Thread by @Mrcento

Jack Ross, what to expect-

A bit of a long thread to dive into the numbers over his last few seasons, what it shows his aims are and what he tries to set up a side to cater for.

The fundamentals-

Looking at the various data points over his time at St.Mirren, Hibs and Sunderland, he seems to be a good manager for his strikers and setting a team up to give them a solid amount of decent quality chances.

Through both full seasons at those teams, He had Reilly hitting 22 goals, Maja hitting 16 goals, Doidge hitting 12 and Nisbet hitting 18 in all competitions.

Also seems to have a good knack of having at least 1 wide player joining in with regular goals.

McGeady had his best goalscoring season of his career under Ross in 18/19 with 14, and Boyle at Hibs chipped in with 15. A trend you could also extend back to St.Mirren with Lewis Morgan getting 18.

Assists wise, a high number come wide. At Sunderland, 33 assists in all comps came from wide players, At Hibs, 28 were wide. At St.Mirren, probably his 'narrowerst' team, they still got 22 assists from wide areas... Albeit Morgan did most of the heavy lifting on his own with 13.

You could argue St.Mirren actually showed he is capable of organising a team offensively that is not just reliant on width, given centre mid McShane got 12 assists that season, and Cammy Smith, playing in behind a striker, also got 11.

The method-

The data, especially from Hibs, is pretty clear. The team is all about getting the ball in the box in a fairly controlled manner.

His team does tend to be possession based, averaging around 50%, which, given 8 from 38 games are v Cel-Gers = well over 50% most weeks

Their average pass completion % was around 71% (4th in the league) and they topped the entire division for shots taken inside the 6yd box per game (1.3), further reinforcing why strikers do tend to perform for him. 6.8 shots on average inside the box put them 3rd overall.

A point nailed by only 3.4 avg shots a match from outside the box, which was 3rd worst in the division. To have such a stark difference between inside and outside the box shows it's the aim.

Winning 10 penalties another hint how often they aim to get into the box with the ball.

As does 859 crosses in a season. Same year, for comparison, United were bottom of that league with 571. Last season we managed only 625. The heady heights of 3rd worst in the league.

In terms of time taken on the ball, Hibs averaged 276 successful passes a game to our 257, not a massive difference, They were only averaging half a pass more per sequence, but were spent 1.5 seconds longer to do so, with a progressive rate of 1.44mts per second. Which is average

204 sequences of 10+ passes, 33 of them leading to a chance to shoot is fairly solid, 48 attacks over the season originating from their own half where more than 50% of passes were forward was one of the better ones in the league.

What that gobbledygook roughly means is fairly cautious football not dissimilar to what we had under Courts in terms of tempo, but with a better aim in mind of working the ball into the box in a specific manner.

Nothing thrilling, but compared to what our strikers had? Decent.

The systems he deploys are fairly similar to what we have done, 4231, 433, 352. He has played with a 433 using the 2 wider strikers more narrow and withdrawn with license to drift outside, which is something i reckon could work here with the correct target striker being signed.

I've touched on outer forward/wing/dual CAM manipulation in other threads and how they can dictate an entire game plan and be used to control opposition, that's another rabbit hole entirely to dive down in tactical geekery 😂

https://twitter.com/Mrcento/status/1525277625014419457?s=20&t=1PQdXc2wJOxQZzXC7zxzew

The opinion-

He's a decent fit that will likely just carry on from Courts. The added experience may be a good thing, and the subtle differences in the final third, with the correct additions to take advantage, could reap extra rewards.

I look at his use of Cammy Smith, and think that off the front/ghost is how Clark is deployed. A Shankland type striker would enjoy his aim the way Nisbet did, and Watt in wider areas could be a Boyle/Morgan that creates and chips in with more than a fair share of goals.

Add in his Doidge type target and another couple of delivery points we know we need anyway, and we're probably not a million miles off a Jack Ross team.

There does seem to be a trend of setting up to unlock 1 'thing' and when he loses that 1 'thing' they struggle a bit.

Sunderland it was Maja, Hibs Nisbet lost his scoring touch, Doidge got a bad injury etc and the cautious football without the focal point firing started to lead to inefficiency and draw central. Which further underlines his natural caution.

The midfield is a concern minus Levitt because having that central player that can work the ball around when given time also seems to be a big thing for him.

What he needs just so happens to be what we need, and knew we were trying to bring, so it does seem a very easy decision.