have a leap on them. Which brings me to my final notice of what we’re doing and that’s goal kicks. In simple terms again, bait the press, go long whether that be with Bachmann or one of the outside centre backs. If you’re wondering why we have the left centre back and middle centre back either side of Bachmann for goal kicks It’s simply to drag the opposition team in and then play a direct ball into Bayo to quickly turn them around.
Whilst this has been a really fun watch, there are obvious issues when facing teams who use width from their full backs/wingbacks. The space Leeds and West Brom got with their full backs because of the compactness of the middle block we create is natural but it does require the outside centre backs to be slightly more aggressive than perhaps you’d want, it’s one to look out for. Another thing that I think is a concern is Edo Kayembe being one of the players playing in the two man midfield. I love Edo when he’s in full flow dribbling, carrying and shooting, but the man doesn’t have a defensive bone in his body and doesn’t sense danger at all. Constant runners off him and is quite slow to get back into shape at times, as well as being weak in duels. What tends to happen to get him out of trouble is his ability to shield the ball and take it away from them, but you can’t do that everytime. I’d like Kone to be the one next to Tom and Kayembe being used as more of a 10 if for whatever reason Asprilla and Giorgi aren’t available.
Preston North End:
Preston are a weird side in that they’ve kind of “done a Norwich” where their fans aren’t that convinced by Ryan Lowe but they get results and sometimes pull out a really good performance. If you look at the underlying numbers as the nerds (me, I’m one of these laptop losers) would say they’re not particularly impressive
25.16 open play xG (21st)
9.02 set piece xG (19th)
34.82 open play xGA (11th)
10.79 set piece xGA (13th)
But what they do have is to me, a squad of players that are consistent for the ability they have and have enough about them to raise that against most in the league. They have defenders who win their aerial duels, midfielders who win their duels and a bit of stardust at the top end of the pitch who’ll score you double figures or create something out of nothing (Frøkjær-Jensen, Millar, Keane, Riis). An extremely experienced side that know how to get results in this league and will stay in games for a long period. Harping back to the previous two points, Preston’s central defenders this season have an aerial win % of 60 percent or higher:
Liam Lindsay 72.8%
Andrew Hughes 66.8%
Jack Whatmough 63.8%
Jordan Storey 60.9%
Their central midfielders are all above average at winning their duels too. The average in the league this season has fluctuated from 48% and 50% —
Ben Whiteman 56.5%
Ryan Ledson 51.7%
Alan Browne 50.7%
Ali McCann 50.6%
Their centre backs all above 60% for that metric too, so basically they’re very good at arguably the most important thing in football outside of scoring goals and that’s winning your battles.
How they play:
Variation of a 3-5-2, mid/low block, aggressive press, look to get Frøkjær-Jensen combining with the wingbacks and play side balls to Emil Riis who’s on the side of the left centre back to get his shots off to his preferred left side of the goal. 27% of Riis’ last 130 shots have been to that side of the goal. He’s one player I think if stayed injury free, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully to Preston fans; could play at a higher level of Championship club and be a regular 15+ goal a season striker.
In their games this season when they’ve had a pass % of more than 69, more than 559 touches and a shot distance of more than 18.4 (niche I know) they’ve only won 5 of 18. Effectively the more football they play, the fewer chance they’ve got at winning games.
Five things Watford need to do to win the game:
Press high to their wide centre backs and force them to go long down the sides as we have an aerial and speed advantage.
In possession avoid going central too often, use quick passes to get into wide areas and don’t get the game too scrappy in midfield as we don’t have the players for that vs them.
Keep the ball on the floor and keep at the cut backs onto the penalty spot because their centre backs naturally drop into the six yard box and their midfielders will have to make a decision to follow suit or stay on the edge, either way that creates an opportunity.
Do not let Emil Riis get on the shoulder of Wesley Hoedt ready to receive, block that passing lane as much as possible otherwise we’re in bother.
Target Robbie Brady with Ryan Andrews using one/twos, he’s susceptible to jumping/stepping out too eagerly when looking to win the ball back.
