Montgomery brings his Mariners Plan A to Hibs.
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00:00 Hi folks, welcome back to the Tactics Zone where today we're having a look at Nick Montgomery's
00:05 first game as Hibs manager.
00:06 A 2-2 draw against Kamanak at Rugby Park.
00:12 We kind of thought that Montgomery would go towards the 4-4-2 he'd used at Central Coast
00:17 and that's exactly what he did.
00:19 Made a couple of personnel changes but went with a really solid 4-4-2.
00:25 Really compact without the ball, creating a bit more width, almost a 4-2-4 when they
00:30 had the ball.
00:33 You can see this right from the very start.
00:35 You see the wingers, Ewan and Boyle, who are kind of playing on opposite sides so they
00:38 can cut in.
00:40 Tucking in to make a more compact block.
00:42 They end up stealing the ball right from the kick-off.
00:48 And then I found it interesting what happened next.
00:51 Doidge clearly knew to arc his run and go wide, not because he's going to play as a
00:56 winger suddenly but he wants to drag a defender out of position and create Boyle some space.
01:03 You can see all that space in behind.
01:04 Just to use his pace and go searing right through the middle of the killie defence.
01:10 It was something we'd see repeated again and again.
01:12 Doidge would drift left or drop deep and Boyle would take the space in behind him.
01:16 Nice movement between the front four.
01:21 And you can see, look at this clip, there's not a striker in the picture here.
01:24 It's the two wingers who've switched sides now.
01:26 Ewan and Boyle on a counter-attack.
01:29 But both Doidge and Dylan Venti have played their part by dropping off, creating a little
01:36 bit of movement to create space.
01:38 It was probably the best element of what Hibbs did on Saturday.
01:43 The second goal comes from a throw-in, which is nice, always if you're a coach looking
01:49 for set pieces.
01:51 But you notice Ewan's come all the way across from the right wing.
01:54 This was an element of play that I noticed from watching Montgomery's Mariners.
02:00 Their wingers did not stay wide.
02:01 They went roaming, looking for the danger.
02:04 Lafondrie, who's on for Doidge now, comes short, takes a nice touch into Ewan, into
02:08 Venti and it's a lovely goal.
02:11 So far, so good.
02:13 Now, there's a lot of reasons why Hibbs ended up squandering the two goal lead.
02:20 That the 4-4-2 can be defensively open with your two centre midfielders, and that has
02:25 to do a lot of work.
02:27 I think for the first command goal, if you look at this picture here, maybe being picky,
02:32 I think Rocky Bashiri can be four, maybe five steps to his right in this situation.
02:39 He's been dragged out there initially, but Stevenson's now got the winger covered, Newell's
02:45 offering support.
02:47 If Bashiri goes, say, four steps to his right, he's still in a good cover position if Stevenson
02:52 gets beaten, but he's also making it more difficult for Lyons to run in there and get
02:56 the shot, which is spilled, and then Vassell scores.
03:02 Now we get the, again this is the same with the 4-4-2, sometimes your centre mids can
03:06 get pushed really deep, almost on top of your back four, and it leaves that dangerous space
03:11 there.
03:12 Kennedy got a nice shot away in this instance.
03:14 He lost a goal from a set-piece, I'm not going to go into the details on that, I think everyone
03:20 has to take a bite of the dirt sandwich when you lose a set-piece goal.
03:26 I think more concerning might be this was late on in the game, it just got really frantic
03:30 for Hibbs.
03:31 They were kind of getting dragged in different areas of the park, and maybe they just don't
03:35 have the discipline yet, the positional discipline, to play exactly the way Montgomery wants.
03:40 But they could have been punished here if Dees had taken this chance.
03:46 Conclusion then, well Montgomery's made his intent pretty clear, this is how he wants
03:50 to play.
03:51 The first half in particular, incredibly promising.
03:56 Going to be really interesting to see what he does with another full week on the training
03:59 ground.
04:00 Hope you've enjoyed this, Tactic Zone, if you haven't, find me on Twitter @johnnythegreek
04:06 and tell me exactly where I've gone wrong.
04:09 Otherwise just keep logging on for all your top football coverage.
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