Central Coast Mariners 7-2 Sydney FC: Crook’s half-time change leads to thrashing

A flurry of second half goals secured an incredible margin of victory for the Mariners.

The starting line-ups – Yao and Mallia switched midway through the half

Graham Arnold made no changes from the side that defeated the Melbourne Heart last week, despite Tom Rogic being under a mild injury cloud.

Rather, the biggest news in terms of selection was the absence of Alessandro Del Piero: the Italian was omitted from the matchday squad as an injury precaution, meaning Yairo Yao came into the side, playing in advance of Kruno Louvrek.

The Mariners were the better side throughout the contest, and their seven goals flattered a poor Sydney defence.

Midfield battle

Yao scored early with a neat chip after Louvrek seized on a loose ball inside the Mariners half, but this goal was indicative of the game’s early pattern: a high tempo and lots of sloppy passing. Both sides were set out in similar 4-2-3-1 formations, where the two midfielders sat deep and distributed the ball upfield to the attacking four.

The Mariners tend to sit deep as to soak up pressure, but they’ve been slightly more proactive this year, but it was Sydney that set the rhythm of the game as they attempted to play a disjointed pressing game. The clearest battle was that in midfield, where Paul Reid and Ali Abbas picked up John Hutchinson and Nick Montgomery respectively, and attempted to prevent them from playing passes from deep.

Rogic

The person to benefit most from this clash in midfield was playmaker Tom Rogic. I’ve been critical of Rogic’s movement in the opening rounds of the season, suggesting he’s too static, too focused on attempting to play goalside of the nominal holding midfielders. Here, Rogic certainly played in those spaces between the lines, but key to this was how he would drop deep, play a quick one-two with the double pivot and then move quickly into the space behind Reid and Abbas. Granted, the openness of Sydney’s midfield was a huge benefit, but his intelligent, dynamic vertical movement was key to allowing the Mariners to move the ball up the pitch, and it was fitting that he scored a brace as well as a brilliant assist.

Louvrek

By contrast, Sydney’s player ‘in the hole’, Louvrek, had a poor game, summed up by his substitution at half-time. Clear differences in technical quality aside, Louvrek’s quite similar to Del Piero in how he likes to move deep and collect passes in left-sided positions, and was a suitable replacement for the Italian as the central player in Sydney’s band of three.

But Louvrek simply doesn’t have the same supreme awareness of space as the marquee, and against an inherently defensive pairing of Montgomery and Hutchinson; he was always likely to struggle to find space. The two simply sat deep as a shield in front of the back four and forced Louvrek into deeper, less dangerous positions, as shown on his chalkboards to the left, and it was the influence of the ‘playmakers’ that summed up the first half.

Full-backs

Yet that wasn’t the complete story behind the Mariners’ quick turnaround of the score-line. Joshua Rose and Pedj Bojic are fantastic attacking full-backs, and they constantly stormed forward down the flank to overlap Miles Sterjovski and Michael McGlinchey near the by-line. Their attacking intent, combined with the fact Mitch Mallia and Brett Emerton were rarely tracking back, added width to the Mariners attack and crucially, allowed McGlinchey and Sterjovski to move inside into the penalty area. Emerton was the more disciplined of the Sydney wingers and more willing to close down Sterjovski, but Daniel Petkovski was constantly isolated, allowing Bojic to bomb forward regularly as the chalkboard on the right demonstrates.

Crook switched Yao and Mallia midway through the half in an attempt to give Petkovski more protection, but Yao is not a competent defender (as his yellow card illustrated) and only allowed the Mariners to concentrate their play down the right even more.

Second half

3-1 down, Crook decided to make a double change, introducing Terry McFlynn and Blake Powell for Louvrek and Petkovski, and switching to an unusual, lopsided 3-1-4-2 formation. Ryall, Grant and McClenahan became the three-man backline, while, on paper, Emerton and Powell were the nominal wing-backs, but rarely played in those positions. Rather, Emerton played high up the pitch and tried to push Josh Rose back, while Powell, ostensibly a striker, attempted the same with Bojic by playing in a left-sided forward position, but the result was to provide Bojic with even more space to push forward.

Besides, the Mariners didn’t really need to push full-backs up the pitch – with McFlynn given a man-marking job on the dangerous Tomas Rogic, it meant one of the two wide players could simply sit in a pocket on halfway and wait for passes on the counter-attack.

This problem for Sydney was compounded when Ryall picked up McBreen, leaving the two outside centre-backs with no clear opponent. Therefore, when in possession, they moved outwards to the flanks in order to provide width, meaning quick counter-attacks were often simple 2v2 situations (McFlynn and Ryall v Rogic and McBreen), often originating in the channels where Grant and McClenahan theoretically should have been positioned.

Although the immediate result of this change in formation was early pressure on the Mariners goal and a fantastic goal from Abbas, it was clear how chaotic and unstructured the side really were. Neither McFlynn or Grant has extensive experience as a central defender and were constantly caught out of position, while Abbas and Reid were poor defensively and frequently overrun during transitions. The clearest fallacy of the Sydney formation was the lack of wing-backs, who provide width in three-man systems. Pushing Grant and McClenahan up the pitch was essentially suicidal, as it left open space on either side, and the Mariners rarely had to commit men forward, happy to leave Rogic and McBreen high up the field.

With Sydney players all over the pitch, it was easy for the Mariners to play on the break with quick, simple passes towards Sterjovski and Daniel McBreen. The amount of times the Mariners simply broke forward and attacked through sheer strength of numbers was incredible, and Crook must shoulder blame, as Sydney clearly had little understanding of their roles, a fact that casts serious doubt over Ian Crook.

