Reading 0-3 Blackpool: Tactical Analysis
The Royals’ impressive home form came to an end with a comfortable loss to Steve Bruce’s Blackpool.
Well, that didn’t quite go to plan, did it? Noel Hunt’s first home game as a permanent manager at Reading ended in a resounding defeat at the hands of the Seasiders, with just about every player looking rather out of sorts.
We’ve had this type of match before, and we’ll have them again for sure; it’s not necessarily the new manager’s fault, nor even on any individuals in particular, but the team just didn’t click, and our visitors had a great game.
However, that’s not to say nothing went wrong and there’s nothing to analyse and improve on, so let’s see how the Royals were defeated on Saturday afternoon.
They say attack is the first line of defence. However, when you’re a high-pressing team, the amount of players you commit forward means the defence almost becomes the attack too.
Against Blackpool it seemed like we had the elements of a Ruben Selles team and how we used to play under him, but the execution wasn’t there and it showed the tactical void left in his path. That’s not to say Hunt is tactically any worse, for we haven’t seen enough of him to say that yet - rather that he’s had hardly any time to get the team playing how he wants to.
Compound that with it being a team without a lot of experience in managing a game, and it’s not looking good. An example is in the screenshot below, where we’ve worked Blackpool back so they’re a little bit penned in.
Every outfield player in tangerine in the picture is being marked closely by a Reading player - good in terms of preventing them from playing the ball around the back, but that makes them man-for-man against our defenders too, which doesn’t leave us with much of a safety net should the ball break forwards.
Unfortunately for us, the ball did get pumped forward, and towards Kyle Joseph, a tall, physical and competent centre-forward, who’s scored seven goals in 19 league games so far this season.
He was able to knock it down to Rob Apter, whose long touch into the space set the ball well beyond the chasing legs of Lewis Wing, Andre Garcia, and Tyler Bindon, all of whom were always going to struggle to catch the pacy winger. Those three can be seen trying to get back to him in the photo here.
And when we went back to our high man-for-man press that left space at the back, although Apter was exploiting the space that would usually be occupied by Bindon, the centre-back has to be drawn out to follow up on Joseph’s touch, and so on. One player out of position or slightly with their eye off the ball in an ambitious system like this can bring the whole operation down.
One thing I used to hear quite a lot is that this Reading team can especially struggle against teams with a three at the back, but personally I think it’s rather team with two up top, and it happens to be that many teams with a back three have a strike partnership. This is because it puts our defence in the awkward position of whether to put the whole back four on the two strikers, or risk going man-for-man with just the centre-backs.
Blackpool played a 4-4-2, with some archetypal personnel to fill those roles: two big strikers, one small pacy winger, a lanky experienced winger, effective box-to-box central midfielders and a settled and capable back four and goalkeeper. Nothing revolutionary from Steve Bruce, but it certainly shellshocked the Reading team.
The visitors didn’t tend to want to press us too much either, but rather wait for our mistakes, of which there were a few. We know the Royals want to have a high line and try to control the game when in possession, therefore, when we lost the ball, Blackpool were desperate to get the ball forward as fast as possible.
Like here for example. A loose pass was intercepted by Oliver Casey and immediately delivered into the feet of Joseph, who set it back into midfield and ran onward.
All four of the Blackpool attack broke forward, with just three of our defenders for company. We also missed the pace of Amadou Mbengue here, after his half-time substitution for Louie Holzman.
A golden opportunity presented itself for dangerman Apter yet again from this situation, who decided to go for goal despite free options to pass to at the back post. The chance to pass was so good that Dom Ballard, who was that pass, lashed his arms up in the air in frustration after the shot was skewed, as Joel Pereira saved this one fortunately.
On almost every chance, Blackpool tried to get the ball forward as fast as possible. All of goalkeeper Harry Tyrer’s 11 kicks went long to the strikers. Both sides managed around the same amount of long passes, but on overall passing numbers we had 440 to the Seasiders’ 298.
On Saturday we were beat by a clear game plan that exploited our potentially shaky tactics at the moment to great effect, and you have to credit Bruce and his side for that.
Although they didn’t dominate possession, Blackpool created by far the better chances, and it’s no wonder why Pereira was given the TTE man of the match in the Player Ratings, because it was more about damage limitation than control for Reading.
Hunt’s side have got a golden opportunity to redeem themselves away at Lincoln City. In the same fixture last year, Selles was absent from the dugout as he served a suspension, so maybe this time round we’ll deal equally as well without him, as a draw like last time would be a very creditable result.
Until then, enjoy the last few days before Christmas!