Breaking the Lines

aka Another Building Up Post

After the potential banana-skin away to Elgin was avoided this weekend to end the losing run, thoughts now turn to the return of league action and the visit of St. Mirren. It was the Buddies who inflicted Aberdeen’s first defeat of the season in late November.

A couple of posts ago, when looking at Aberdeen’s goal kicks, I speculated that Jimmy T. might be a bit more pragmatic in the upcoming fixtures against Hearts and Rangers, however, it wasn’t the case and for the most part Aberdeen continued to play short from the keeper. I know it’s going to be tough for all our dads to accept (mine included) but playing out from the back under Thelin, seems like it’s here to stay.

So I’ve skipped Elgin (“well-done lads”, “professional performance”, “back on the bus”, “into the next round”, “all about getting through” etc.) and wanted to take a little bit more time to look at the team’s build-up in the Rangers game. Apologies for dwelling on this topic once more. This is where a lot of the ‘action’ is happening for the Dons right now and where my eyes are drawn.

The Structure

Going over old ground here (clearly struggling for new material) but I think it’s important to try and establish how it appears Jimmy wants to attack the goal.

In the Hearts game at Tynecastle, I wrote about this concept of trying to Bring out through a centre-back, bypass midfield and find the forward for a quick combination with the attacking midfielder. Something like the video below in an ideal world.

This still applies but in the two most recent games, like we’ve seen at other times in the season, Aberdeen’s shape looks like this:

The striker drops in and the winger Keskinen goes high. We’re not sure what Okkels is doing right now as he’s struggled to get involved but he seems to have been in a bit of a hybrid role of inside-forward like Keskinen and traditional winger and not really nailing either.

The shallow position of two holding midfielders

Against Hearts, Palaversa often sat right in between the two Hearts strikers and he continued to play the Nilsen role of picking the ball up at a deeper position in Govan. Shinnie also tends to play quite deep but is less likely to take the ball from the centre—backs.

There are some benefits like in this situation below where Palaversa comes short. Diomande has his eyes elsewhere (more on that later). Nilsen times the pass right, drawing in Igamane, and Shinnie takes Danilo away from the space, in a rare case of the two pivots rotating positions.

Palaversa then rolls out and has a pass on to Devlin.

Unfortunately, the pass is overhit and the opportunity is gone. Worth noting the positions.

I think it’s interesting that the two holders play on opposite sides. It does seem to offer some benefits in that the players can check into the ball and roll onto their favoured foot but on occasion, it seems to slow the attack down if we want to keep it moving on the same side.

Clarkson pulling to the left

As you’ll note above, Clarkson is out on the left and this is a feature of his play when in the #10 role. It was his positioning that Diomande’s attention was being drawn to earlier in the build-up which allowed Palaversa the space to receive the ball.

Here’s the Scouser receiving from Nilsen. I think this is tricky for the opponent to deal with as they’ve pushed up other holding midfielder onto Palaversa. As Raskin moves to cover there is a lot of space in the centre of the pitch.

He’s under pressure but he’s a talented lad and you do wonder if these are the types of situations where the team can be a bit more aggressive, turn sharper and play into Shinnie or Keskinen. Perhaps confidence plays a part? There are six Rangers players committed leaving a 4 v 4 at the back.

In the end, Clarkson opts to switch to Tobers. The positioning of the opponent’s defence has given the Latvian some space to move into…

Tobers Bringing it Out

Jimmy outlined Tober’s strength on the ball in what was either an ‘exclusive’ interview with the Daily Record the other day or, some recycled quotes from a press conference/his signing announcement:

“I don't want to put too much pressure on him right now because he's just arrived. But he's good at how we build up the game, how we can break in lines with his passing qualities.”

I’m quite happy to put pressure on him as I think he could be an exciting development in how the team breaks defences down to create scoring chances, which ultimately is the point of this whole thing (that and stopping goals of course, and he’s done ok there so far but will have a more bread and butter test this weekend.)

So we see in this situation following the pass from Clarkson he drives into the space and plays a ball into the feet of Nisbet.

Nisbet tries to play one around the corner but it’s cutout. Still another promising position and you can understand the frustrations of the manager when he said post-match that “we lack the composure with the ball and the calmness with the ball.” If that pass finds its way into Keskinen (see image below) Aberdeen have a clear sight on goal.

Circulating ball to bring back centrally

There were a quite few occasions when the ball was moved around the back four to move the Rangers players and create the gap for Tobers to exploit. This is the key difference (on the ball) between him and Rubezic. It’s early days and I don’t want to jump to conclusions but the former seems to take the space and can find the pass to feet and the latter tends to be more ponderous and goes long in the air.

