Why Scotland Are So Good Now | FourFourTwo
Scotland's victory over Erling Haaland's Norway puts them on the cusp of EURO 2024 Qualification! But after also beating group favourites Spain, just how is has manager Steve Clarke continually getting such great results?
Transcript
00:00 Hi there everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here and Scotland, actual Scotland, are really
00:10 really good now aren't they? So there's a sentence.
00:12 Now look, while I'm sure you are as happy as I am that we can finally put to bed Wanson
00:16 for all this Lyndon Dykes, this Erling Haaland debate, never doubted him. There is clearly
00:20 something going on with this team that Steve Clarke is making happen that goes way beyond
00:24 just a good result against Spain and a good result against Norway.
00:27 Because you see, they're not only just generating good results, they're generating consistently
00:31 good results and that is something I ain't seen a Scotland team in f***ing forever.
00:36 So let's have a look at it because it's not just what's going on here that's doing it,
00:40 it's what's going on here.
00:44 So this is how Scotland set up against Norway and it's pretty much how we've become used
00:47 to seeing Steve Clarke's team. Not all the time, sometimes it's a 4-2-3-1 if I think
00:51 if Robertson's not available he likes to set up that way, but with everybody's fit, everybody's
00:54 firing, this is what they look like. And the reason this shape is so important is because
00:57 it allows Scotland to be very good defensively as a team, but also when they're attacking
01:02 to be very good individually. Steve Clarke deserves an enormous amount of credit for
01:06 this because he has looked at this team and he has come up with a system that allows them
01:10 to maximise their strengths, but also covers quite significantly for their deficiencies.
01:14 Like a forward line of Dykes, McGinn and Christie does not scream goals at anybody. I think
01:19 Christie only got like two all season for Bournemouth, but what did these three have
01:22 in spades? They have physical attributes. Dykes can pin defenders really, really well.
01:27 McGinn and Christie have got bags of energy, their movement is excellent. So they've got
01:30 a system that focuses on that. Likewise, you don't look at McGregor and McTominay and see
01:34 a really creative hub in the centre of the pitch for making things happen, but you do
01:38 see team players with incredible engines and in McTominay's case, someone who's technically
01:42 really good as well. So as a team, they're not going to create loads and loads of chances,
01:46 certainly not by playing complex stuff through the middle of the pitch. So they need to maximise
01:50 the chances they do get. And the way they do that is with the two full backs. And this
01:55 really fun, I don't know if there's a proper word for it, I've never looked it up, like
01:59 swinging defence they've got. It's just, I'll explain. So Scotland, when they defend, do
02:04 so really compactly and really narrowly. All three defenders kind of go like that. They
02:09 go to a flat back five. As you can see here, this is Norway when they were building up.
02:12 There's no pretense of wing backs here. They're just in a nice row. Two centre midfielders,
02:17 they help out by congesting the middle of the pitch. And while the two wide forwards
02:21 kind of play this hybrid role, they're supposed to get up alongside Dykes and provide support.
02:25 When they're defending, they defend the wide areas. And this, if you're the opposition,
02:28 is an absolute nightmare to try and play through. You're constantly going from left to right
02:32 and back again, trying to make something happen in the only area of the pitch Scotland leave
02:37 you any space, the wide areas. And the reason they leave a bit of space there is twofold.
02:41 One, they're quite confident dealing with any crosses that come into the box because
02:44 they've got this flat back five. And even if one full back goes out to challenge, then
02:48 you've still got four contesting that area. But more importantly, if they can win the
02:52 ball back here, which they regularly do, they don't have a counter attack on in the wide
02:57 spaces, which is where they want to play. You saw this against Spain. Both goals in
03:00 that game came from a turnover. They get the ball in the wide spaces. First it's Robertson,
03:04 then it was Tierney. They run down the line, they get in behind and they cut the ball back
03:08 into an area of space. And why is there an area of space for a cutback? Because the physicality
03:13 of someone like Linda Dykes pushes opposition defenders much deeper than they would like
03:17 to be, effectively pins them and creates space for your wide attackers, your centre midfielders,
03:21 whoever's able to keep up with that attack to get in and score. Now counter attacks are
03:25 all well and good, but they do need to be able to build up as well. And that's the swing
03:28 defence thing that's really clever. Now Andy Robertson, you know everything about, he's
03:32 one of the best attacking full backs, one of the most high energy, pressing players
03:36 in this position in the world. But Hickey, he's emerged at Brentford this season and
03:40 he's very good as well. In fact, he's very good at doing a lot of the same things Andy
03:44 Robertson is, which gives you a nice balance across both these sides of the pitch. But
03:47 the really clever thing is in the back three, because you've got Kieran Tierney here, nominally
03:52 a left back, but can play centre back and Ryan Porteous, nominally a centre back, but
03:56 can play right back as well. And what that enables Scotland to do is to go really easily
04:01 from this 5-4-1 shape when they're defending into a 4-2-3-1 when they're attacking. See
04:07 the reason these two white players tend to be so narrow is so that when the ball comes,
04:11 let's say it's Robertson this time bringing it down this flank, their job is to then move
04:14 into the central space to support Lyndon Dykes. One of the full backs is now the wide attacker,
04:19 but because you've got that balance provided by Porteous and Tierney, it means these players
04:23 can then all shuffle across into a back four and all of a sudden you've not got any glaring
04:28 spaces being left open and you've also not got anybody playing somewhere they're not
04:31 comfortable playing. And the really clever part is if you want to do it down the right
04:35 hand side instead, then Hickey's the one who pushes up, the right sided attacker comes
04:39 in support Dykes, McGinnow, whoever that is, will come across and play on the left. Robertson
04:43 goes all the way back in the full back, Tierney's happy playing centre back, you've got a red
04:46 centre back there, and Ryan Porteous, quite happy playing on the right hand side, he goes
04:50 there. It's a swinging defence. And that's what was actually really clever about Steve
04:54 Clarke's substitutions against Norway. Not the fact he brought Kenny McLean on, because
04:57 I think every single person in Scotland was probably shouting at the television, "Kenny
05:02 McLean!" when he came on, but the fact that he took a defender off, put another attacker
05:05 and instead of them trying to get into this shape, they just set up in this shape instead.
