Musings on poachers, pressing and implications of poacher use on overall tactic

[permanentquandary]

It's the 2022/23 season and Erling Håland is having a fantastic season with Man City. He's scored more goals than he's played games and looks odds on to finish the season that way, breaking various goalscoring records. And yet, in this moment Man City are 2nd and seem to have defensive issues at times. I think we can agree that the injury of Ruben Dias has not helped matters and the rest of their defenders are not quite on his level when it comes to defending. But then again, it seems like defenders in general are getting worse at defending as the years go by because of the increased complexity of their roles as the game develops and changes tactically. We can also say Erling Håland is not doing much at all when his team is not in possession. He is in my opinion a clear cut example of a poacher. Is that one the reasons Man City are not doing as well as they could be - he's not pressing the opposition? I'm not sold on that.

I remember thinking about all this heavy "gegenpressing" that has come into the game in recent years, with attacking players being asked to chase down defenders to win the ball back and minimise the time the opposition have on the ball, and I remember thinking this is a double edged sword. On the one hand, this approach means that the opposition may have problems building attacks or keeping the ball. If that's true, our team may not concede as many chances or goals as if they didn't bother. But if our team is too successful at denying the opposition the ball, we might end up pushing them so far back into their own half they can't get out. And then where's the space in behind? What has this got to do with Erling Håland and poachers?

I was recently thinking about how to make a lone poacher work and what effect trying to do that has on the team's approach. I think the very first thing to realise is that if you're going to use a lone poacher, you can forget about having a high line of engagement. By putting a poacher up top you're likely conceding some amount of possession of the ball to the opposition defence at least. But that doesn't have to be a problem - as I alluded to in the 2nd paragraph, it could yield a benefit. Let them have the ball a bit, let them come forward a bit, then boom, tackle/interception, transition, counter, and it's probably the poacher who finishes it and gets a goal. This is a way to generate space - which the poacher will then exploit.

But this can't work without a properly configured midfield and probably full backs too. Let's think about Man City again. How do they configure their midfield to get the best out of Erling Håland? One thing we can say with certainty is that they play with extreme fluidity.  They clearly have players who have set roles and duties which is why Kevin De Bruyne is giving Erling Håland the most assists and people like Gundogan seem to make more forward runs and score more doing that than De Bruyne, but at the same time, Guardiola is telling them to switch with each other depending on the positional situation. I don't think this is achievable in FM. The tactics creator isn't sophisticated enough, particularly because there isn't a module that provides for patterns of play. So at best we can only think of each player's priority role. City use a single, relatively static defensive midfielder, while their two central midfielders are given license to roam, make forward runs, move into channels and create. At the same time, they use two wide midfielders who mostly stay wide.

What they are doing is using the wide two to stretch the opposition full backs, creating space for Erling Håland and the two central midfielders. If they can't find joy through the middle, they'll play the ball on the outside, where there will be a lot of space because the opposition have gone narrow.

To compensate for the use of a single DM, no specified ball winner and the spatial weakness in the areas either side of the central DM zone, they use inverted wingbacks.

By no means is this the only way a solo poacher can work. But it does make sense.

Going back to "why City are 'only' 2nd", I think it comes down to a lack of steel in their midfield. For all their fancy footwork, world class passing and silky movement, when City don't have the ball they are asking two central midfield players who are relatively weak at marking, positioning and tackling to win the ball back - or hoping Rodri does his thing. Remember I said something about letting the opposition have the ball a bit, then transitioning and countering? I think teams are finding it a bit too easy to get through that midfield. Guardiola is probably saying that is fine because we'll score more, we have the quality and having two central midfielders who can both cause problems in the channels and get forward or create chances is more unpredictable, more fluid, harder to defend against, and also, importantly, provides an extra source of supply for the poacher.

Anyway this is relevant because if you're going to use a solo poacher in FM and concede that you are not pressing high up the pitch as a result, you should be trying to be solid and consistent with those midfield physical battles, breaking up opposition attacks and increasing frequency of transitions. If you don't use a specialist for that role - and let's be clear, we are talking about a ball winning midfielder or someone at least instructed to perform those tasks - then you are going to concede more goals. Your midfield trio should consist of a player who stays deep, holds position, keeps things ticking over (think of Rodri) then either a ball winner or adventurous forward runner who moves into channels (think Gundogan), along with some kind of roaming playmaker (this could be a Trequartista in AMC if you play 4231).

Given that a poacher stays central and rarely deviates from his position within the confines of the width of the 18 yard box, it's really important to have one or two players moving into channels. If you want to avoid the defensive issues of doing that, you can instead set your midfield up to play the City way on one flank, but a more traditional way on the other, with the wide midfielder starting wide but coming inside. If you're not going to use an AMC, you will either have to lean towards using both CMs to get forward closer to support the poacher or one of the two roles will have to be very aggressive with an attack duty. For example a DLP(D), MEZ(A), BWM(S) combination could be very effective, but you could swap MEZ for CM(A) with move into channels on, and BWM(S) can become RPM.

All food for thought.

Edited January 27, 2023 by permanentquandary