Spain Must Improve To Retain European Title

It seems strange to suggest that the side that are the reigning World and European champions have been struggling recently. Eight wins out of eight in qualifying for Euro 2012 further suggest that everything is looking good for the Spanish, who are seeking to become the first team to successfully defend the European title.

However, these qualifying results hide deeper issues in the Spanish side. The poor quality of the teams in their group – Scotland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Liechtenstein – were never going to serious worry them, and the positive results have flattered them somewhat.

It is the friendly results against some of the better countries that will be the worry for Vicente Del Bosque and his staff. In the past fifteen months, they have been beaten by Argentina, Portugal, Italy and England, as well as being held by Mexico and Costa Rica. The only team in the top 25 of the FIFA rankings that they have beaten was Chile, where they were helped by a highly controversial penalty in the 92^nd minute.

Ahead of the World Cup last year, they had lost once in four years. They have now lost four times in less than a year and a half. Some may suggest that friendlies are not an accurate representation of where the team stand. However, while Del Bosque has been experimenting a little, he has been sending out strong teams in these matches.

So where are things going wrong for the Spanish?

The majority of the problems stem from an attempt to imitate the style that Barcelona have found so successful at club level. While this may seem an obvious move, particularly given the number of Barcelona players in the Spanish team, they are missing a couple of crucial ingredients.

The key ingredient missing is Lionel Messi. Barcelona use Messi in a false number nine role, starting as a striker, but dropping into the hole to drag defenders out of position and create space in behind. However, Spain have struggled to find the right player to take up this role. Against England, he began with David Villa as a lone striker, but soon changed to pushing David Silva into this false nine role with Villa on the wing.

The problem they had was that England were sitting deep. David Silva was dropping deep as he was intended to. However, Andres Iniesta was also coming inside looking for the ball and David Villa was unable to get in behind England down the flanks and so was coming inside as well. It meant that all of Spain’s three key attacking players were playing in the same area with little space and England were able to stifle the threat.

It was an identical problem to that which saw Switzerland stun Spain in their opening match in South Africa. Spain played too narrow and became easy to defend against.

If they are to play in this style, it is critical that the fullbacks provide plenty of width in attack. For Barcelona, Dani Alves and either Adriano or Maxwell do this job excellently. However, again the problem is that they are not Spanish.

Against England, Spain played Jordi Alba and Alvaro Arbeloa in these positions. Normally Sergio Ramos would play on the right, but due to the continuing injury problems for Carles Puyol means that he is playing centrally more often than not for Spain.

Whilst Arbeloa is a solid fullback, he is not exactly an attacking wing-back and while Alba is a good player, he is still young and has a long way to go to replace the hugely underrated Joan Capdevila.

It means that Spain struggle to get the width from their front players and do not cover that with the fullbacks. 

One player that was missing against England was Barcelona’s Pedro Rodriguez. Pedro is one of the very few top class wide forwards that Spain possesses. He knows how to play that role, providing width when needed, but cutting inside to devastating effect.

The other problem that Spain have is a lack of players running forward from midfield to give the defenders something different to worry about. They tend to play their traditional passing football in front of the defence, looking to pass their way through, rather than getting runners forward from midfield.

Against England, they had Xavi and Xabi Alonso as the two midfielders, both of whom prefer to sit deeper and orchestrate the play from there. It means that England could sit back and mark the three attackers, cutting off the options, knowing that they would not have to worry about either of those two making runs beyond the strikers.

The solution to this could be Fabregas, who has been excellent in this role for Barcelona this season. Playing a very different role to that at Arsenal, he has thrived, scoring five goals in nine league games already this season. That is already more goals in a season than all but two of his years at Arsenal.

In the last ten minutes against England, he dropped deeper and starting making these runs into the box and it was no surprise that he caused England all sorts of problems. He arguably had Spain’s two best chances of the match in this period and really should have scored. However, at least he was getting into these positions, which Xavi and Alonso would never have taken up.

The final player who could play a key role for Spain is Fernando Llorente. He provides the one thing that none of the other Spanish strikers has. He is a big physical presence and gives Spain another option. It is a similar criticism that Arsenal have faced for years – when the passing game is struggling, they have no target man they can bring on to mix things up.

Whilst it failed, Barcelona even tried the same thing, bringing in Zlatan Ibrahimovic to provide a different option up front. Llorente has proved that he can score goals at club level – with Athletic Bilbao, he has hit double figures for each of the last four years and has started this season in good form.

Llorente would allow Spain to play more direct when the situation requires it. Against England, Spain brought on Fernando Torres to try and play a more direct game. However, against the big English central defensive duo, Torres struggled to win anything in the air. Llorente would have been a completely different proposition.

