Analysing Sunderland's tactics in Swansea City defeat

Sunderland’s 2-1 defeat leaves their play-off hopes in tatters with an eight-point deficit to make up over their remaining 12 games of the season. Insurmountable? No. Improbable? Likely. But it was the manner in which they lost this game to a Swansea side who had won just two of their previous nine games prior to their trip to the Stadium of Light, having gone through a similar managerial transition as Sunderland, which caused the most concern.

Where Swansea are, perhaps, still acquainting themselves with new head coach Luke Williams – Saturday’s fixture just his eighth league game in charge after being poached from Notts County, Sunderland were familiar with their change in the dugout as Dodds returned for a third interim stint in two years.

“I’m relaxed,” Dodds said in his first press conference after taking over from Michael Beale. “My role at the football club for the last sort of 18 months since Alex [Neil] came in, hasn't really changed. I appreciate from the outside looking in it looks like loads of change. Internally, the processes in which we work and operate have stayed the same.

“Obviously I didn't expect to be sat here as early as I am but I'm super relaxed. We've got a good group, some good players, so I'm looking forward to it.

“When I say behind the scenes it's smooth, it's not perfect. I'm not going to paint it like Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday look the same [when a manager departs] but I don't think it's as disruptive as what it feels like online, rather than how it feels day to day in here. 

“I'm not going to go to the players and say on a daily basis 'are you comfortable with me doing this?' I'm not having that discussion, but the general feedback that I get from other staff and senior players is they are comfortable that I'm taking it until the end of the season, so let's just crack on.”

And crack on Dodds did – although he won’t have liked what transpired.

Dodds earned several plaudits during his three-game spell in December after the club parted company with Tony Mowbray with Sunderland’s 1-0 victory over Leeds United a particular highlight. That win was accredited to Dodds’ tactical ingenuity up against Daniel Farke’s high-flying Leeds but, after admitting to still being upset by the subsequent 1-0 defeat at Bristol City in his third and final game, it was perhaps a precursor as to why Sunderland approached the game with Swansea the way that they did.

Despite warming-up in a back four with Trai Hume on the right, a centre-back pairing of Jenson Seelt and Luke O’Nien and Leo Hjelde on the left, Sunderland’s formation did not correlate with that when the two teams lined up at kick-off.

At kick-off, Sunderland looked set-up in a 5-3-2 formation but that isn't what necessarily what transpired throughout the first half (Image: Wyscout)

As you can see above, Dodds set his team up in more of a 5-3-2 with Hume and debutant Callum Styles operating at right and left wing-back, respectively. You then had Dan Neil and Pierre Ekwah in the centre of midfield with Jobe Bellingham slightly ahead of them and Abdoullah Ba and Nazariy Rusyn as a front two.

Given Jack Clarke’s absence through injury, and Dan Ballard missing out through suspension, there was always likely to be a surprise from Dodds – something he had hinted at himself.

What this approach did suggest was that the width was going to be lacking with Hume regularly tasked with becoming an inverted wing-back, whereby he tucks into midfield as an additional outlet, and the same with Styles who, naturally, has a tendency to drift into his more favoured position in the centre of the field.

But within 20 seconds of Swansea kicking off, Sunderland’s shape already looked lopsided.

Within 20 seconds of the game, Sunderland's system became a little disjointed as Swansea targeted space behind the wing-backs (Image: Wyscout)

As you can see above, Styles has dropped back and tucked in alongside Hjelde at left-back while Seelt has already been drawn out of position as Hume remains high. With O’Nien and Hjelde not moving across, it leaves a huge gap in behind both Seelt and Hume for Josh Tymon to lift the ball into for Pryzemyslaw Placheta to run into. It was an immediate warning sign for Dodds and his team – one they did not pay attention to.

On that occasion, Placheta’s run came to nothing, but Williams’ side exploited the confusion in Sunderland’s defensive approach throughout the first half.

