What Monty's Mariners tell us about plans for Hibs.
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00:00 Hi folks, welcome to Tactics Zone where hopefully we begin to explain a little bit of the how
00:06 as well as the what and the why of what happens in games.
00:09 A little bit different this one, we're going to look at the new Hibs manager Nick Montgomery
00:15 and Hibs fans will be wondering what he's going to do to the team, what changes he's
00:19 going to make.
00:20 So we're going to have a look at what he did at Central Coast Mariners and see if that
00:23 gives us a little bit of a clue as to what he might do possibly as early as this weekend
00:29 at Rugby Park.
00:32 Montgomery at Central Coast was a 4-4-2 man, didn't matter how big the game was, sometimes
00:37 he tweaked it, put a diamond in midfield but this was his formation.
00:42 Finals, league games, whatever it was, he went with this.
00:48 You can see that means without the ball they had this kind of two banks of four setting
00:52 up.
00:53 Quite often they'd also get one of the strikers dropping back to act as a kind of disruptor
00:57 in the opposition build up.
01:01 Going forward they like to get plenty of touches in the box and catch defences off guard.
01:06 I mean if there's a progressive ball that's on, a chance to go break the lines, get the
01:10 opposition on the back foot.
01:12 The head coach, this guy, he wants his team to take those chances.
01:17 Central Coast they averaged over two goals a game, they were at the top of most of the
01:22 attacking charts, chance creation, things like that and you can see why if you watch
01:26 them.
01:29 Without the ball, now there's something that Wisecout use called challenge intensity which
01:32 is based on a whole number of different stats but basically it measures how hard a team
01:38 works to get the ball back and the Mariners were top of the rankings in that metric in
01:43 the A-League last season which is probably one of the reasons they ended up with one
01:47 of the best defensive records in the division.
01:49 You can see here they've lined up almost laying a trap, that looks like a nice big bit of
01:53 open space for the Melbourne City player to play into but they're waiting for him, they
01:59 turn it over, I think they get a chance or maybe even a goal from this clip.
02:04 Also high intensity, Montgomery's talked about that, his team's going to work.
02:08 Look how many guys they've got round the ball here.
02:11 They've got some poor sucker in a difficult position and they're not going to let him
02:15 get out, they're not going to let him find an easy path to escape.
02:21 So how does this apply to Hibbs?
02:23 Well Lee Johnson used quite a few different formations in his time at Hibbs but never
02:28 really a 4-4-2.
02:29 I think, forgive me if I'm wrong, the stats showed maybe 5% of the time he used a 4-4-2,
02:35 maybe late in the game chasing something.
02:38 David Gray didn't go with that either in the weekend win over Aberdeen just before the
02:43 international break.
02:44 That kind of 4-2-3-1 variation on a 4-3-3 is really popular in the Scottish premiership
02:50 and tends to overload midfielders.
02:52 So it's difficult to go up there with two midfielders against three all the time.
02:58 But I think, probably Montgomery knows, starting positions are just starting positions, no
03:02 more than that.
03:04 So yes, they could line up like this in the weekend.
03:06 You could go Djego Newell in the middle, Boyle, Uan, Wyde, LaFondrie, Venti, maybe Deutsch
03:10 up there.
03:12 The players are... we don't know, it might be too early.
03:15 At some point though you would think that he will revert to his favourite type, his
03:19 favourite form of mission and that's what we'll see.
03:22 I hope you've enjoyed Tactics Zone.
03:25 Follow me on Twitter @johnnythegreek to tell me where I got it wrong.
03:30 Keep logging on for all the best football coverage.
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