During Boxing Day last year, Rooney's Derby County won a three-game winning streak in the Championship.
This achievement greatly exceeded people's expectations. Since late 2020, apart from Wayne Rooney becoming Derby County's coach, the biggest news surrounding the club has been their financial crisis.
So this season, due to financial problems, Derby County was deducted 21 points in a row, but with this wave of three consecutive wins, Rooney's team gave Derby County fans a renewed hope of staying in the Championship. At the end of the 40th round of the Championship, Derby County are in second-to-last place with 28 points, a nine-point gap from fourth-to-last Reading, and if you add the deducted 21 points, they should currently be in 17th place.
With the last six rounds of the Championship left, the task ahead of Rooney is daunting.
Analyzing the tactics of a team in deep financial crisis is always a difficult task.
According to media reports, Derby County once could not even pay the player's salary, and Rooney even said that he was willing to give up his salary and let the young people in the team get the salary first.
And because the financial problems have not been substantially resolved, Rooney has not been given the opportunity to bring in reinforcements, but at the same time, the main players in the team are constantly being lost.
The lack of morale and manpower in the squad was a big difficulty for the coach to line up, so I deliberately picked a few games in Derby County at the beginning of the season to observe Looney's tactical thinking rather than Boxing Day or recent matches.
The reason is very simple, the team at the beginning of the season has just undergone summer training, and the transfer window has been closed, it should still be able to pay salaries on time, and the mentality, morale and state of the players of the team are generally in a relatively stable and peaceful state, which is a more objective environment for observing the coach's tactics.
Excessive chicken blood and excessive downturn are actually unsustainable.
First of all, I was slightly disappointed with Rooney's tactical thinking.
In the first match, I watched the second round of the Championship, derby County away to St. Paul Fc. According to the current points table, Petersburg United is the standard Championship weak team and currently ranks first in the league with no points deducted.
In this game, Rooney lined up the 4231 formation:
As soon as the game started, I discovered that the left-back Rooney was using, Number 3 Forsyth, was quite tall:
So I went to check the information, and sure enough, the player reached 189cm tall.
Seeing this, I was secretly happy in my heart, thinking that Rooney's tactics had a three-back mentality, Forsyth might be a left-back focused on the back, the overall tactics could also be a three- or four-back switch, Forsyth was adducted as a left-back, and the left-back became a left-winger when defending.
However, derby County's left wing-back is an old acquaintance of Manchester United fans, the man of great anticipation of the year - Ravel Morrison:
Ravel Morrison joined Derby County on a free-flying basis last summer, after seven months of free reins of his contract with The Hague.
At that time, I had a little doubt about whether Ravel Morrison could play wingback in defense, and it wasn't long before it was discovered that he didn't have wingback duties at all:
So, this is obviously not a three- or four-back switch.
Moreover, such a tall Forsyth did not focus on the back of the stack, but would be in a fairly high position when holding the ball on his side:
By this time I was already a little disappointed.
Even if today's tall players do not necessarily have problems in the running link, their turning and flexibility are doomed to be on par with small players, and Forsyth, who is in such a high position in attack, how to cover the space behind him when attacking and defending?
Of course, in the attack, tall players can use confrontation to create advantages at a single point, and with small players around them, they can form groups and create advantages in the local area by competing for the top and recovering two points.
However, from this heat map, it can be seen that Derbyshire is not very active on the left side of the road:
It is rare to advance all the way to the front.
It is useless in attack, but it is necessary to lean up and pull the edge when there is a ball, and when defending, There is no one behind Forsyth:
So the hidden danger has been buried at this time.
Left-back pulls the edge and leans up, how is the ball out of the backfield solved? This involves Wayne Rooney's design for the ball at the back. As can be seen from this shot, Rooney's side relies heavily on the retraction and pull-out of midfielders when it comes to the ball:
At different game times, One of the two backs, Shinni, pulls to the left:
The other back Bird will pull to the right:
Frontcourt attackers in the 4231 formation, including Ravel Morrison:
Lawrence in the front waist position:
Both need to retreat to face the offensive defense when the ball is delivered, creating a line for teammates.
In this game, right-back Ebosele does not participate in the retraction and delivery of the ball, he focuses on pulling the edge, so at the same time, when the withdrawing midfielder comes to the right centre-back side, right-back Nathan Byrne will be adducted into the ribs, counting Ebosele on the pulling edge, and the three of them form a triangle position:
Thus forming such a propulsion route:
But on the data website, Ebosele is labeled as a defender, so it should be a substitute play.
In the second half, when substitute Sibli replaced Ebosele, he worked in the ribs and pulled the edge to right-back Nathan Byrne:
And against St. Petersburg United, Ravel Morrison did this once:
So the keywords have all appeared:
In the exit stage, the midfielders retreated and pulled the edge, the full-back pressed up to open the offensive width, and the left side attracted the opponent and a long pass to the right side of the empty space.
Friends familiar with the Premier League should be able to find out at this time that this set of scoring and pushing systems is very similar to Klopp's Liverpool.
