Swans troubles caused by an absent midfield

CroJack

Key Player
For more than a month I have been analysing Swans' passing patterns in hope to find out why we are so ineffective going forward and so vulnerable to counter-attacks.

I have found out that there has been a clear trend in Swans' style of play which points out to an absent and ineffective midfield. The way our midfield play is wrong and it has to be fixed. I am baffled that Coopers' analytics team (if he has one) hasn't seen what I have seen.

Here is an example from the Preston game, but the same pattern can be seen in all our games in the past four-five moths.

Let's first look at the individual players' passing maps.

1. Freddy Woodman

Against Preston he didn't try to pass the ball to our midfielders and Brewster. Look at that empty central area. Not a single pass there from Woodman.

Woodman.jpg

2. Mark Guehi

Only one attempted pass to the central midfield area and that pass was unsuccessful. Most of his passes were towards our left side.

Guehi.jpg

3. Joe Rodon

He made 4 successful and 5 unsuccessful forward passes in the central midfield area. At least he tried to penetrate Preston midfield with forward passes.

Rodon.jpg

4. Jake Bidwell

Jake is one-dimensional as a player, and his pass map is same game in game out. He is glued to the side line and all his movements and passing are max. ten yards away from the side line.

Bidwell.jpg

5. Kyle Naughton

A couple of his passes were in the central midfield area, but his passing range was better than Bidwell's. He tried to switch side of play and attempted some long diagonal passes.

Naughton.jpg
 

CroJack

Key Player
6. Matt Grimes

Matt Grimes is our central defensive midfielder. Have a look at his pass map. More passes should be forward passes through the midfield centre, but Grimes is not to be blamed, he often doesn't have recievers who run into empty spaces in advance central areas of the pitch.

Grimes.jpg

7. George Byers

Against Preston he didn't make a single successful forward pass in the central midfield area.

Byers.jpg

8. Connor Gallagher

He and Byers were supposed to be our attacking midfielders, but also Gallagher failed to make more than a couple of passes in the central and attacking midfield areas. To be fair to Gallagher he was better than Byers.

Gallagher.jpg

9. Bersant Celina

Operating from the left flank he at least tried to link-up with our midfielders.

Celina.jpg

10. Andre Ayew

He made four successful passes in the central and attacking midfield areas, two of them were backward passes.

Ayew.jpg
 

CroJack

Key Player
11. Rhian Brewster

As we can see Brewster made more passes in the central and attacking midfield area than Byers and Gallagher combined.

Brewster.jpg
 

CroJack

Key Player
When we put all this together we get these passing maps. Have a look at empty spaces in the central and attacking midfield. Compare our passing maps to those of Preston and you will see a huge difference.

PassesMiddleThird.jpg

PassesAttackingThird.jpg
ForwardPasses.jpg
ShortPassesSucceded.jpg
MiddleThirdSuccessful.jpg
 

CroJack

Key Player
AttackingThirdSuccessful.jpg

Now we can see how poor we are at attacking through the middle. The vast majority of our 'attacking' activity goes through the flanks and when we add our poor crossing to the above posted passing maps it's clear why we don't score goals. Preston game is not an isolated event, it's a worrying trend.

Crosses.jpg

Our midfielders play more on the flanks than there where they should be playing, and our heat map shows you a huge gap in the midfield area.

HeatMap.jpg
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Bottom line ... we're AWOL in the middle of the park.

Preston were 2x busier than we were in the middle of the park.

We fart around on the wings much too much, when from the side of the box we should be crossing the ball in instead of working it back. Do we not trust our forwards and opposite mid-field / FB to get in there. Our only successful cross was from a corner kick.

What does this say in general about the middle of the park: pure avoidance to make the pass, or players not busy enough to show for a pass. We are clearly confining ourselves to narrow channels of play. If we naturally do that because that's the habit we reinforce in practice then we're killing ourselves.

Gallagher was significantly better passing 86% than Byers 71% or Grimes 77%. We are definitely not Swanselona; either in volume of passes, or the success rate. Andy Pandy is full of shit.
 

CroJack

Key Player
What does this say in general about the middle of the park: pure avoidance to make the pass, or players not busy enough to show for a pass
In my opinion both. Cooper must be blind not to see what is going on. And this what I think we should be criticising him for, not for sloppy passes etc. This is both structural and crucial. A lack of presence in the midfield is something that should've been adressed long time ago. We are too easy to defend against and at the same time vulnerable to counter attacks.

Look at the huge hole in the midfield here. This is the heat map for our three midfielders. No attacking intent and a free path for opposition midfielders and attackers through our midfield.

IMG_20200214_175707.jpg

And look at the heat map for the three Liverpool midfielders against West Ham.

IMG_20200214_175633.jpg

The difference is obvious.
 

ivoralljack

Grizzled Veteran
Staff member
Great work, CJ, which, as you say, begs the question of what our analysts are doing. If they are producing the same figures as you then Cooper is badly at fault in not making the best use of the info. I've long banged on about the ineffectivness of our midfield and the lack of activity in the centre of the park is almost criminal. We brought in Brewster, whose game is based on through balls as opposed to getting on the end of hopeful crosses, yet the poor sod is being starved of the service he needs to operate successfully. I can see him going back to Liverpool and telling them he wants to be loaned to a team that is savvy enough to use him properly. And how badly will that reflect on us as a club as other managers will be watching too.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
@CroJack .... is it at all possible to pull a heat map from say a game under Martinez, Sousa, Rogers and Laudrup for comparison.

here’s a thought .... our midfield players are being drawn wide or going wide. Both compact. that channel and makes it difficult for the winger and FB to cooperate - there are no good angles for passes. Being drawn wide perhaps because our wingers have no defensive discipline and don’t provide cover and support for the FB?
 
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