Little bit of a breakdown thread on the Wolves match and how returning to more orthodox ways dismantled their out-of-sorts shape 🧵 We had some initial struggles in our usual (of late) 3-1-3-3 shape where MLS stays higher & wider over inverting so that we get more bodies forward earlier. Nwaneri also tried to replicate Ødegaard's usual actions of dropping wide and short to no avail.

Watching back some of the first half of the SOU match for just a bit more clarity on what went wrong, and the drop in quality of simple moments through the middle really, really hurt progression. Besides sometimes being a bit vacant/slow to get to spots, Eddie was very easily overwhelmed with his back to goal, and his attempts at layoffs were really untidy.

As bad as Lacazette has been at times this season, even during our good spells, we don’t have anyone to slot in for him particularly during the early phases of matches. All the good stuff we did in that previous run stemmed from having a good core in and around the ball at the halfway line phase, so that we could combine and stretch fluidly.

Buildup more patiently focused down the left today, stretching Brighton's press as much as possible.

Then using Martinelli’s double movements to eventually gain access between the lines.

Martinelli hasn’t capitalised well at all though. Interesting choice to have Martinelli be interchanging there instead of ESR instead, given how each is able to take on the ball. Both times I saw it, Martinelli got the ball caught up in his feet and failed to make use of the openings ahead.

Not gonna put out a full Southampton piece because there was only so much to go into, plus West Ham's coming up, so here's a short breakdown of the goals and how So'ton's approach played into our hands. It's usually very easy for us to succumb to slow buildup routines when the opposition time and measure their pressures.

SOU's high-pressing approach, similar to Villa's against us, illustrated why those other teams avoid this style.