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3 Pass Maps – Swansea City vs Millwall – Demonstrating Potter’s Many Tactical Changes During The Game

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It’s been just over a week since our 2-1 win at Millwall but we’ve finally got around to producing the passing network maps from the performance at the Den.

After 8 days since the win, we’d normally move on but without a game this week and the amount of tactical and personnel changes that manager Graham Potter had to make during the match, we thought we’d take a look and see how they changed and evolved.

First 35 Minutes

Graham Potter was dealt an early blow when striker Courtney Baker-Richardson was sent off within the first five minutes so he was forced to shift things around early on.

We didn’t get much of a chance to understand the intended formation but it looked like a standard 4-4-2 with Barker-Richardson alongside McBurnie.

That soon changed. As you can see in the 0-35 minute pass-map below (up until Fer’s substitution), McBurnie was sacrificed and had to drop back to wide left position to add defensive support. Goalkeeper Erwin Mulder’s passes were longer and more direct and the long passes over to Dan James shows that he was the long, direct outball – using his pace down the right.

36-59 Minutes

Graham Potter was forced into another switch-up 10 minutes before halftime when Leroy Fer unfortunately with a groin injury. The Swans lost their shape a little after his departure as we soon missed his presence in the middle of the pitch.

Potter switched things up again. Kyle Naughton replaced Leroy Fer and slotted in at right-back as Connor Roberts moved just in front of him, playing a similar position to the one he played in the 2-2 draw against Leeds.

With Daniel James moving over to the left, Martin Olsson had to drop deeper as he lost that defensive cover in front of him as Oli McBurnie could move further inside in a more central role. With the Swans a man down, their passing, as you’d expect, was longer and more direct into wide areas.

Bersant Celina shifted across to a more wide right role and dropped deeper too.

The sizes of the circles represent the number of passes, the red-amber-green colour scale shows the passing accuracy. The lack of passes for both Olsson and James shows a lack of data in order to show the top three average passes, demonstrating a lack of activity down that left side during the 36-60 minute period. There was far more activity down the right but this soon changed when Montero came on.

 60-90+ Minutes

Martin Olsson’s injury on the hour mark forced another re-shuffle and again it showed how versatile Graham Potter can be with his tactical adjustments.

Matt Grimes, who played at left-back during the pre-season friendlies, covered Olsson as his replacement Jefferson Montero produced a man of the match display in front of him.

Tom Carroll and Bersant Celina were now the two central midfielders with both Naughton and Roberts playing similar roles on the right flank.

The passing you can see below is more accurate than the previous pass-maps with only the goalkeeper Mulder and Oli McBurnie showing a low pass success rate. Tom Carroll’s long pass to Montero for him to set up the equaliser is shown via the long green line and there are also passing lines over to that left wing area from the likes of Grimes, Celina and McBurnie.

For more analysis on the win at Millwall, check out our two-part analysis articles via the links below:

Match Analysis Part 1 – Millwall 1-2 Swansea City – Graham Potter Shows His Tactical Flexibility in First Half After Making A Number of Forced Changes

Match Analysis Part 2 – Millwall 1-2 Swansea City – How The Swans Took Full Advantage of Millwall’s Poor Shape

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