Post-match, Dodds had alluded to a sense of irony in that he set his team up to be more aggressive in the first half with their fluctuating systems of 3-5-2, 3-4-3 and 3-4-1-2 both in and out of possession, as opposed to actually being more aggressive in a slightly more reserved set-up in the second half when reverting to a back four.

“It didn't work,” he said. “I don't think you need to be a football expert to see that.

“One thing that I demonstrated last time and one thing that I'll keep reiterating is, while I'm in this position I'll make bold decisions. Sometimes that's going to be a positive, sometimes that's going to be a negative. The ironic thing is we wanted to be really bold and aggressive in terms of tagging certain players. Then second half, in terms of our set-up, we were actually more reserved, but we looked more aggressive.

“That's the question I've just posed the players: How can we set up a certain way, that is to be more aggressive and set-up another way which means we have more players behind the ball, but look more aggressive? That's something that I need to pick the bones out of.”

READ MORE: 

• Managing expectations is key for Sunderland in Jack Clarke absence

• Sunderland's inconsistency clear in tale of two halves

• Can Sunderland reach the play-offs? The Swansea debrief

Although it may not have seemed it when watching the first half unfold, as Swansea cut through Sunderland almost at will, Dodds is right in that he set his team out to be more aggressive and ‘tag’ certain players.

One of those players was midfielder Matt Grimes. Whenever he picked up possession inside his own half it seemed like that was a key for Sunderland to press.

Take Ronald Pereira Martins’ opening goal, for example. As Tymon lays a ball inside to Grimes, you can see the endeavour of Jobe to try and cut out his passing lane. But it again shows how vulnerable Sunderland had left themselves.

Matt Grimes became a trigger for Sunderland to press but the Swansea midfielder was able to bypass that with a ball into the wide areas given the space left by Trai Hume (Image: Wyscout)

As you can see, before Grimes plays a ball out wide, there are six red and white shirts in advanced areas of the Swansea half, including both wing-backs who are both advanced and narrow.

Matt Grimes' ball into the wide area allows Josh Tymon a clear run in behind after Jenson Seelt is drawn out of position to compensate for Trai Hume. It leaves Sunderland outnumbered in defence (Image: Wyscout)

One simple ball from Grimes takes out all of those pressing and leaves space down Sunderland’s right to take advantage of as it has brought Seelt well out of position again. That leaves almost a four on two scenario with Tymon in possession and three Swansea attackers up against O’Nien and Hjelde in the centre, despite the efforts of Hume, Neil and Styles to track back.

Tymon then has time to pick a cross.

Josh Tymon has time and space to put in a dangerous cross for Swansea who have outnumbered Sunderland at the back post (Image: Wyscout)

The cross beats O’Nien and Hjelde and falls to Liam Cullen who brings a really good save from Anthony Patterson at point blank range. But Cullen and Ronald have outnumbered Styles at the back post and the Brazilian is on hand to convert the rebound to give Swansea the lead.

Josh Tymon's cross finds Liam Cullen who brings a good save from Anthony Patterson at point blank range but Ronald is on hand ahead of Callum Styles to convert the rebound (Image: Wyscout)

And it was a similar scenario for Swansea’s second goal of the game 10 minutes later.

Again, it is Grimes who appears to be the trigger for Sunderland to press deep inside his own half. In the image below you can see five Sunderland players trying to box in Grimes from another Tymon lay-off.

Matt Grimes was again the focus of attention for Sunderland with five players pressing high when he receives the ball from Josh Tymon. Again, however, it allows a ball into the channel to potentially bypass the pressm (Image: Wyscout)

Grimes clips a ball over the press looking for Placheta which Sunderland win through Seelt, who has yet again been drawn high and wide.

The Dutchman, in this instance, does well to regain possession and lay the ball back to O’Nien. But Sunderland’s risk or reward pressing leaves them susceptible to the counter-press from Swansea as can be seen below.

