One of the primary, most easily identifiable insights into Alfred Johansson is that he prefers to play a 4-3-3 with a sitting midfielder.
This tells us nothing.
Formations are overrated when analysing a football match. There is no magic formula for which formation will beat another. You can just as easily lose to a 3-5-2 as you will a 4-3-3. The real gold dust – the aspects of a football team that are truly indicative of its longevity, and its chances of capturing real success – are the principles of play.
Nobody said it better than The Special One, Jose Mourinho.
Having watched hours of Rosenborg’s football under Johansson and listened extensively to his interviews with club media – both at Motherwell and Rosenborg; thank you, translated captions – his principles of play are uncompromisingly clear.
The Rise and Fall of Johansson’s Rosenborg The beginning of Johansson’s tenure at Rosenborg was fairly disastrous. After 14 matches, Rosenborg were stuck in the bottom half and were conceding almost two goals a game. And yet, by the end of that season, they had
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What was the possession stats between the start of the season and when matters improved? I put our defensive solidity down to our high possession stats.
Great question, and largely agree – a big part of our defensive performance was due to having great possession stats.
Rosenborg avg possession at start: 53.1%.
Rosenborg avg possession when improved: 58.2%
(Via FBRef.com)
They also had some great spells of possession during their bad start (a number of which were 60+) which was interesting. A big part of their early troubles was where they were losing the ball, so the volume of possession didn’t matter all too much as they just kept losing it in crucial areas. That was rectified and they improved a lot. Here’s hoping such a bedding in period isn’t needed here!