Newcastle vs Brighton tactical analysis
In possession, Brighton had multiple shapes, but against Newcastle’s man to man press, they would often look for their wingers via a long ball from Verbruggen. They had some early success with them, creating a big chance early doors.
Out of possession Newcastle’s approach wasn’t too dissimilar to usual, the same man to manpress but rather than their aggressive 4–5–1 shape they settled into a more passive 4–4–2 shape with Osula and Willock being their two outlets, who both had brilliant games. Brighton ending the first half with 69.8% percentage according to OPTA reemphasises the more passive OOP approach from Newcastle.
Brighton’s approach against our block was getting the ball to Minteh and Mitoma, who are both top 1v1 wingers with Minteh having 13 crosses in the game (more than anyone) and Mitoma having 18 passes in the final third, with only Kadioglu and Gross having more (according to StatsZone). They had plenty of movement around them, players as well, with the narrow full backs often trying to create room for them.
Newcastle countered this by having their wide players (J7 and Murphy) to double up, a big role for them both, but they performed it excellently. This clip is a great example of our plan OOP. J7 doubles up, forcing a fairly difficult cross for Minteh. We clear, and then Willock and Osula fight well for the loose ball and can then link up in transition. Both brilliant outlets.
In the first half Newcastle had so much success in building up against Brighton’s hybrid press. Newcastle built out in a 4–3–3 shape with wide full-backs and Cb’s. Tonali played a crucial role in this phase. Brighton’s press aimed to force a ball side man to man press with one of Welbeck or the far side 8’s marker to pick up Tonali, but they struggled through Newcastle’s off ball movement.
This is exactly what led to the first goal. The ball goes to the LHS, attracting Brighton’s ball side m2m press. However, Bruno moves centrally, so Gross has to drop deep with Welbeck expected to move onto Sandro, but the distances were too large, allowing a simple bounce pass back to Tonali, who can now pierce one between the lines into Willock. This eventually led to Bruno switching across to Murphy, and we scored.
Another instance where Newcastle bait the long ball and play it short to Botman. Again, we play it wide to Burn, who can bounce it to Tonali, who’s not been picked up. He looks over the top, but the pass is underhit.
Again, wide to Burn, and he looks for Tonali, this time he gets picked up by Gross, but this leaves Bruno free. Burn aims to find him, but underhits it. Luckily, Joelinton beats Baleba in a duel, and Tonali has cleverly moved into space, and we break through. Tonali plays Osula over the top, but frustratingly, Osula mistimes his run.
Slightly different, but Welbeck fails to shadow mark Tonali effectively due to his off ball movement. Joelinton pulls wide and drops to create space on the left wing, exactly where Tonali moves and gets the ball in space. He under hits pass into Willock, though.
Before I move on from the first half, big credit to the set-piece coach for the set pieces yesterday and the majority of the season. It’s taken time for his impact to get going, but our underlying numbers from set pieces are very good, with us scoring from one, but it should have been two.
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Botman stays on the edge of D whilst Thiaw is offside. Bruno plays it short to Miley. As soon as Miley touches this is the trigger for Botman to make a run around to the back post. Miley crosses perfectly to him, and he can knock it across to Thiaw, who is free, as he was already ahead at the start of the routine. Should score.
Now you don’t need me to tell you something changed in the second half, and my god, it was infuriating. A big part of my analysis first half has been how good some of our build-up play was, with it leading to our first goal. But with a two goal lead, the group clearly didn’t like the risk attached with playing out from the back, so we started playing super direct with Nick Pope playing every single one of his 10 passes from HT to Brighton’s goal long. We weren’t winning our duels or second balls enough, and Brighton had full control and eventually scored. It all felt very familiar.
The next two build up situations after the goal, we started to play out again. On one occasion, Joelinton found himself free and done Baleba and got it to Bruno, who couldn’t get it over the top into space, but it was a nicely constructed move and just like the first half, we had the quality to find the spare man against Brighton’s ball side m2m press.
The team still felt rattled despite this and Howe switched to a 5–4–1 and aimed to restrict space and defend our box for the remainder of the game. Brighton continued to funnel play to their wide players, albeit they’ve now swapped wings, but our wide players (Barnes and Joelinton, then Ramsey) would still double up and track them underlaps from Brighton’s wide players. We had to absorb a lot of pressure and did ride our luck, but I feel a clearer game plan to see out the game was a wise move from Howe.
In Summary:
It wasn’t a pretty second half, but we fought well and showed that maybe the players are still playing for Howe. First half was solid though, the more passive 4–4–2 was good and we done well in transition. Some of our build up play was top, which meant the overdirectedness was really annoying in the second half. Hopefully, something to build on for the rest of the season.
