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Recruiting on Paper

A very interesting and insightful listen to Sean Gilhespy (Bristol City Head of Recruitment) on 3 Peaps in a Podcast this week (7th Oct 2024). I was going to write an article this break about the summer’s recruitment, but was finding it difficult to find the right angle and didn’t want to just write a player by player appraisal.

Three Peaps in a Podcast

On “paper” (hence the strap-line) I liked most of the summer recruitment, especially the earlier summer “ins”. But the Twine saga that dragged on, coupled with the Earthy loan deal (and Stokes loan out) and McNally signing seemed to be a bit of a deviation, or at least excessive in terms of the original summer plan. I’m sure there are reasons / explanations, but that’s not really my point, nor of this piece.

If I take the pre summer brief from Manning and Tinnion, City went from wanting a 9 and a 10 to the addition of a 7 (winger) as Sean explains in the pod. I could see the merits of Armstrong and Mayulu individually, together with Bird (from January) and whoever the mystery Japanese wide-man might be.

All good, yes? Well, not quite!

At the point of these names coming into the public domain, or a filtering of Japanese wingers in Wyscout and Tableau to extract Hirakawa or maybe Miyoshi (a more versatile “forward” than winger), I was pretty happy. They had the attributes, and fitted the strategy of signing younger players with growth, who ought to be ready now.

All good, yes? Still, not quite!

At this point I’d seen a variety of “Manning-ball” set-ups. For simplicity I’ll categorise them into two main ones:

  1. The 4231 pass it, pass it some more into wide positions and not get back infield, coupled with a mid-block and little press
  2. The 3421 with a bit more intent, tempo and a tendency to block to press if not press to block

Those are huge generalisations, and the formations stated merely to give an idea of shape without the ball. But City fans will know what I’m trying to describe as simply as possible. There were good and bad performances and good and bad results with each.

But what shape / system / intent was Manning gonna drill over a meticulously planned preseason? I had no idea. So, whilst the players signed seemed to fit the brief in terms of technical attributes and player profile, it was difficult to know how they’d fit in, ie they purely “looked good on paper” (or video or data viz or watching the player live – in Armstrong and Bird’s cases)!

Through preseason (Wolves was behind closed doors) I started to build a view of what Manning-ball v2425 might look like. It was a back-4, single striker based set-up (4231) without the ball, but lopsided in terms of a very high positioned left-back in early phase build-up, an inverted left-winger to create an impression of a back-3 with two 10s in-possession. The early friendlies saw Wells or Stokes as the 10, pending the arrival of Twine (at some point – they ain’t moving on!).

All good, yes? Getting there!

I could now start to see how the two striker signings would fit in individually. Hirakawa would have to wait, but the assumption of signing a winger was that he would play right of the 3 in a 4231 shape.

As the preseason fixtures drew to an end and City played Willem II, their hardest opponent of the watchable games, I began to worry more about the defence (as a team unit), especially transition-defence. City hadn’t signed any defenders, but in trying to improve the attack, it concerned me that Manning-ball v2425 might have compromised a pretty resolute defence from 23/24, especially the left side. Defensive personnel the same, defensive method different.

This distracted me from evaluating Armstrong and Mayulu, and with the season starting, I now had Twine and Earthy to add into the mix. Hirakawa would have to wait some more, due to an ankle injury following a shocking challenge at the Olympics.

That distraction continued with early goals from Mayulu and a goal and an assist from Armstrong negating the need to look too deeply at their performances and fit, but as we continued to look open at the back, that retained my focus. A couple of stuffings away from home (Derby and Blackburn) with a lack of potency at the other end started to refocus my thoughts back to the original subject-matter.

In the last few games, with Manning tweaking things in the set up on the left side to offer more protection to the left half of the defence, I’ve noticed that our attack has become a bit one-dimensional, a bit one-pronged!

City continue to struggle to break down structured defences (not to be confused with teams “parking the bus”) because they don’t play up the pitch quickly enough, an extra pass here or there, slowing momentum. A lack of bravery perhaps? Or rigidity of patterns of play? Or “sussed-out” by the opposing manager?

