Clement: We Got The Balance Right With 433

Swansea City head coach Paul Clement revealed that he decided to change the system straight after the defeat to West Ham a fortnight ago.

Clement has tried 3-5-2 and a 4-4-2 diamond systems in recent games but they’ve both proved ineffective. 3-5-2 has been useful to simply keep clean sheets away from home, but the diamond simply hasn’t functioned in an attacking sense.

If anyone follows us on twitter or reads the site regularly, you’ll know that I’ve been barking on about switching back to 4-3-3 for some time. Simply because of the balance it can bring to the team, and how we need to provide more support for the wingers. We also don’t have a quality attacking midfielder, so a 4-3-3 is suitable.

Previously, in the 3-5-2 and 4-4-2 diamond systems, our full backs lacked support in wide areas going forward. Sometimes, we looked disjointed when either of the wide midfielders or forwards would move out in support, which saw a lack of attacking support through the middle.

However, the 4-3-3 looked much better on Saturday against Huddersfield. We created a decent shot on target within 8 minutes and despite not dominating possession, we created the better chances, and in the end scored 2 goals whilst keeping a clean sheet to pick up 3 big points to end our run of defeats at home.

But it wasn’t all about the system – not at all, but it was the higher energy levels and desire to press higher up the pitch that helped to cause the error for the first goal.

Clement said:

“I decided immediately after West Ham to change the system,”

“When you do that as a coach, you have got some time to work. We had eight training days to work on some principles, and a lot of that work was offensive work.

“It paid off. I still think we have got the ability to switch systems, but I was pleased with what I saw today.

Clement also added that he felt the new system gave the team a better balance between defence and attack:

“We have shown with the other systems that we can be hard to break down, but today we managed to find that balance – we kept a clean sheet but also had a threat going forward.”

“The decision to change the system was because of a combination of what I saw at West Ham and also the games before that,”

“We didn`t create a lot of chances and we were not scoring enough goals, but we have found that balance today.”