One major negative that I believe that Del Bosque has copied from Barcelona is playing David Villa out of position as a wide forward. In the big games in both the previous two tournaments that they have won, Spain have been very dependent on the goals of Villa.

In Euro 2008, Villa scored four goals – twice as many as any of his teammates – to clinch the Golden Boot. In South Africa, David Villa scored five of his team’s eight goals in the tournament to become joint top scorer in the tournament.

By playing him wide left, you are taking away a great deal of his goal-scoring threat. Last season, despite playing at Barcelona, he scored his third lowest total of goals in the past ten years. With the goals of Lionel Messi, it is not such an issue for Barcelona. However, for Spain, they do not have a Messi, meaning that goals are becoming harder to find. In their four matches against teams ranked in the top ten in the past 15 months, they have scored only twice.

Spain have the problem that they have too many similar world-class players and in trying to accommodate them all, they are becoming easy to defend against. Sergio Busquets is a crucial player in the defensive position that Marcos Senna perfected at Euro 2008. However, ahead of him, you have the likes of Xavi, Xabi Alonso, David Silva, Andres Iniesta, Juan Mata, Cesc Fabregas and Santi Cazorla all battling for places ahead of him.

Xavi and Xabi Alonso seem to be automatic choices, which leaves the others battling for the three spots. However, if you fill all these three spots with those players, Spain become very one-dimensional.

For me, David Villa has to play as the central striker. Pedro Rodriguez must be a definitely starter, either on the left or right attacking position, while it would seem logical that Andres Iniesta should play the other side – he is far too talented to leave out.

Behind him, I am not convinced you need both Xavi and Xabi Alonso. They are incredibly similar players and while they are both top class players in their own right, they perform the same role. Virtually every side is going to sit back and defend against Spain, so with Busquets in the team, you don’t need two central midfielders sitting deeper as playmakers.

I would keep Xavi in the side, but bring in Fabregas alongside him. Fabregas will make the forward runs to worry the defence that Spain do not currently have. He can also play the role that Xabi Alonso currently plays, so Spain would not lose anything were they wanting to continue playing the same style that they do now.

Clearly, I am not suggesting that Spain drastically change their style. It has brought them incredible success and that is no coincidence. However, in the past fifteen months, they have taken the slow passing approach to new levels. There is no drive and directness in their play. It is easy to defend against them and they play very narrow and pass in front of you.

Adding Fabregas provides the direct midfield running, Pedro (or Jesus Navas, who was a key player in the World Cup success) would add width to stretch defences, and having Llorente as an option on the bench would allow them to switch to a more direct approach if they need to chase a game late on.

Spain will still go off as favourites to retain their crown, but I feel that unless they change something, they may struggle against the better teams in the tournament - against the likes of Germany, Holland, Italy and even England.

Chelsea's Tactical Problems and Solutions

When Roman Abramovich paid Porto over £13m for Andre Villas-Boas in the summer, this was not the season that he had in mind. Already 12 points behind Manchester City in the Premiership after only 12 matches and on the verge of missing out on qualification for the knockout stage of the Champions League, the pressure is growing on the new manager.

Where Chelsea have been struggling this season is the defence. They have kept only two clean sheets in 12 league games, conceding 17 goals, including 11 at Stamford Bridge. To put this into some perspective, in Jose Mourinho’s first season at Chelsea, they conceded 15 goals all season. Scoring goals has not been such an issue though – 25 goals in 12 games mean that only the Manchester pair have scored more.

Analysis

Defence

So, what does Villas-Boas need to do to improve the defence? The first thing to look at is what he has done tactically since joining the club. He has looked to bring the style that served him so well at Porto to Chelsea. At Porto, his team played a high line and pressed all over the pitch – a style that he has developed from watching Barcelona under Guardiola.

At Chelsea, he has tried to achieve the same. A brief glance at the statistics would suggest as much. In the first nine games of last season, Chelsea caught their opponents offside only 15 times. In contrast, they have caught their opponents offside 39 times in their opening nine games this time around. This would clearly suggest that they are playing a much higher line and that is clear to see from watching their matches.

In terms of pressing high up the pitch, you would expect Chelsea to concede fewer shots, since the opponents will spend more time further away from the Chelsea goal. Again, this theory is matched by the statistics – after nine games, Chelsea had conceded the fewest shots on target of any side in the Premiership this season.

So, it would seem that Chelsea have changed their style from a deeper defence to a more pressing high attacking line. That is one of the major reasons behind their problems this season. While there is nothing wrong with the style, it needs the right players to effectively implement it. This is where Chelsea’s problems lie.