05:09 That's the risk versus reward. He got rid of their ability to go into a back five and
05:13 instead just set them up like this in the hope it would be a little bit quicker, a little
05:16 bit more direct. And it was, if you look at the winning goal, like Lyndon Dykes is pinning
05:20 two defenders, which allows McGinn to get the space on the edge of the box. And when
05:23 he cuts it back across for the layoff, Dykes is again pinning two defenders and look how
05:27 much space he has for this finish. You shouldn't get, you should never get that much space
05:33 in the box at 1-1 at international level. That's really, really good play. And I know
05:38 some people will look at that Norway game and just see the numbers and see the lateness
05:41 of the goals and think, "Oh, they didn't play very well and they got two quite lucky breaks
05:45 at the end." But if you just look at some other stuff, like they played this system
05:48 really well and got their rewards. This was Andy Robertson's heat map. He had as many
05:52 touches of the ball as Martin Oedegaard. Every time they had a chance to get him down that
05:56 flank, they got him down that flank. And this is the 11 interceptions they made when they
06:01 were defending as well, which is quite high for a game at this level. So the system of
06:05 sick and pack, win it back, try and get down the flanks, they were doing that. It's just
06:08 it wasn't quite clicking for them. And in the end, they got what they deserved, I think.
06:12 The thing is, that's tactics, that's systems, that's numbers, that's things on a graph or
06:16 on a table you can point to and say, "This is why it's gotten the good." But this only
06:20 tells you half the story, in my opinion. The rest of it is down to Steve Clark and the
06:27 intangibles. And what do I mean by intangibles? Well, the eye test, the stuff you just see
06:32 when you look at them. If you watch this Scotland team, they consistently work their arses off.
06:36 They consistently outwork the teams they're playing. They're really well disciplined when
06:41 they're defending and they're really brave when they're attacking. They've completely
06:44 bought into the system. And more importantly, they don't let setbacks completely derail
06:49 their self-belief. Like that Ireland defeat last year, that 3-0, that could have very
06:53 easily finished off Steve Clark as Scotland manager. In fact, it probably would have finished
06:57 off a lot of other Scotland managers over the years. But they responded to that by winning
07:01 six out of their next seven, which, like, if you're not a Scotland fan, I cannot tell
07:05 you what kind of a run that is, how unprecedented runs like that are. Never mind the fact that
07:10 you had a nine-game winning run at one stage as well, competitively. But they didn't allow
07:14 that one bad result to dent their self-belief, to dent their confidence, and they've stuck
07:19 with what they were doing. And it's probably going to send them to the Euros. So why is
07:23 Scotland such a good team? Well, A, Steve Clark has given them the tools they need as
07:27 players to be able to go and upset teams that are better than they are, but also still control
07:32 games against teams that are not. But more importantly, B, he's got them to buy into
07:37 all of this. He's got them to believe in what they're doing. Like, they clearly are committed
07:41 to this system and to this dressing room and to this project. And honestly, at international
07:47 level, that is a rarer thing than you think. Now, I'm saying all that, but probably just
07:51 go and get beat off Georgia at home. Now, making me look incredibly stupid, but until
07:56 they do that, please do let us know what you thought of this video by leaving us a little
07:59 comment in the box below. And of course, while you're here, please do not forget to subscribe
08:02 to 442 on YouTube as well. We do videos like this all the goddamn time, and I think they're
08:08 good. So anyway, though, until next time, I have been Adam Cleary. Get me on Twitter
08:11 @adamcleary, C-L-E-R-Y, it's probably that way. I see how you're looking at it. And until
08:15 I'll see you next time.
08:17 I'll see you next time.