Here’s an example to illustrate this point. The Dons have a numerical overload on the left side having worked the ball over from the right. Clarkson’s positioning again creates challenges from a Rangers marking perspective.

McGarry goes back to Nilsen who then plays into Tobers.

Tobers advances up to the halfway line and finds Devlin. Again, we have a promising position. In my opinion, Keskinen might be better at making the run in front of Jefte, giving Devlin an easier pass and still allowing himself an opportunity for a cross or shot.

Instead, he continues to drift inside. Devlin takes too long is closed down and Aberdeen lose possession.

Summary

There was a lot not to like about last Wednesday’s game. I think the positive/Happy Clapper perspective of mine is that the team went to Ibrox, were willing to try and play football and showed continued elements of comfort on the ball and the potential to create good attacking situations in the opposition half through building from the back. Unfortunately, the technical execution was way off with a terrible display of passing, particularly in the second half.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have questions. Here are a few.

Is this tactic a good idea?

I’m referring here to what seems to be the plan to try and draw in opponents, find a combination and release one of the wide men who are making runs from out to in. In almost all cases in the last two games that was Keskinen. This is a two-parter and the first question in this regard is: Does Keskinen have the quality to deliver on these openings?

I think we just have to wait and see but right now the jury is still out. I don’t think he has quite the separation speed to allow him not to take a shot under pressure as we saw against Hearts. I would have more confidence if he was coming in from the other side onto his right foot but with Okkels arrival, I’m not sure that will be where he is placed.

Secondly, does this leave us too open on transition?

Andrew Budge covered this topic on his segment on Ally Begg TV which you can see below:

As Jimmy noted also in his post-match comments: “we gave away too many transitions and played into their strengths.”

I just wonder if trying to draw in players and having both midfielders quite deep and Clarkson over on the left, allows us to counter-press effectively when we lose the ball.

Of course, this was a difficult away game and we might not expect to be able to control possession for extended periods in the opposition's half but a lot seems to rely on a perfect one-touch pass when the ball gets into the attacking half and I don’t know if we have the technical ability in those forward areas right now to be confident that isn’t going to result in a turnover.

No room for Wingers?

It seems to me that the team has been most dangerous when we have controlled possession in the opposition half and two wide-men attacking at speed and then creating the famous cut-backs.

Morris came back into the team against Elgin and his athletic advantage made a major impact, and it does feel like we’ve missed that in the last month (I know he hasn’t set the heather on fire when he has played). Duk also had a great start from his return but has fallen away, however, he got himself a couple of goals to boost his confidence.

We seem to have less control of the ball in the opponent half (need to run the numbers) based on this desire to execute a quick bam-bam to get in behind. Be interesting to see what Saturday’s approach is.

How will Pape’s Return Affect Things?

The biggest mystery of the season might well be how Pape Habib Gueye transitions back into the Aberdeen team. The breakout star of the first few weeks of the season, we’re all eager to see if he can continue in the same form he displayed before his injury.

The Senagalese’s best stuff came when he played in the #10 role. Like Clarkson , he had some fluidity and would interchange with Jamie McGrath but he was a bigger presence centrally, in the space that right now Nisbet is mainly operating in.

He provides more pace on the break and a threat in the air in the box, and is probably better at closing down defenders as one of the two forwards who press in the out-of-possession 4-4-2.

Would Clarkson move to the left or would he find himself on the bench? Does the centre-forward then stay higher and how does this affect the profile of player the club is looking to find in that role?

Time will tell but it’s good to have another attacking option back in the mix and for everyone’s sake, most importantly that young lad who had such a tough time of it last season in a foreign country and foreign city, let’s hope he can pick up where he left off.

Centre-Back Partnership

Slobodan Rubezic was restored to the team for the trip to Borough Briggs. That meant Tobers moved to the left. Given all we’ve highlighted above, I’m hoping the Latvian can return to the right on Saturday. I’m sure Alfie Dorrington has not come to Aberdeen to sit on the bench so might we see the Spurs man make his first start on Saturday on the left side.

If he does it will be a baptism of fire for both. Toyosi Olusanya has caused the Dons problems in the two matches with Mikael Mandron also effective off the bench. One area where Rubezic appears, statistically to be ahead of Tobers is in aerial duels and I’m not sure Dorrington will have a lot of experience against such powerful frontmen. Then again, 66% percent of St. Mirren’s goals against Aberdeen have come from long punts up the park and Ruby couldn’t handle those, so there can’t be too much to lose.

In possession, we might see more of the above which will be another culture clash in Jimmy’s war with Scottish football.

That’s enough for one night. Here’s hoping for back-to-back victories over teams in Black and White and a return to the good times.

COYR