John Terry has been a great servant for Chelsea over the years, but he is simply not suited to this system. Pace and anticipation has never been a key feature of his game – bravery and the aerial battle are where Terry thrives. However, when being asked to play such a high line, Chelsea are finding that attackers are getting in behind Terry far too often and he is unable to get back to them.

His confidence is low, hardly helped by the racism accusations off the pitch, and this can be used to explain some of the careless errors that he has made this season as well. His partnership with David Luiz is not really suited to this system either.

David Luiz has come under a lot of criticism this season for his role in Chelsea’s defensive struggles, and quite rightly so. While he has the pace to play this system, his sheer lack of discipline means that he is regularly caught out of position too high up the pitch. He loves to attack, and while this can cause problems for surprised opposition defences, it causes a similar number of problems for Chelsea themselves.

The full-backs are also asked to play a big role. They are expected to provide width in attack, but also to cover well in defence as well. Ashley Cole is well-suited to this role, but it is the right-hand side where more problems emerge for Chelsea. Jose Bosingwa is very good going forward, but like Luiz, his positional sense in defence must be questioned. Alternatively, Branislav Ivanovic takes away going forward, but is much stronger defensively, although he again lacks the pace to successfully play this high line.

Therefore, the key problem for Chelsea comes from a lack of pace in the defensive line. When playing deep, this becoming less of an issue, but under Villas-Boas’ new system, it is being brutally exposed.

If we look at recent matches where Chelsea have struggled, opponents have had an abundance of pacy players in attack. Liverpool started with Suarez and Bellamy (although being caught in behind was not the major problem in this match), while Arsenal ripped them apart with the pace of Theo Walcott and Gervinho, who were getting behind the Chelsea defence almost at will.

Attack

However, despite their relatively impressive goal tally, Chelsea also have problems going forward. Didier Drogba is a shadow of the man that he was a couple of seasons ago. Despite his goals, he was poor last season (although he was suffering from malaria), but he has shown very little this season to suggest he could get back to anything close to his best.

Fernando Torres’ struggles from last season have continued into this campaign, although he does have four goals in ten starts this time around. Clearly a highly talented player, he needs to start justifying his huge transfer fee. For some reason, Villas-Boas doesn’t seem to fancy him too much, and for me, it was a big shock that he was left on the bench against Liverpool.

Daniel Sturridge has been Chelsea’s top striker this season, cutting in from wide positions and has bagged ten goals already this season in all competitions. However, again Villas-Boas doesn’t seem to fancy him in the central striking role.

Going forward, the key for Chelsea is Juan Mata. Villas-Boas needs to find a way to get him more involved in central attacking positions. Against Liverpool, he played out on the right-wing in the first half and struggled to get involved in the match. Second-half, he was switched to a more central position and it was no coincidence that Chelsea’s best spell coincided with this change until Daglish figured out how to change his side to combat this.

Solutions

So, what can Villas-Boas do in the short-term to rectify the problems? Many people have questioned the likes of Terry as being too inflexible to change his style of play, although we need to look at the manager as well.

Villas-Boas needs to show some flexibility as well. While it is clear that he has a specific style that he wants to play, he simply does not have the players at this moment in time to play that way, and it is costing Chelsea.

It is a much-used cliché that you need to build from the back, but it is a very valid point. If we look at what Sir Alex Ferguson has done since the humiliating defeat to Manchester City, he has sacrificed some of the attacking flair that they showed early on and tightened up the defence. As a result, they kept five consecutive clean sheets, grinding out several 1-0 victories.

Villas-Boas would be smart to follow a similar approach. He needs to drop the defensive line deeper until he has the players that can play the high line. Chelsea had the joint-best defensive record in the league last season and have the exact same players this time around. They have not become bad players overnight.

Tightening up at the back will also help to take some of the pressure off the attacking players as well. Rather than knowing they need to score at least two or three goals to win a match, they will know that one goal could secure it for them.

Critics would suggest that it is really a return to the Mourinho system that Chelsea really need. And to a certain extent, that would be true. Despite having gone through four managers since the departure of the ‘Special One’, the spine of the side is still the same. Of the team that lost to Liverpool last weekend, seven of them remain from the Mourinho era. The only players in the starting line-up that did not play under Mourinho were Ivanovic, Luiz, Ramires and Mata.

Admittedly, it does suggest a certain amount of inflexibility on the part of the players, but it seems difficult to understand why successive managers have been so desperate to change the style that served Chelsea so well, but still keeping the same players.

There are no problems with Villas-Boas looking to change the style, but he has to show some flexibility and look to move toward his new style at a more gradual speed. Until he has the players to play the new style, he must adapt.

Whether he can do that is set to be a key determinant of how the early spell of his tenure will play out.



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