Hello folks, hope you’re all keeping well. I’ve been a bit quieter than usual recently because some opportunities cropped up – one involved opposition scouting for a Scottish Premiership club, which was cool – but I’ve been itching to blog and the cup clash between Dundee United and Hibs (or The Tie Of The Round™) was the game I wanted to analyse. So The Second Ball is back.
Starting formations
Since Jack Ross came in, Hibs have been lining up with a diamond midfield – a 4-3-1-2 which allows Florian Kamberi to partner Christian Doidge and Scott Allan to drift behind them. But they haven’t looked entirely comfortable in this system, with winger Martin Boyle crowbarred into a No.8/box-to-box role that he just doesn’t suit. Even in the diamond Boyle has tended to drift wide and look to make runs behind, rather than showing for the ball to feet, and this has upset Hibs’ ability to build effective possession through midfield.
Here, Ross went to a 4-2-3-1 system that saw Boyle playing in a more natural right wing role, with Kamberi on the left and Allan off of Doidge, who was on his own up front. Melker Hallberg was joined by Steven Whittaker in central midfield, while the back four was as expected.
While this system still sees players like Kamberi crowbarred into positions they aren’t ideally suited to, I felt it worked reasonably well in this game in an attacking sense and is something they should consider persevering with, particularly if they can bring in a good No.6 to partner Hallberg in the double pivot…i.e. not Whittaker (not a midfielder/past his prime) or Stevie Mallan (not ideal for a double pivot where’s a lot of defensive/positional responsibility).
Robbie Neilson set Dundee United up in a 4-3-3 that looked quite similar to the system employed by Steven Gerrard’s Rangers – defensively narrow with the wingers staying on the same line as the lone striker, Lawrence Shankland; and offensively the central midfielders dropping in front of the centre-backs, the full-backs pushing on down the flanks and the wingers coming inside between the lines.
Broken lines and possession breakdowns
Dundee United’s attacking setup caused Hibs a serious dilemma – namely, what should their central midfielders do? Doidge’s responsibility was to make life awkward for the centre-backs, though he didn’t apply any real pressure to them and Paul Watson/Mark Connolly therefore often had time and space on the ball. Allan usually positioned himself close to Callum Butcher, United’s deepest midfielder, while Boyle and Kamberi naturally pressured United’s full-backs whenever they received.
But Whittaker and Hallberg had a difficult decision to make: should they step up and track opposite midfielders Dillon Powers and Ian Harkes, or should they stay deep and block off passes to the nominal wingers Paul McMullan and Peter Pawlett, who came inside when their team had possession? Too often the Hibs 6s were badly positioned, caught betwixt and between, and this allowed the home side to break the lines constantly.
The below image comes just 28 seconds into the first half. After a bit of head tennis following kick-off, Dundee United secure possession and attempt to build out from the back. Connolly has the ball. Whittaker goes towards Powers, leaving his position in the process. Pawlett comes in from the left wing and receives a through ball from Connolly in the space Whittaker vacated that essentially breaks two lines of Hibs defence.
Fortunately for Hibs, right-back Jason Naismith reacted quickly on this occasion to move up and pressure – otherwise Pawlett could have turned freely and dribbled at the Hibs last line with Shankland and Paul McMullan making runs ahead of him, which is a very dangerous situation. Unfortunately for Hibs, the full-backs couldn’t always cover their central midfielders like this, because they also had to worry about United full-backs Liam Smith and Jamie Robson advancing around the outside of them.
I could present you all with numerous screenshots of Dundee United penetrating the first two lines of Hibs defence like this, but that might break my blog.
Let’s just say the Hibs midfield was defensively very open and United were able to exploit this consistently. The following sequence of images will show how this led to United’s first goal.
The first image is a good rough guide to how United set up in possession and how Hibs set up defensively. You can see United’s deepest midfielder Butcher sitting in front of the centre-backs while their full-backs have pushed on. The wingers have come inside to act more like attacking midfielders (AMs). Hibs, meanwhile, are set up in their defensive 4-4-1-1.
United retain possession and circulate it between the centre-backs and central midfielders, looking to draw out Hibs midfielders and create gaps to play through. As the ball moves from left to right centre-back Watson, a gap opens up in Hibs’ midfield. Again we see a problem with the defensive positioning of Hibs’ double pivot.
