Minority Report v Sheffield United

If you are going to win games of football, your team must have balance. By that, I mean it must be able to attack without using too many defenders and exposing itself to the counter-attack. It must also be able to defend without using too many forwards and leaving no-one to pick up the ball when it is cleared. That is often a long way of going about saying your players must be good enough and strong enough to hold their own in the heat of battle.


Today, Schopp picked his team with the sole intention of keeping a clean sheet until the latter stages of the game, when he would change the team and attempt to try and win it. But why did he pick Moon, a centre-back in midfield. When I talked about balance, I did not mention height. In their previous 3 games Barnsley had conceded 3 out of 4 goals at set-piece situations. In the Middlesbrough game, the lack of height at set pieces played an important part in the defeat. We have no-one tall in our forward line, and in Styles and Gomes we have two tiny individuals who will not win high balls in the box at set pieces. He had to find a better balance somehow, and he did not have many alternatives.


The main area where we lack balance is in our forward line, and today was no exception. Woodrow, Adeboyejo and Freiser are not tall. I was hoping that Oulare was getting close to starting a game, but clearly not. It is also true that none of them are quick either. The problem with playing this 3 is that they are ordinary, and when you play them together, the front line is ordinary. I thought that Adebayo had close to his best game for the club today, and I am convinced that he was our best player in the first half, but when you look at what that contribution meant in terms of good chances created, then it meant nothing.


I was convinced that the coach’s tactics were aimed at keeping a clean sheet, and that he always intended to change the team in order to try to win it, late in the game. However, the first goal changed everything. The team tried to respond, but it had been built to defend, and when it tried to become more positive, spaces appeared everywhere. United helped themselves, and we were lucky is was only 3.


The coach changed midfield, bringing on Hondermarck and pushed Moon into the back 3 in place of Kitching. Crucially, he brought on Cole and Leya Iseka in place of Freiser and Adeboyejo. As I say, Adeboyejo had been our best player in the first half, and many thought Woodrow should have been the one to go, but Schopp wanted to try our two quickest front players in tandem and Woodrow takes nearly all of our attacking set piece kicks, so unfortunately Adeboyejo was the one to give way. It also has to be said that Sheffield United had replaced Mousset, the scorer of their first 2 goals at 2-0 and much of their threat disappeared with him.


Immediately, there was more threat with more pace and better movement from us. Cole missed a chance that he should have converted, but scored with a volley soon after. Iseka scored with a very good individual effort, and for a moment United were rocking. Unfortunately, United shut the door in our faces by replacing forward Oli McBurnie with central defender Chris Basham.


Many argue that it is all the coach’s fault, but Helik looks just half the player he was last season with Andersen beside him. He was at fault for the United first and he has made more errors in 12 games this season than he did during the whole of the last campaign.


The Red Rain Match Indexes

Please note that the information that follows was not prepared by a qualified statistician. It uses independent statistics that have been selected by Red Rain and uses a marking system devised by Red Rain to produce a two figures that can be used to compare all Championship teams and all Championship matches. Please also note that the information does not purport to be independent or statistically accurate


Entertainment Index:

Barnsley 93

Sheffield United 63

Match 156


Performance Index: 31


PotM Victor Adeboyejo

 

Skip to the end....

Performance index: 31

Close, I had it at 32.

 

It's clear that Schopp thinks playing two holding midfielders in front of a back three means the left and right CB can move to full back and the midfield can slot in to give a five when the wing backs are up the field.
I'd argue it doesn't seem to work very well, but we did keep a clean sheet until half time.
After that we conceded a goal and heads dropped. However poor the coach is, the players have to take responsibility for the second goal. They'd all switched off.
I agree with you about the substitutions.

 

What is performance / entertainment index??

 

It is Red Rain's entirely subjective take on what makes a football match entertaining, cloaked in pseudo-intellectual/scientific language.

 

Oh. Ok. How are the numbers determined though?

 

Often wondered how these figures are calculated?

 

If the aim was to keep a clean sheet, wouldn't it have been a good idea to switch from a system that contains 3 forwards?

 

Red Rain is more than capable of explaining for himself.

But, essentially: weave pretty patterns in your own half, and concede liberally - entertainment to the power of infinity.

Win all the time, whilst playing direct football - entertainment to the power of minus eleventy-seven. Further points deducted for red cards.

 

I’m confused. I thought I’d missed something that everyone was in on…

 

You need degrees in quantum physics, triple integrals, arcane accounting, and black magic before you have any chance of understanding RR's indices.