Jenson Seelt intercepts Matt Grimes' pass and lays it back to Luke O'Nien who finds himself under heavy pressure from Swansea. His pass for Dan Neil is intercepted by Joe Allen who reads the situation from a distance (above) as Swansea break for their second goal by outnumbering Sunderland again in defence (below) (Image: Wyscout)

With three players enclosing on O’Nien, he plays a dangerous ball into the path of Neil – a pass which has been read completely by the experienced Joe Allen. The midfielder charges towards Neil from 15-yards away in anticipation of Neil receiving the ball and when O’Nien’s pass is a little wayward, Allen nips in to steal the ball away from Neil and leave Sunderland desperately exposed again with just two centre-backs.

Allen is able to drive forward and find Ronald who makes no mistake in finding the bottom corner to double the lead.

Joe Allen finds Ronald in space on the right and the Brazilian winger makes no mistake in doubling Swansea's lead (Image: Wyscout)

Swansea could have been further ahead with opportunities coming at an alarming rate as far as Sunderland were concerned as Dodds hesitated. But even when the system did rotate, as can be seen with the 3-4-1-2 below, the structure was disjointed.

Sunderland's structure remained disjointed in the first half (Image: Wyscout)

Teams setting up to be ultra-aggressive out of possession is not a new phenomenon. If you tuned into Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football recently, Jamie Carragher gave an excellent dissection of Arsenal’s risk or reward strategy in their 3-1 win against Liverpool as they evolved from high pressing to man-marking systems, which also left them vulnerable to being outnumbered defensively.

Sunderland were trying to do similar here, but they were not able to execute it.

It led to frustration and panic, as the usually calm heads of Neil and Ekwah were guilty of turning over possession all too easily. Swansea’s lead, and excellent start to the game, enabled Williams’ side to grow in confidence and they sensed blood in Sunderland as they triggered their press to maximum effect.

When Ekwah receives the ball in the example below, he is immediately swarmed by five Swansea midfielders. But you can also see how exposed a turnover will leave Sunderland as Styles is much more advanced than Hume, which means Hjelde has had to shift over too high from his left-sided centre-back role. That leaves O’Nien, at the base of the centre-circle, and Seelt, who is just out of shot, as the last line of defence.

Swansea continued to force turnovers high up the field as Sunderland were careless in possession (Image: Wyscout)

Sensing he is in trouble, Ekwah moves the ball to Neil who is also under pressure and Swansea come away with it to create another overload in the final third.

The turnover in possession from Pierre Ekwah and Dan Neil leads to another Swansea counter-attack where they outnumber Sunderland's defence with Luke O'Nien and Jenson Seelt left as the two centre-backs (Image: Wyscout)

Below is another example of a high turnover which shows Styles and Hume advanced, as well as Ekwah who is further forward than Jobe, as Jamie Patterson races clear to create a four on three.

Swansea fond themselves in situations of promise regularly in the first half up against Sunderland's aggressive approach (Image: Wyscout)

Sunderland became that rugged in the first half that, in this particular transition, you could throw a blanket over nine players across half the width of the 18-yard box.

Sunderland became rugged out of possession and very narrow at times (Image: Wyscout)

Despite having so many players congested into one small space, as they look to deal with another turnover in possession, Sunderland still leave space on the right for Ronald (more on him soon).

The key issue in the first half was that Sunderland left themselves outnumbered at will. By inviting both Hume and Styles to advance forward and tuck into midfield, it left huge gaps in the wide areas, as well as in front of the back three should Swansea bypass Neil and Ekwah – who were also encouraged to press high.

That left Sunderland out of position too often which forced the likes of Seelt and Hjelde to try and compensate in being stretched wider than they would have liked.

The image below gives greater detail as to how Swansea managed that as they were able to box in Sunderland’s midfield pairing of Neil and Ekwah and find themselves in a six-on-five scenario more times than not.

