Bristol City's (not) 4-4-2
A look at how Bristol City proved that set formations are simply a thing of the past
Bristol City beat Preston North End 2-0 in the Championship on Saturday. As the line ups were announced at 2pm, there was confusion over whether the Robins would continue in their 5-1-2-2 shape, or whether they would move to a 4-4-2.
Those who know me well will know that I quickly tire of formation talk, as I believe that they are just reference points, and they allow official club twitter accounts to post a team sheet one hour before kick off. I prefer to look at the game in phases, whether that be the build up shape, the final third shape, or a shape without the ball. In my opinion, shapes in football are fluid and are heavily contextual, as Manchester City prove every week, and as Bristol City proved against PNE.
So, Bristol City started in a “4-4-2” with Palmer and Adelakun “wide”, Nagy and Vyner in central midfield, and Martin alongside Diedhou up front.
In reality, City attacked with more of a 2-2-2-4 shape, with a fluid approach. Apart from the CBs, Bristol City committed 8 players to attack. Full backs, central midfielders, and 4 “attackers”.
Without the ball, Bristol City resembled the closest thing to 4-4-2 that we saw all day, in certain possession phases when they aimed to screen central space, force wide, and force long. However they often resembled a 4-3-3, with a central midfielder jumping into the highest line to allow a man for man approach against PNE’s first line.
Bristol City’s joy came from a) direct play to 2 big strikers, b) central overloads and c) pinning PNE attackers deep and isolating the PNE striker.
The key to Dean Holden’s side gaining the upper hand was largely down to accurate long balls into Diedhou or Martin. PNE, in Ben Pearson’s absence, failed to screen these balls, leaving the City strikers with clear sight of the ball, and they were strong enough to pin PNE’s central defenders. Both strikers have the quality to control the long balls and to bring others into play. PNE’s lack of a screen in front of this was suicidal. Ben Whiteman, on debut, really struggled with this concept.
So, Bristol City went direct, early, and gained territory from here. An interesting point here is that the attacking team will always tend to have the advantage attacking second balls, as they are naturally running onto them as they are facing forwards. Defenders may get their body orientation slightly mixed up, as they may have to turn to face the ball, and thus at some point they are going to a) lose sight of the ball b) lose sight of their man and c) lose momentum.
Note that in all of the above, there is a condensed structure around City’s target - we certainly aren’t seeing what you’d call a 4-4-2 structure. There was a clear emphasis on overloading the areas around the focal point.
As well as the aerial ball, PNE struggled to screen the line of ground passes, and this was another example of the Robins gaining easy access to dangerous areas - again, an example of missing Pearson.
So, PNE failed to screen aerial balls, and simple ground passes. Granted, this was a new midfield trio, however the protection of the back 4 was really poor, and Bristol City could’ve been 3-0 up after 30 minutes.
We have seen that the Robins managed to enter dangerous areas easily, but once there, how did they set up? I have categorised their system into three components: wide full backs, a double pivot, and four attackers with license to roam.
This approach, with 8 players, was very bold and it was hard to defend, as it certainly wasn’t a plain rigid 4-4-2. Overloading central areas and using full backs to pin wide ensured that North End had to defend both central and wide space, meaning that Sean Maguire became incredibly isolated as the no.9, up against two strong centre backs in Mawson and Kalas. The territory that City gained by their successful direct play also allowed them to squeeze the pitch and the defensive line - they caught Maguire offside 3 times in the first 10 minutes.
So, City’s bold attacking play with 8 attackers forming a contextual shape forced PNE to defend with 9 men, due to Alex Neil’s (and many other managers’) insistence on the +1 defensive method. Worth noting that Bristol City kept to this too, with the centre backs left 2v1 against PNE’s striker.
A big part of Maguire’s isolation was the height of the City full backs, which, because Neil demands his wingers to man orientate, forced Sinclair (LW) and Barkhuizen (RW) back into their own box. If PNE cleared, the wingers were thus 50 yards from Maguire.
So, in possession, Holden’s side were direct, aggressive, bold and exciting. Anything but a boring 4-4-2.
Without the ball, they resembled a 4-4-2 if they set into a mid block, however this wasn’t often due to the high number of turnovers in the game. Their 4-4-2 shape was a very compact shape of 6, which aimed to force PNE wide, and then long. They did this to good effect, trapping PNE’s double pivot inside the shape, and using the touchline as a natural pressing trigger.
If the ball went inside the shape, Whiteman was pressed really hard by a midfielder, usually Nagy, causing City to resemble a 4-3-3. So, their shape was (shock) entirely based on the dynamic context of the particular situation. The straight line press from the midfielder from midfield to attacking line was effective as even though it left space behind, it was impossible for the ball to enter that space, as you can’t pass through a player. A really effective press and one that should be used more (Sarri’s Napoli used it)
So, hopefully I have managed to establish that set formations are certainly a thing of the past, and that as football is such a dynamic sport with the context changing all of the time, shapes change to go with this. Numerical equality and superiority are becoming ever more important to managers, as evidenced by pieces like these every week.
Dean Holden got this one spot on, and proved that he has the ability to coach his team to adapt the situations that present themselves on the pitch.