Some Swansea City fans were left puzzled by Graham Potter’s tactics during this afternoon’s 2-1 defeat at Derby County – which rounds off a miserable 8 days for the Swans after 3 consecutive losses.
The Swans boss stuck with a back three after using that formation in the midweek home defeat against West Brom but made 2 personnel changes. Leroy Fer and Martin Olsson lost their places to Declan John and Jay Fulton.
After sharing the first-half average team shape, some fans on social media were left confused by what Potter what attempting to do with his team.
That can’t be what we want the shape to be. That’s not using your players strengths or putting them in the position to succeed.
— kirbp34 (@MrBenDavenport) December 1, 2018
Once again, we saw Oli McBurnie operating mostly in midfield. He was even dropping right back and as a result, he made a mistake midway inside his own half, made a loose pass towards Grimes and Derby were able to steal possession and quickly score their second – effectively killing the game before half-time.
Shocking again. No way should McBurnie need to drop back so deep, hes our only striker and we're playing a back 3. Midfielders job https://t.co/CEU0lZ2d6C
— Vital Swansea (@VitalSwansea) December 1, 2018
There appeared to be a lack of balance too. Dan James was now playing effectively as a striker through the middle rather than as a left winger. McBurnie drops deep and averages a position near the half-way line with Fulton playing wide right in front of the wing-back Connor Roberts. As a result, Matt Grimes looks all on his own sitting deep in front of the back three with a complete lack of midfield support either side of him.
The confusion didn’t stop there as Potter made changes for the start of the second half. Rather than personnel changes to begin with, he switched to a 4-2-3-1 – moving Declan John to the right wing for about 7 minutes, temporarily shifting Carter-Vickers across to left-back.
According to the radio … this is crazy 😨
— ⚽️ SwanseaJack 🏴 (@SwanseaBayJack) December 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/ftbltheo_/status/1068899990720921605
He seems to be overcomplicating things for reasons that I, for one, don't understand.
I assume he knows what he's doing, it would help though if the players did as well.
— Paul Thomas (@NeathJack1) December 1, 2018
3 wingers on the bench and we've got a left back playing right wing and a centre back playing left back. pic.twitter.com/vKG0meMYzD
— Paul Thomas (@NeathJack1) December 1, 2018
Potter’s first substitutions came 9 minutes into the second half leaving some fans wondering why he didn’t make the changes at the restart – rather than playing Declan John on his weaker side and out of position on the right flank.
Carter-Vickers and Jay Fulton made way for Jefferson Montero and Leroy Fer. This provided some better balance now in a 4-2-3-1 that looked like this:
McBurnie
Montero – Celina – James
Grimes – Fer
John – Rodon – van der Hoorn – Roberts
Mulder
This begged the question then as to why Potter didn’t name something similar to this from the start with Fulton filling in for Fer after his poor run of performances. Montero isn’t a starter and with McKay not favoured as a starter either, it appears that Potter is trying to shuffle things around to cater for that.
Right, this is better. Two genuine wingers on the pitch. McBurnie now needs to stay in the middle and not go off a wandering.
— Paul Thomas (@NeathJack1) December 1, 2018
Our overall team shape will be skewed slightly as a result of the formation change early in the second half but here it is below (left, in red) based on each player’s touches during the game.
Alongside as a comparison – on the right is Derby’s overall team shape