Top 4 Tactical Surprises in the Premier League This Season
Football is full of surprises; it’s why we love it. If football were played on paper, there’d be no need for fans to turn up to games, and no need for televised action. It’s the mystery and uncertainty that captures our imaginations and hooks us in every single day, checking the latest updates and musing over potential signings.
As you will have doubtless heard, this Premier League season has been the most unpredictable in history. Whether it’s been Aston Villa’s gargantuan struggle in the basement, Leicester City’s remarkable rise to the top or AFC Bournemouth’s remarkable comfort somewhere in between, there have been shocks for all.
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It’s always difficult to forecast the entire league’s play in the summer—too many unknowns rear their opportunistic heads at too many different points—but we’ve picked out five tactical talking points that have a) directly helped shape the course of the season, and b) come as a great shock to most.
Leicester City’s 4-4-2 Blowing Us Away
There has been a concerted, tangible move toward two-striker formations over the past few seasons, with Juventus, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Benfica, Manchester City and more all dabbling in them at the top level.
Displacing the 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 as the dominant formation was never going to be simple, but a slow crawl toward more dynamic, energetic play—rather than slow, possession-based football—started circa 2012 and is now really picking up steam.
Leicester City sit firmly atop that cresting wave, sprinting toward the UEFA Champions League at 100 miles per hour on the back of Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante’s exploits. Their 4-4-2 system is as 4-4-2 as it gets; it’s reductive, basic...but ridiculously effective.
Claudio Ranieri has managed to put together one half-season of dominant, irrepressible football by using a consistent central-midfield two, traditional wingers and a linking strike partnership. There are quirks to their approach—Christian Fuchs’ long throw and Mahrez’s individual brilliance represent nice nuances—but it really is textbook stuff the Foxes are trotting out.
Vardy runs the channels and they find him, the central midfielders are physically excellent and play the sort of north-south running game Steven Jackson would be proud of, while Shinji Okazaki mediates the space between the lines and occupies defenders when Vardy drifts wide.
It’s classic, English 4-4-2, and it works brilliantly.
Troy Deeney Seamlessly Adapting As a Trequartista
After a sticky goalscoring start to his Watford career this season, manager Quique Sanchez Flores made a very bold call: He moved Troy Deeney into a support striker role, slotting him in behind No. 9 Odion Ighalo.
Deeney had scored 44 goals in his last two Championship seasons and was the key element in their promotion-winning campaign. He was the team's captain, the chief motivator, and he came up with more than a few bolts from the blue to turn the tide of games that weren’t going their way.
It was a decision made partially due to Ighalo’s goalscoring impact off the bench; Flores sought to include both in the team, and that meant dropping Deeney a little deeper and pushing Jose Manuel Jurado wide to allow Ighalo the central striker’s role.
Ighalo’s 13 goals have helped the Hornets into the comfortable position they sit in now—even if a recent dip has blown them a little off course in their quest for a top-half finish—but Deeney’s impact from a support role has been just as important, if a little less tangible.
To go from chief goal outlet to linking striker is tough; lesser players would find their own ego blocking the path to success when making this transition. But Deeney has combined deft passing and a physical presence to provide an outlet for the long ball and turn it into chances for Ighalo. Around half of the passes that set Ighalo off in the channels are via his partner’s feet.
Back in July, Watford fans would have been galled by the prospect of their chief goal-getter—the man 90 percent of people assumed would have to score to keep the team in the top tier—dropping deeper in the formation, but Flores’ move has been a masterstroke.
Christian Eriksen Taking A Backseat
Pre-season musings over Tottenham Hotspur will have unequivocally included Eriksen as a key figure in any success the club might enjoy. After all, he is one of the best players in the squad and his creativity—both from open play and from dead balls—stands unrivalled among his Lilywhite peers.
But the way Spurs’ season has panned out hasn’t followed the expected path on any level. They’re embroiled in a rather unlikely title challenge, have the best defensive record in the division and are drawing success from some distinctly inexperienced players like Dele Alli.
As a result, Eriksen hasn’t been the force expected—but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. He was overworked in 2014-15 and slowed visibly from February as exhaustion caught up with him; Pochettino’s style is aggressive and front-footed, and there’s only so much a somatotype like his can endure.
Spurs have been a figurative geyser for storylines this season, but Eriksen’s name has probably been one of the least talked-about over the last five months. From Mousa Dembele the revenant, through Harry Kane’s stubborn refusal to succumb to second season syndrome, and into the all-Belgian brilliance of Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld, he just hasn’t drummed up the storylines to rival his colleagues’.
It’s not just a lack of mentioning him in the media, either. As Dembele and Alli fluidly interchange on the pitch, Erik Lamela’s relentless pressing winds up the opposition and Pochettino’s four full-backs hold the tactical plan together by generating width, Eriksen’s contribution gets a little...lost in the midst of it.
He’s not playing badly, not at all. In fact, for Spurs to be in a position whereby they can play well and Eriksen doesn’t have to do it all is a positive—it’s just that very few forecasted his influence waning to this degree.
Manchester United Failing to Build
Manchester United fans felt positively buoyant heading into the 2015-16 Premier League campaign. Louis van Gaal’s rousing (drunken) speech at the end-of-season awards ceremony, a return to the Champions League and a more stable summer with more coherent transfer targets were all factors pointing to a rosy time ahead.
Perhaps most exciting was the short spell of incredible form toward the end of the previous campaign; brilliant wins over Liverpool at Anfield and Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford, in among a convincing win streak, fuelled hope that the Red Devils—now fully “Van Gaalised”—were beginning to understand the tactical system they were playing and would flourish heading into year two.
It hasn’t panned out that way. At all.
United are fifth in the table, the manager is under severe pressure from the fans, they’re out of the Champions League at the group stage, and the team have recently ended an astonishing eight-match winless streak—inclusive of four losses in a row—to stem a steady flow of vitriol aimed at them.
Where is that free-flowing unit that took Liverpool apart in March 2015? Where is the Juan Mata who scored two delightful goals that day, the aerial weapon that is Marouane Fellaini, the Wayne Rooney who can trap a ball and the...spark?
Man Utd have scored just 12 goals at home this season—four more than bottom-placed Villa. It doesn’t matter how defensively stubborn the team is, any manager in the Old Trafford dugout will feel the fans’ ire if their idols aren’t producing in front of goal.
Van Gaal uses Morgan Schneiderlin too sparingly, refuses to play Anthony Martial up front, persists with Rooney to the point where it defies belief and doesn’t call Bastian Schweinsteiger up for his failures often enough. Luke Shaw’s injury did severely impact the team, granted, but comparing the Red Devils’ performance at Anfield last match to any of the most recent ones, you’re left wanting in so many areas.