Personally I prefer to use Old Goat's Good/Average/Poor/Garbage performance ratings.

 

I did notice a complete change of tactics in that we did not try to play the ball out from goal kicks.

Didn't matter a jot as we had no one to win the ball, but a change nonetheless.

 

I did explain both indexes in great detail when I first decided to produce them. However, they received very little support, so I decided against featuring them heavily in Minority Report, so I just note the numbers and move on. I score every team and every game and I keep all of that information in a series of tables. It keeps me very busy and I review that information, analysing it to try to see patterns in the numbers. I also wrote a monthly Minority Report for September, but once again I decided not to publish it because I thought no-one would be interested and I simply did not want to give anyone a target.

 

In the first half, it was almost impossible for us to score a goal. The time Victor beat a man and played a decent ball into the box, only to find we had no players there summed us up. We almost always had two forwards drift wide, and Woodrow drop deep. Who was going to score? He's had plenty of flak here, but at least Moon got himself into the box to try and get on the end of something. His header towards the first half wasn't up to much, but he was unlucky with his effort that hit the post.

As for the goals. Another hack down the line for the first, to a player who then broke inside against centre halves that may as well have not been there. Not too disimilar to the Reading goal. Then Sibbick (another player broken this season) makes a poor attempt at a clearance for the second, which just like the third, involved a combination of not stopping the cross, or marking the players in the box. It was just a re-run of previous games, but with more punishment being dished out against us in front of goal.

We got a couple of goals back, but can they start to get more bodies into the box and power their shots in when there's any pressure on, because it's easy enough to chalk **** it on it when 3-0 down.

Any rugby league fans will have an idea from my user name that I'm no stranger to weak relegations, after seeing Leigh relegated after only winning their last two home games during the whole season. Leigh would play without any sort of defensive structure, you wondered how it would be possible to win any games. Watching Barnsley has the exact same feel about it. Look at the way we're carved up by simple balls time and time again, which probably causes our hesitancy to get players into the box. We can only ever hope to fluke wins while we have a coach that cannot setup a team's defence. If Schopp is still in charge for the next game, then serious questions have to be asked about what the board are thinking.

 

Ah ok. I missed your original explanation so just seemed a bit strange seeing some random numbers.

 

Even with the explanation, it's still random numbers.

 

I thought that we were solid defensively in the first half, but why wouldn't you be with 3 centre backs and 2 defensive midfield players....
Hold on. Wasn't that the way Ismael played last year. He used the wing backs as our main threat from midfield, and he got the ball forward quicker, and there was a press of course. The way that we played yesterday looked very much like we played under Ismael. However, with only 3 substitutes, the press is impractical in the way that Ismael used it, and of course, there is no Andersen at the back. I agree about Sibbick. For that second goal, he lost the ball in the air (a fault that has become far more apparent this season) and he just gave up. Helik was at fault for the first. Without our solid back 3, and without a big man to win the long ball in attack, neither our defense nor our attack functions properly. We certainly did not pose a threat until we introduced pace, dropped any pretense of defending, and went for it with everything, no matter how many it cost us at the other end.

Seriously, there is little hope for us until we get Andersen and either Oulare or Morris fit, and I do not care who the manager is.

 

Yes, we played 3 centre backs and 2 defensive midfielders (or at least one box to box midfielder and one defensive midfielder) last season. But the main difference I can see is that last season, the 3 centre backs would cover the full width of the pitch, and slide across to provide cover for the wing backs. That's not happening this season, with the three staying much narrower. All that means is the the big centre halves get isolated against faster players running at them. The other thing that I cannot fathom is how did Helik end up to the right of Sibbick for the first goal?

Lets not forget either, we did not have a targetman up front for the first half of last season, and Ismael would still have us beating teams outside the top 6 with excellent consistency. I still think that the main issue is with the organisation, rather than the individuals.

Also, 3 subs didn't make a pressing game inpractical when the board decided that that would be the club's philosophy three or four years ago.

 

The thing that stands out for me is not just how narrow they are, but how they are so offset to the side of the pitch the ball is on. They also don't reset anywhere near fast enough. Just strolling back into their natural order.

There was a point first half where Helik was on the left of the 3 but probably in line with Collins' right post. I couldn't see Styles anywhere, so had the blunts had a couple of runners, we were toast. It may well be why they tried switching it so much but kept hitting it into touch.

I don't know if they are being coached to do that, or they just don't care and aren't even trying, so wherever they are they are, and if the opposition slice through them, ah well, such is life.