I was watching the game between Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur on the weekend and came to the realization that its fairly obvious how you can spot the gulf between sides. Within the first 15 minutes it became clear to me that the Saints were going to struggle, and were gonna be put to the sword by Spurs.
Some commentators have asserted that passing triangles are a thing of the past, I disagree. Passing triangles are not leaving the game, they are just going to look different. Barcelona’s passing triangles aren’t unique, if you look at the way they play the game you will notice the moment someone is on the ball, up to three players are within 5-8 metres facing the ball carrier, and offering passing options. This allows the team to move the ball quickly around the pitch. Where they get exponentially better is having Xabi Alonso a wicked passer of the ball being within easy reach.
The key to the effective passing triangle is having players facing the ball carrier and having one player in close range able to play the killer long ball to move the focus to another area of the pitch. After all the passing triangle focuses the defending team in the area of the ball carrier. The ability to switch play to the other side requires having players with good awareness, good decisions and a trusted ability to send the ball 40 yards across the pitch into the path of another player.
Coming back to the Saints match.. While Spurs were showing a lot of confidence on the ball, the Saints were doing things that only pointed to a defeat. Whenever a Southampton midfielder had the ball, the entire front line would be at least 20-30 metres away. It was woefully apparent that their passing triangles were huge, and at most times they only had one player within 10 metres of the ball carrier. This often resulted in passing cul-de-sacs as they got closed down rapidly by the Spurs. The few good moments when they had good triangles going they managed to get the ball up, but these moments were often too rare. At one point when the central midfielder had the ball the wingers on both flanks were in line with the strikers up front forming a perfect line of four standing with the Spurs back-line, effectively turning them off as a passing option. Naturally they would lose possession.
Spurs on the other hand kept their triangles tight, in most cases getting the ball up and when they had to switch flanks as the triangle got closed down the space that opened up on the opposite flank would get exploited by a spurs player within easy range to hurl that 30metre pass.
When Spurs had to they were able to get the up with some really fast direct play, this is where their passing triangle adjusted slightly the ball carrier would now adjust his body to open up lateral space so effectively he would stand in such a way when he received the ball that he would be able to turn his body slightly to pass the ball to someone
Anchor player launching a counter attack
At the moment in FM, translation of this isn’t perfect. Teams seem to play the same way and any defining identity isnt immediately apparent. More often than not you can easily see teams managing to keep strict discipline at maintaining tight passing triangles. In the real world these passing triangles get increasingly bigger as the game draws on owing to player fitness. This needs to be accurately reflected in the game, at the moment I dont see enough of that. During the course of the game even the Spurs struggled to maintain tight discipline to maintain their passing triangle, and when Southampton managed to get some decent possession, it was their lack of a Xabi Alonsoesque player that prevented them to get any purchase on switching flank attacks.
Smaller sides in the premiership have shown that with discipline they can maintain successful passing triangles, Swansea are the best example. Overtime any side can achieve this provided they maintain a high amount of discipline and this needs to be translated into the game, via training. A direct co-relation between coaches discipline attribute and attacking or defending attributes needs to be a factor for this. Furthermore the existence of poor passing options should also be translated into the game. There should be sides in football manager who show these obvious gaps in the game such as Southampton exhibited so that different sides display unique identity.
With better sides passing triangles can become longer, much like how Manchester United is able to play direct football quickly along the flanks. Movement on the pitch by ball carriers needs to be translated as well. Some sides in the modern game still run with the ball at their feet for a good 10 yards. A perfect example is Manchester United who have technically good players who have great ball control. More often than not these players run for a good 10-15 yards with the ball before they unleash a pass. This too needs to be translated into the game.
Whilst its great to see the short one touch passing game easily mimicked in the game. Whats a bit disturbing is how prevalent it is in FM2013. There are currently way too many iterations of this even in non league football sides. I managed Stafford Rangers and was pleasantly surprised to see them play that game easily, far too easily. The one thing I did notice is that the gap between passing triangles was maintained and the lack of tempo and speed in off the ball running was maintained. While I was happy to see the latter i wasnt thrilled with the former. There needs to be a minimum acceptable level for decision making and off the ball attributes. so for instance if we accept that the best sides in the lowest league need to have 10 as an attribute to make them the best there, then any player with a 5 or 6 for off the ball running, should be late getting into space. And any player with that for decision making should be further up the pitch and out of position.
Managers should be able to transcend these limitations by getting the right players and making their tactics work the right way. However, we should easily be seeing other sides in the game making these kinda Southampton mistakes, players too far away for a good pass etc. And if we can get this mixture done right, the FM tonic will be hard to resist
Addicted to FM 