Tactical Analysis: Swansea 3-0 West Ham – Dyer & Routledge continue their growing influence.

Swansea came off the back of their impressive opening 5-0 win against QPR, with a dominant 3-0 win at home against West Ham.

Swansea remaining the proactive side they are, continued with an unchanged side, Danny Graham upfront supported by Michu, Routledge and Dyer. Followed by De Guzman and Britton in a double pivot. There appeared to be no tactical shift to cope with the aerial threat of West Ham.

West Ham made 3 changes, Sam Allardyce being renown as one of the most reactive managers in the league handed Jarvis his début in place of Taylor and selected Kevin Nolan as a right midfielder ahead of Vaz Te, with an aim to win more aerial duels in the final third against Taylor. Sam Allardyce again, lived up to his reputation as a reactive manager by fielding Tomkins as a holding midfielder to mark Michu. A similar occurrence he did Ivan Campo  in his time at Bolton and Phil Jones in his time at Blackburn.

Formations

This fixture was a blatant representation of two contrasting styles, Swansea’s possession football against West Ham’s direct and aggressive approach. Swansea achieved the 2nd best pass success rate in the league last season, as last season’s newly promoted side averaged 85.7% pass success rate and the 3rd highest possession with 57.6%.

West Ham despite their opening 1-0 win against Aston Villa only managed 34% possession and 75% pass success rate. A telling difference between the two sides in terms of philosophy of football. West Ham’s best chances came through set pieces, but even then Swansea coped with it fairly well, particularly with the decisiveness of Michel Vorm. Bravely coming out to punch aerial balls when he could have been on the receiving end of collisions. Also making a reactions save from Jarvis half volley in the box.

Movement of Swansea wingers 

          

The average positions image shows how central the two Swansea wingers were.

Since taking charge at Swansea, there have been a few alterations to the team we saw Brendan Rodgers take charge of last season. Laudrup favours his wingers to drift infield when they haven’t got the ball, so immediately they can support the striker or the oncoming attacking midfielder. Adding more cohesion and goal threat, thus avoiding his wingers receiving the ball from wide positions and running into cul de sac’s when cutting inside with the ball. This has become a novel strategy we’ve seen many European team’s deploy. If you look above you’ll Dyer and Routledge both receive the ball in slightly more central positions, Wayne Routledge a little more so than Nathan Dyer. Initially the two built up reputations as traditional wingers, however, they both possess good technical ability on the ball and have showed they are comfortable receiving the ball in tight spaces.

Albeit, this was made easier due to Tomkins closely marking Michu, which in turn allowed Dyer and Routledge space to cut inside and receive passes in-between the lines. Not only would Tomkins mark Michu closely, but off the ball he would drop so deep into positions that Michu vacated that he was virtually a third centre back, leaving Swansea to monopolise possession even more with them ultimately on occasions having a man more in midfield.

Swansea Creativity

       

Naturally when wingers cut inside and become wide play-makers or wide forwards, there will be an increased expectation to supply the striker by making more penetrative passes or becoming more of a direct threat on goal. The Swansea wingers Dyer and Routledge have managed to find a mix of the two, Routledge especially who so far has managed 4 key passes and 3 assists  in 2 games. In this game he completed 8 out 9 passes in the attacking third, it may not be a huge figure but its efficient, also encouraging for a player who only completed 79% of his passes last season. He seemed more assured on the ball and picked the right passes, creating 2 chances and 1 assist.

Nathan Dyer also managed to complete 12/15 passes in the attacking third, whilst chipping in with an assist. Dyer who already has 2 goals after 2 games, has shown progression in that department, he scored 5 goals last season. As the two of them simultaneously drifted inside they provided a central threat and enhanced Swansea’s possession football, the two West Ham fullbacks McCartney and Demel were unsure whether to follow them or not. Knowing the space they would leave behind  when the two Swansea full backs went forward, this was what happened for the first goal. McCartney was caught out of position, allowing Angel to attack the space in front of him to get on the end of a through ball.

West Ham fail to make successful aerial duels count

Before the game it was a given that West Ham could cause Swansea some concern in the air, although they did win 9 aerial duels in Swansea’s 18 yard box they failed to make any of them count. The majority of them were from set pieces but they didn’t anticipate the knock downs and win the second balls. Michel Vorm made some good saves in the first half but wasn’t tested in the second. During play, Swansea coped fairly well with balls in the air winning 24 out of 47 contested – more than West Ham. Overall Swansea minimised the threat of West Ham by simply keeping the ball, I assume that would have been that would have been Laudrup’s instructions before the game.

West Ham’s High Line

Sam Allardyce adopted a high line that caused several problems for the West Ham back line, quite often Swansea would frequently play through balls in behind the defence that caused confusion between Jaaskelainen and the central defenders. In particular James Collins who looked uncomfortable throughout, he’s usually a defender that likes to do his work closer to his goal due to the lack of pace he has he won’t be able to recover if the ball is played in behind him. Moreover, when keeping a high defensive line it is required of the team to press the opposition, West Ham failed to do so, thus allowing balls in behind to be played by Swansea.

Conclusions

A solid start after two games for Michael Laudrup’s side, this was a different test to what he has experienced since becoming a manager, there will be more difficult tests than this to come, he may have to show how flexible he is tactically. Dyer and Routledge have shown good adaptability from playing as more direct wingers who pressed high up  to regular inside forwards.

Future opposition may not this down and play a double pivot against them or a specialist defensive midfielder than, restricting the amount of influence they will have for Swansea.

West Ham looked fairly poor throughout and will take little positives from this game, Sam Allardyce will continue to make alterations in certain games to adapt to the opposition. He should make sure that these alterations don’t have a downside affect on his team (such as the high defensive line), because if they aren’t playing to their strengths they’ll find it difficult with the personnel to change style – if it comes to that.