It meant that any turnovers in that area would lead to opportunities, with Swansea enjoying an xG of 2.14 in the first half alone, with nine attempts at goal inside Sunderland’s penalty area. In contrast, Sunderland held a first half xG of less than 0.3 and had just three attempts inside Swansea’s penalty area.

Swansea were able to outnumber Sunderland in key areas which led to their success in creating overloads in attack (Image: Wyscout)

The main threat was Ronald, as the Brazilian firmly announced himself on the Championship stage following his January move to South Wales. Ronald has spent the last 18 months playing for Portuguese top-flight side Estrela da Amadora, but joined Swansea from Brazilian club Gremio Anapolis and he certainly had that Brazilian guile against Sunderland.

Ronald was clever in that he took up a number of effective positions in-between Hjelde at left centre-back and Styles at wing-back. Hjelde and Styles’ synergy was off, given it was their first game together as a pairing on the left, whilst Sunderland also missed Clarke’s output further up the field on the left which may have had Ronald going the other way more often.

If we reuse the image from above, where Sunderland are congested in the centre of the field, you can see the kind of areas the 22-year-old picks up.

Ronald caused Sunderland a number of problems in the first half when picking up space between Leo Hjelde and Callum Styles (Image: Wyscout)

Perhaps the best example of his positioning came for his second goal.

When O’Nien is in possession of the ball, Ronald is already advancing beyond Styles and onto the shoulder of Hjelde in anticipation of his team-mates being able to win back possession. When Allen does win the ball from Neil, Ronald is then clear on goal away from Hjelde and punishes Sunderland.

Ronald's second goal is helped by his positioning prior to Swansea winning the ball back (Image: Wyscout)

Although Dodds amended his approach in the closing stages of the first half and into the second half, Swansea already had the advantage by that point which meant they could play the percentages in terms of on the counter-attack.

And Ronald was key to this as can be seen below as he continued to find space down Sunderland’s left as they pushed forward for a route back into the game.

Ronald maintained a threat on the break in the second half as Sunderland searched for a route back in the game (Image: Wyscout)

Ronald ended the game with an individual xG of 1.15 which tells you how threatening he was and the kinds of areas he was able to pick up. But the stats don’t necessarily end there for Sunderland, with Placheta and Cullen ranked second and third in terms of their xG as per Fotmob.

Those chances, as shown in the evidence already detailed, came by virtue of Swansea being able to win the transition battle, that despite Dodds initially setting Sunderland up to be more aggressive in doing so.

Swansea made 19 interceptions to Sunderland’s nine, they completed more tackles (16-9) and they won more duels, both on the ground and in the air. Of  those duels, Swansea won a higher percentage of their ground and aerial duels than Sunderland, while five of the top seven ranked players when it comes to duels were from the away team, which shows why they were able to force so many turnovers in possession.

Grimes, the player identified as a trigger for Sunderland, had the most recoveries in the game with nine as Sunderland lost possession 160 times in total, as per Sofascore, and were only successful in 34 per cent of their dribbles – another indicator of Clarke’s absence.

“We've got to take that first half on the chin; myself, the staff, the players,” said Dodds. “I wouldn't have sent the players out if I wasn't confident the message was really, really clear. That's something all of us, as a collective, can take on the chin.

“I’ve got to be authentic to me. There has to be a balance. It’s not lost on me the magnitude of this football club and how much this football club means to the fans. I’m not gambling with decisions, I’m not a roulette table. But I will make decisions that I think will put us more on the front foot and in people’s faces. I felt in terms of the general set-up that was the case.

“The reality was it wasn’t, and that’s something I’m fully aware of. I don’t want people thinking every week I’m just gambling. That’s not the case. But I will be really clear with what I want to do game-to-game.”

Although Dodds suggests it was not a gamble, it was a move which did not pay off for Sunderland. As such, it will be back to the drawing board.