So what manifests? A lot of stick for Sinclair Armstrong it seems!

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Fair or unfair?

I’m on the side of unfair. He is being asked to the use the attributes he was signed for, running the channels, stretching the pitch, being physical, etc. But in doing so he’s the only player doing that, the only player breaking beyond the opposition back-line. He’s then also expected to be the one on the end of chances. Yes, he’s had a few and missed a few, but he can’t do both, not the same time anyway, and he’s generally been bright in his hour-long appearances.

It looks to me like he needs a partner!

That’s not to say City need to play two strikers, but he needs a partner in some shape or form. Someone breaking into the box to take advantage of when he’s doing his work away from the penalty area.

What about City’s other striker signing, Mayulu?

Another “big” 9, but very different to Armstrong. I watched a fair bit of video of him when Sky Austria first broke the news that City were signing him. He’s not had as much opportunity as Armstrong, but it is clear he is different type of striker to Sinclair.

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He’s much happier getting ball into him from chest-down, likes to lay-off first-time off of his first-touch, or roll into space, but isn’t gonna “hide it” whilst he waits for the rest of the attack to join him. A bit like Patrick Bamford in some respects. Looks genuinely two-footed and gets into his stride pretty quickly. He looks as if he needs players close to him to run onto his lay-offs, otherwise he can become isolated. Noticeable in preseason that he looked much happier when Wells played 10 behind / alongside him, than Stokes. Nahki makes very different runs to Stokes (that’s the experienced striker in him) and now that Twine is onboard and playing 10, rather than an inverted left-winger, different runs to Twine too. Twine doesn’t make third-man runs like Wells does.

It looks to me like he needs a partner too!

So, two strikers signed, both different, both fitting the recruitment brief in different ways. But within the system being played by Manning, both appear to be missing a fellow “forward”, someone to work with, tow around the pitch. Armstrong is having to make runs in behind for himself, Mayulu has the deft touches to allow runs off of him, but has nobody running onto them.

Is the answer to play both of them? Gary Owers, BBC Radio Bristol pundit and ex-City midfielder thinks so, or at least thinks is a good option to try. It is certainly an option most fans would like to see also, not least with the monotony of like-for-like subs each game, ie striker off / striker on. I see merits in Wells being the third in a “perm two from three” option. His clever movement and understanding of how to play as a pair, together with his ability to finish might be the beneficiary of the other two’s hard work. Wells would play the partner role with either very differently to how Armstrong and Mayulu would play together.

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The current “partner” option is Twine. Playing a 10 like Twine, who wants to find pockets in between the opposition defence and midfield, rather than be a goal-threat getting on the end of Armstrong or Mayulu’s donkey-work, puts question marks on the system and the cohesiveness of certain player combinations within the overall team. And therefore question marks on Recruitment too. Especially when you’ve spent several million across the summer acquiring these players.

How quickly does the identification of players look out of date / compromised when you find out that what looked great on the whiteboard and magnetic blobs (“animations”) doesn’t work quite as well against Championship opponents and the perfect fit looks / becomes imperfect?

How quickly do you realise that for all the possession and control you have, your chances are being created against well-set defences and harder to score or falling to the player who isn’t as clinical as you need him to be?

It would be really interesting to find out how player identification is executed against a theoretical system, or whether bits of 23/24 were used as the blue-print. If so, is there enough similarity to v2425 to base Recruitment on it?

With someone like Scott Twine being the “must sign” (Tinnion, Manning and a lot of fans) summer signing, it is interesting that the system in which he played on loan after returning from injury last Easter is not the one being used this season. Although the first half a dozen games of the season tried to recreate a hybrid of that system in-possession, it caused issues without the ball, and has been tweaked to something different, ie left winger not inverting and playing more conventionally. Couple that with comparing who played striker in that run of games last season to this? It wasn’t a more physical 9, but Tommy Conway (now sold to Middlesbrough). I’d argue that the system is now quite different to last season when you look beyond the formation.

What gives?

The player(s), the system or recruitment?

That is for Liam Manning and his coaches and analysts to figure out. Of course, the answer might be – it just needs time to gel!

The next month or so after the international break will tell us much more.

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