At some point during the goal flurry Crook returned to the usual 4-2-3-1 shape, but the damage had been done, and introducing Hagi Gligor for Reid was an inconsequential change.

The last twenty minutes were a non-event, as Sydney were more comfortable with a back four and the Mariners were content to slow the tempo of the game.

End notes

A monumental result that summed up the differences between the two sides: the Mariners have played under Arnold for years and are settled in his preferred style of play, while Sydney are transitioning to a new style as well as a new squad, and were completely unfamilar with their shape in the second half.

It’d be lazy to suggest Del Piero’s absence was the key factor: the marquee might have improved Sydney’s attacking play, but the real problem was in defence, and in Crook’s half-time change. “We took a risk second half and that was down to me,” he said. ‘The blame lays at my door I took the chance on playing three at the back. We got back in it and I thought we were good again for the first fifteen of the second half.”

Sydney’s defensive troubles aside, the Mariners were simply very good – their passing was crisp, their attacking fluid and constantly won loose balls. That said, Arnold will be concerned at the two goals conceded, and restoring the tactical balance that characterises his management style will be the focus for next week’s match.

Updated article.

By Tim Palmer

Tim is a football coach, writer, analyst and sports scientist. He is currently Assistant Technical Director, Head of Player Development & Video and a coach at NWSF Spirit, as well as working with the Pararoos. Previously, he has worked as an analyst with the Socceroos, and in the A-League.

0 Comments

Great analysis. I\’ve just discovered this site and Kate Cohen\’s site and am loving them!

I am really starting to worry about Crook. Sydney are to my untrained eyes getting steadily worse. The players seem to be more and more confused and caught out of position game by game.

Do you see any evidence of any sort of \’system\’ developing? Difficult I know with injuries, but most of these injuries have been known of well in advance. There are constantly massive gaps across the field for the opposition to exploit.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the kind comments! Hope you stick around.

I\’m very confused about Crook. I don\’t want to fall into lazy territory and put it straight down to Del Piero, but it\’s difficult to say that he\’s not been over-reliant on the Italian. I don\’t think there\’s anything particularly wrong with that – he\’s their best player for a reason – but if that\’s going to come at the cost of a good structure, then Sydney don\’t stand a chance.

Considering he had an entire off-season to work on the basic tactics – which in my mind would cover pressing, attacking moves and phases of play – he\’s made very poor progress. Sydney have absolutely no idea about a synchronised pressing game (more on that soon!). There\’s no consistency in how different players play in similar roles – for example, Emerton was always barging down the right when he was played at fullback, but now Rhyan Grant is fairly conservative. Sure, that can be marked down to the characteristics of the players, but there is no clear vision of how he wants the team to play. Another example is playing out from the back – against Wellington, McFlynn and Antonis rarely moved from their midfield positions at goalkicks, meaning the Phoenix could just sit on McClenahan and Griffiths and force them to play long, which defeats the entire purpose of what Crook is trying to achieve. (To be fair, Reid\’s changed this a bit by dropping in between the two CBs, but again, is this Crook, or is it the individual taking it upon himself?)

A long reply, but in short: I expect Crook to be doing a lot better, but I do hope Sydney give him time – as you said, injuries will have scuppered some of his plans, while it always takes some time to implement a new system

Cheers for the reply. Yep have subscribed now so will get notified whenever there is a new post!

Yeah it is tough on Crook to be too harsh I guess, given the injuries. The reserves just give the impression that not only have they never played together, but that as professional footballers they don\’t even have the basic expected positional/common sense.

Seems like once the four or five injured players come back, we then need to allow for another 4-5 weeks for them to get up to match fitness and start to gel, and then half the season is gone. Such a shame.

But I have to think a failure to accommodate injuries – and a reliance on the signing of Culina, a player who hasn\’t played for a year – is poor management on Crook\’s part. Bit concerned as well by suggestions Culina will fix things up – he might, but the pressure to do so is too much.

Lots of work to do, that\’s for sure

Like Dave, i\’ve just come across this website and I think we need more of this analysis for the A-league.

Would you say that Del Piero provides the structure and vision of play for Sydney and given that he arrived at a late point in the pre-season that it has taken Crook\’s preparation and tactics in a different direction?

I saw Sydney as a team with no clear direction and consequently (as you pointed out in an earlier post) no consistency in their roles and organisation. Perhaps (and i\’m just guessing here) the team has mixed messages, roles aren\’t clear, pressing and attacking phases are not organised. I\’m going to go with a more controversial angle than Dave and suggest that it isn\’t the new system that needs to be embeded but the clarity of leadership (and then the new system).

I would like to see Del Piero miss another game just to see what team and system Crook comes out with, but I suspect i\’m the only one.

Interesting thoughts – and stick around, because there\’s lot more coverage to come this season.

I\’d agree with your broad ideas – implementing a new system starts with implementing a new leadership, and it\’s quite clear that hasn\’t happened. A new manager has to assert his style on the team so that they can assimilate into what he wants to achieve, but the evidence suggests his plans just aren\’t coming across during the training week.

Has Del Piero taken Crook\’s tactics in a different direction? Definitely, but not hugely, and that\’s no excuse for the abysmal pressing game that Sydney are currently playing. Del Piero is just one piece of the puzzle in the defensive phase, and the ten other players really should have had a superb understanding of their roles by that point of the off-season.

To be fair on Crook, Sydney did have a disrupted pre-season, and didn\’t play anywhere near as many friendlies as they would have liked. Let\’s see what happens in the next few weeks.

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