Saturday`s game at Selhurst Park saw both sides adopting a 3-5-2 formation as Frank De Boer looks to implement his own style at Crystal Palace.
Paul Clement, meanwhile, stuck with the system that limited Manchester United last weekend, before positive changes allowed them to score three late goals. Despite an injury to Kyle Bartley in midweek, Clement used all of his three available centre backs, as Mike van der Hoorn kept his place after playing at MK Dons on Tuesday night.
As usual, we`re relying on the great work from twitter user @11tegen11 to look at the pass maps from this game, which provides an insight into the two teams` shape, busiest players in terms of passing and most common passing link-ups.
The main difference between Palace and Swansea`s 3-5-2 systems is how Palace pushed one of their midfielders further forward to assist the strikers, while the Swans had a flat line of 5 in midfield, and a big gap between them and the front 2.
Check the tweet below to look through the pass maps of the game.
Passmaps & xGplot for Palace against Swansea. #passmap #xGplot #autotweet pic.twitter.com/VZXcnWV4Im
? 11tegen11 (@11tegen11) August 26, 2017
Jason Puncheon for Crystal Palace was the player to push further forward as the attacking midfielder to help create chances for the front 2, and the Swans needed somebody like Leroy Fer to do the same job.
It was the same thing against Manchester United last weekend – which we pointed out in our analysis of that game here, as the two strikers were given a tough job without a number 10 to link up with them.
The pass maps also shows that the Swans sat deeper, with two close defensive and midfield lines – with Alfie Mawson the busiest of the two wide defenders as he linked up with Tom Carroll.
The image below shows the two teams` average positions together – and you can see the relation in terms of high up the pitch they played etc.
Swansea`s two strikers were often up against 4 Palace players as the graphic shows, and Abraham in particular was often moving to a wide right position to link up with Kyle Naughton. This often left Ayew isolated through the middle.
