Diego Simeone Needs New Style of Attack for Atletico Madrid's La Liga Defence

Throughout his highly successful tenure at the Vicente Calderon, Diego Simeone has come up against all manner of examinations, all of which he has passed with flying colours.

The difference this year, though, is—where previously all the questions concerned defence—with Diego Costa now history and scoring for fun at Chelsea, the Argentine coach knows he needs to find a new way of attacking.

David Villa told me last season that at Atletico you knew you would always have to defend, safe in the knowledge that a chance would come up for the striker, which he would duly dispatch. That’s what their attack was based on.

Unfortunately what they have up front now is some Costa lookalikes, or perhaps more accurately, potential lookalikes like Raul Jimenez, who, unfortunately, are not Costa at all.

They also have in their armoury the excellent Antoine Griezmann, who is growing in the role despite having a poor game against Almeria, and Raul Garcia, who is now not seen as a starter but can still hurt teams when Atletico play long.

And then, there’s Mario Mandzukic. What’s most interesting is that with the Croatian in the line-up, Atletico play like the Atletico team of old, which contained Radamel Falcao with lots of crosses into the box.

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But they look more comfortable playing with a Griezmann-Jimenez combination because it makes them revert to what they do best; playing the counter with acres of space in front of them.

Mandzukic is much more about holding the ball up and linking with the other attackers, or waiting in the box for a cross.

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So far this season, six of Atletico's seven goals have come from set pieces (four corners, two free-kicks). And of the seven, defenders Miranda and Diego Godin have scored four.

There isn’t a side in the world better at set pieces than Atletico. It doesn’t seem to matter that everyone knows from such moves Miranda or Godin—or both—will go to the near post. Defending the situation is another matter.

While being grateful for the goals from his defenders, Simeone will realise he needs to discover new ways of attacking based both on direct football and also while in possession of the ball.

To that end, Gabi, who has been a tad slow and clumsy on occasion, has been replaced by Koke a couple of times during games in a deeper position in the centre of midfield to assist with a better build-up, while Arda Turan—as great a player as he is—has shown a tendency to drift in and out of games.

Alessio Cerci needs to adapt to a role that would be crucial: diagonal runs from the right-hand side, linking up with the attack, close ranks to defend—surely the last bit will be the most difficult to include in his armour.

So will Atletico be challengers for the title this season? I think they will, and here’s why.

Barcelona certainly have a lot of mechanism and type of game seen in previous seasons with players like Andres Iniesta and Ivan Rakitic breaking the pressure lines from midfield as they look to find those killer passes between central defenders and full-backs.

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Once again, you can also see how the deployment of the full-backs high up the pitch gives added width, but I still sense that when teams defend deeply against them, they don’t always have the necessary answers. And they certainly don’t have the same orderly attack they used to have—so they will struggle with teams who defend compact and in their own box.

That’s why they struggled at Malaga in midweek—although the home side did play very well indeed—and that’s why I also believe it won’t be the last time this season we see Luis Enrique’s men thwarted.

Meanwhile, at Real Madrid it is quite clearly still a work in progress and for that reason, I’m convinced Atletico can still challenge for the title.

Whether they win it or not is another matter, and this weekend’s match against third-placed Sevilla, who they will leapfrog in the table with victory, could tell us a lot.