From past interviews, we can see some clues, among several giant coaches in the Premier League, Rooney is particularly appreciative of Klopp, not only often praising liverpool he coached in the media, believing that the Reds have the opportunity to create a dynastic era in the Premier League like Manchester United before 2010, and in the 2016 FIFA Best Of Choice, As England captain Rooney chose the first place as Ranieri, who led Leicester City to win the Premier League title, and the second place was given to Klopp.
In fact, Klopp had only taken over Liverpool for a year and three months and had not yet won any trophies.
However, Rooney's Derby County did not play liverpool style.
Liverpool's back Fabinho has a body, which allows him to block the opponent's rapid counterattack at the first time, and once the opponent slows down, the super-athletic midfielder and full-back will return to the position, thus plunging the opponent into a positional battle.
In this match against St. Petersburg United, the well-equipped Forsyth was thrown into a high position, and the back of the back of the back, Hinnie, was 175cm tall and weighed 72Kg; Bird was 183cm tall, weighing an unknown amount, but it was not destined to be a type with excellent confrontational ability and good defensive awareness.
On the offensive end, Liverpool have Mane and Salah, two players with surprise capabilities and can also do fulcrum in the second line, which has laid the foundation for the team to come to the front.
In addition, Firmino can attract centre-backs and create space by pulling back to take the ball, Ruota has the ability to find and capture space, and Wannian substitute Origi can do the fulcrum at the end of the game, and also has the ability to pull the edge.
But on the offensive end of derby County's game, left forward Ravel Morrison's physical fitness has deteriorated badly, and he no longer has the ability to wreak havoc in the core area as a young man, Ebosele, who plays as a right forward, is not good at attacking, and the pivot skill of centre-forward Kazim Richards is only confrontational in this game, not playing the ball.
Lawrence, the only player who is still good, can only play this attack with Richards:
In the second half, after center Richards was injured, the task of making a fulcrum was even handed over to Lawrence:
In the 77th minute of the match, Ravel Morrison came down from midfield to create a corner kick with a long-range shot:
Derby County took the lead with a corner kick:
Away to the lead, even Ronnick, who started with a force, knew that he would have to play five defenders in England, but Rooney still did not make any impromptu adjustments.
So in 11 minutes of super long stoppage time, he first lost this goal in the defense of a set-piece:
Tragedy then repeated, with left-back Forsyth and left-back Curtis Davis scrambling twice, but neither clearing the ball out of the danger zone, exposing the space behind him, so the opponent crossed and the back post was caught again:
By the way, Forsyth is 33 years old this year, and Curtis Davis is 37 years old.
After this match, I went to see The Champions League Round 6, Derby County away to Birmingham.
In this game, Rooney used Buchanan, who is 175cm tall and weighs 67Kg, on left-back, and the formation has changed to 433, looking more like Liverpool.
However, Liverpool will not have such a loose attacking and attacking and defensive scene on the third line:
In the 81st minute, they conceded a second goal:
Almost the same as the process of being killed by the Petersburg Union, it was the left-back space and the right-back side space that was captured, except that Birmingham chose to move sideways this time.
Notice the running and defensive choices of the two midfielders above as they move from attack to defence, they quickly disappear into the frame, and it is the left-back who returns from the front, Klopp will not accept such a performance:
However, this is already derby County's absolute main player.
After watching a few games, I went to check the information.
Derby County's finances are certainly in a dire state, with over £50m in debt, but by mid-January it seems that if the acquisition goes ahead, the club could add manpower and strength by bringing in reinforcements in the winter window in January.
So the three consecutive wins during the Christmas season, it is likely that Rooney played a wave of chicken blood, the club united from top to bottom, came up with a super high will to fight, rushed out a wave of three consecutive wins, in order to show the potential acquirers that the club has confidence and ability to complete the relegation.
However, the acquisition did not accelerate, Derby County was once again punished for the winter window and the team lost some powerful players, such as Henny, Williams and others.
Of course, with just a few games, I don't want to beat Rooney's tactical abilities to death.
The club's financial crisis is very serious, Rooney does not have enough manpower, and this is his first independent coaching, and it is only more than a year, and it is already very good to keep the team from collapsing.
This shows that his ability to maintain the locker room, that is, the ability to manage people, is not bad. Starting with minus 21 points, now with 28 points, the results are OK, after all, two or three years ago, Derby County once had the strength to rush over, and there were still some old players in the team at that time.
But, from a tactical standpoint, there's a lot more to learn. A lot of young coaches today are watching Guardiola and Klopp's football go to coaching positions, and these two things are really efficient and beautiful, especially Klopp's tactics, which are full of passion when attacking.
But if you have the opportunity to come to them, you will find that these two people are actually starting from the defensive end, the possession is actually for defense, and the running is actually for defense, which many young coaches can't see.
It is also easy for many young coaches to plant when rigidly imitating Guardiola and Klopp.
The latest news is that there has been some progress in the Derbyshire acquisition.
Whether Or not Rooney gets a secure coaching environment in Derby County or if he goes to another club after the new boss arrives, valuing the defensive end is something he has to learn.
Whether it is like the old-school coach who attaches importance to defense by building a backcourt structure, or like the current trend, by emphasizing possession and running to emphasize defense, as long as it can be ahead of others, it is okay.
Being as top-heavy as it is now is certainly not going to work.