Tactical talk: More target man woes for Forest

Forest are yet to register a point this season after a 2-0 defeat to Cardiff City at the weekend. In a classic game of two halves The Reds once again struggled against a big target man. Sabri Lamouchi changed his system to successfully deal with the problem, but it was not enough to change the result.

Both teams lined up in a 4-2-3-1. It is impossible to say what Forest’s game-plan was, because within four minutes Cardiff had implemented theirs and were a goal up.

The Bluebirds were spearheaded by 6 foot 4 target-man Kieffer Moore, who would shortly do the damage during two poorly defended set-plays. As well as his goalscoring prowess, his presence – and how Forest dealt with him – was the main tactical issue during open play.

Cardiff were completely geared towards playing long balls to Moore. Passing around the defence and midfield occurred mainly as a prelude to frequent, direct passes to their striker – the long pass which led to their successful corner in the second minute was already the third such in the game.

Moore is an excellent target-man, equipped to fight for direct passes with the strongest defender, but he tips the balance even further in his favour by cleverly dropping into midfield and full-back areas to receive the ball, seeking a physical mismatch. When receiving long balls he generally avoided the bigger Forest defenders, Joe Worrall and Tobias Figueriedo.

That aerial duel in the second minute in particular, between Moore and Ryan Yates, is a good example of how this tactic works. The target man is well placed to win such battles in the air, because he is so tall and strong. He can flick the ball on to other players, chest it down, and generally make the ball stick in the opposition half, providing a base for their possession or breathing space for defenders.

However, Moore did not win the ball on this occasion, yet Cardiff still profited. Why?

There is a tactical principle that an opponent that has just gained possession is vulnerable; Cardiff’s use of the long balls to Moore adheres to this idea. When passing to their striker, they push their three midfielders up close to him, not only to be available if he wins the ball, but mainly to put the theoretically vulnerable opposition players under pressure (see right. All pictures will expand when clicked).

This is exactly what happened in the lead up to the first goal; neither Yates nor Moore win the ball, it eludes them both. But under the subsequent pressure the Forest player gaining possession, Yuri Ribeiro, gave away a corner and Moore scores.

Of the 14 long passes to Moore in the first half (excluding set plays), he only actually won the ball 5 times, and one of these was a foul by Figueredo.

Yet despite Moore’s mixed results in his duels, Cardiff were still able to use them to obtain the upper hand, gaining a foothold up the pitch. As Forest turned over possession following these direct balls, in the chaos they found themselves under pressure. Cardiff moved up the pitch; they snapped, they pressed, they won the ball and disrupted Forest's counter attacks.

This appeared to effect Forest’s full-backs, Ribeiro and Carl Jenkinson; it is vital for Lamouchi's system that these players get forward, however perhaps due to the uncertainty or fear of being caught out by Cardiff’s direct play, they were failing to get forward with any confidence.

And under pressure, Forest were struggling to turn winning the ball in front of their defence into a coherent attack. Too often the ball was being played direct out of the Forest defence, rather than play through the bear-pit that was the middle of the pitch.

So despite Moore only winning the ball 35.7% of the time in the first half, his presence was disrupting Forest to the extent that they just could not get going, vulnerable as they were to the long balls, and with their own possession disrupted. They were able to break through once or twice, but after missing a great chance, it always looked like Cardiff would get the next goal, which came from another set play.

The defending for the goals has been examined elsewhere and is not the focus of this discussion, however I will say that it left a lot to be desired, and put Forest in a very difficult position. It simply must improve.

Just before the second catastrophe, Lamouchi made the change which would result in a substantial improvement for the second half. Joe Lolley was withdrawn and replaced with striker Lyle Taylor, and The Reds reverted to a twist on the 4-4-2.

A lot of fans have been calling for Forest to play two strikers. They may be eager that the Garibaldi  continue with this system in the next games, however I feel this is unlikely due to why and how the improvement came about.

During commentary it was noted that Taylor gave Forest more presence up front, and we were able to therefore gain a foothold further up the pitch. While true, this was not the factor that changed the game.

Often an extra striker does disrupt direct passing out of a defence, however this was not the case with Cardiff. In fact, the frequency and success of their passing to Moore improved dramatically with Forest playing a 4-4-2, with the target man now winning 55% of long balls played to him.

However, although being beaten more frequently by the big striker, Forest were able to cope much better in the aftermath, winning more second balls and out battling the Cardiff midfielders, And once they had won the ball, Forest were much more composed in their own possession. At last they were winning the midfield battle, and were able to take the game to Cardiff.

Rather than the extra striker as suggested, the change in the shape of Forest’s midfield was responsible for this reversal.

The 4-2-3-1 is ideally geared towards creating overloads in midfield, however when out of possession it’s main drawback is the space in front of the full-backs. This is the area that Moore was targeting when making himself available for the intelligent, accurate Cardiff long balls. Particularly in front of Ribeiro.

During the first half Sammy Ameobi was not generally involved in the battles after Cardiff’s direct play – he was usually too far up the pitch, either because he had been involved in an attack, or that he was making himself available. This meant that when attacking this area, the players supporting Moore were overloading Forest’s defensive midfielders fighting for the ball.

However, now deployed in a 4-4-2, the Forest wingers were naturally closer to their full-backs, and getting involved in these scraps. This relieved the pressure enough for the defensive midfielders Jack Colback, and in particular Ryan Yates, to turn the game.

The midfield must also have had instruction from the Forest coaching staff as a group, as there were several instances where they created a ring around the aerial duel, hunting in packs for the second ball.

As this was Cardiff’s main route out of their own half, Forest were now the dominant team in the game – unfortunately their opponents defended much better than Forest had under much less pressure.

Does this change in fortunes have any implications going forward tactically? On the face of it, you may think that the addition of an extra striker changed the game, and therefore logic may lead to Forest starting with both Taylor and Lewis Grabban against Huddersfield.

However, the formation change was probably designed to prevent Moore controlling the game in Forest’s defensive midfield area – this may not come into Lamouchi’s thinking against Huddersfield. I do not see Forest starting with two up front due to the improvement in the Cardiff game, as the change was due to a specific situation, not a change of tactical direction.

The game has thrown up an interesting selection issue however; new signing Harry Arter should slip straight into the side - I might have thought Colback would partner him. However, Yates is significantly outperforming his more experienced teammate at the moment. He claimed responsibility on and off the ball in the second half against Cardiff, and was the driving force in Forest’s revival. Will Lamouchi make the brave choice and go with the form man?

It is difficult to predict how Forest will line up on Friday. It’s a massive game for the manager’s future – I am all for stability and would give Lamouchi well into the season to get things right, but the pressure is undoubtedly on. The two losses have been down to poor finishing and players not doing their jobs defensively, but the Frenchman needs a couple of results, fast.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks to: 

bbc.co.uk, Whoscored.com, Getty images, sharemytactics.com