Hallberg is drawn out to Powers rather than focusing on protecting space and denying more penetrative passing options, while Whittaker fails to cover behind his central midfield teammate. Watson finds the gap – as he did well several times in this game – and plays through to McMullan.
Now we see the advantages of playing through an opponent, as opposed to going around or over the top of the opponent, when it comes to actively affecting the opposition defensive shape. By playing through, United cause a chain reaction as Hibs players frantically have to reset their positions to prevent a clear route through the middle straight to goal. They consequently lose their organisation and gaps open up for United to continue playing through. It’s a domino effect.
McMullan draws pressure from Whittaker before laying off to Harkes, who moved into the space Whittaker abandoned. Harkes now has the ball, is completely free with teammates ahead of him and has just one line of defence separating him from goal. Danger. So Ryan Porteous reacts, leaving his position to close down Harkes. A gap opens up in the Hibs back line and two players – Pawlett and Shankland – are in good position to exploit it.
Harkes cuts in onto his right foot, forcing Hibs’ other centre-back Paul Hanlon to concentrate on him. From here, Shankland makes a run on Hanlon’s blind side and Harkes plays a through ball to get Shankland in behind for what is – despite Lewis Stevenson’s best efforts – a pretty clear crack at goal.
The above is a good example of the threat posed to Hibs both by their own midfielders’ defensive positioning and by Dundee United’s attacking approach. If Hibs keep playing with this 4-2-3-1 and go two in midfield instead of the three the diamond offers, their ‘2’ need to be much better defensively/positionally.
I should also point out the good movement from the Dundee United front three of Shankland/McMullan/Pawlett. Some of it was individual, with a player moving to find separation from a defender; some of it was more co-ordinated, with one ‘going’ and the other ‘showing’ to force the Hibs defenders back and ensure space for the player ‘showing’ for the ball.
Unfortunately for Neilson, his side didn’t capitalise on this enough. While they scored in the above instance, their possession often broke down once they had got in behind the Hibs midfield due to bad decision-making – forcing passes that weren’t on – or due to loose/inaccurate passing. As a result, situations that could have led to good shooting opportunities instead led to turnovers and Hibs counter-attacks.
Hibs focus attacks on the wings
Hibs spent large portions of this game defending. This was due to two reasons.
1) The game state. Hibs scored fairly early on in both halves. All in all this meant they spent over an hour of the game with a lead they wanted to hold onto.
2) The tactical battle. The way Hibs set up to defend didn’t support a high press. Doidge on his own just isn’t capable of pressuring two centre-backs, and Allan behind him isn’t particularly intense or consistent in pressing either. Consequently, Hibs had to sit off a bit more than they might otherwise do and Dundee United had more time in possession.
When they did get possession, which mostly happened when a Dundee United attack broke down, Hibs were heavily focused on switching play to the far side and attacking down the wings. Allan would drift out towards the wider areas to get on the ball and was responsible for playmaking on the counter, spreading the ball to the wings accurately, while Boyle and Kamberi were expected to use their pace to get at their opposition.
As shown below, the opening goal came this way.
Here, Hibs counter down the left side. Allan drifts towards the left wing, receives the ball, looks up and switches play to the other side, where Boyle is racing into space. Boyle is a devastating player for attacking transitions like these, because 1v1 he’s an excellent dribbler and he’s also added a good final pass and shot to his game in recent seasons.
Boyle receives Allan’s switch and dribbles inside, committing defenders. Doidge takes advantage of this and makes a move between the United centre-backs, receiving a through ball on the blind side of Connolly to finish.
While Boyle likes to take on and beat defenders, on the other side Kamberi was more focused on cutting in onto his favoured right foot and getting shots off. He proved dangerous as an inverted left winger, where he could get into some decent positions and face goal. Two or three times United goalie Benjamin Siegrist was forced into good stops by the Swiss forward’s shots from just outside the box.
Hibs’ second goal came about from another counter-attack. They regained the ball in their own half after a United attack broke down and countered down the flanks into the space vacated by the advanced United right-back Smith. Kamberi raced away down the left then cut inside to Allan, who laid the ball off for Boyle to score.
This was pretty much the story of the game. Dundee United’s attacking play was mixed. They were successful in breaking the first two lines but generally failed to capitalise on that initial success. Meanwhile Hibs defended poorly but got often away with it, and they took full advantage of the space given to them out wide on the counter-attack. In the end a draw was a fair result.