So, how do you change things up when you play away from home?

Do you go for it and believe that “The best form of defense is attack?” or do you play Italian style with 11 players behind the ball and hope to frustrate the home team and hit them on the break or hope for success at set plays?

I just had the misfortune of watching the Stoke City vs Blackburn Rovers game and I have to say it was the worst game I have seen this season. My beloved Blackburn Rovers were absolutely awful. Sam Allardyce fielded the most defensive and negative and uncreative midfield I have ever seen. Pedersen on the left (hasn’t scored all season) Mokoena and Warnock in the middle (both defenders) and Andrews on the right (not a Premiership player). How on earth were they supposed to create anything? Dunn and Tugay were on the bench with Dunny coming on for the last 10 minutes and looked a different class.

So in this game, Allardyce went with the extreme of filling his midfield with defensive players and just hoped to shut the other team down. Allardyce is famous for his long ball tactics, so he probably figured this midfield would close the opposition down and when we have the ball were are just going to bypass them anyway by sending long balls up to the forwards. That might work, but Benni McCarthy is not the kind of forward who wants balls serving to him in the air, he wants them at his feet around the box.

So, as coaches, what can we learn from this?

I agree that when playing away it is better to be more defensive, keep your shape, frustrate the home team and wear them down. We tend to play 4-5-1 away from home in an effort to do this. However, it is important to remember the attacking side of the game as well.

Here is a great example. We played away last season against CMS. In the corresponding fixture the previous season they beat us 8-0 and it was 6-0 at half time. This time around, we played a 4-5-1 and really worked on our shape, discipline and defending in our own half. This worked, we finished the first half at 0-0. Big improvement.

In the second half, CMS came out and scored three goals from corners (obviously we had forgot how to defend corners!) and we lost 3-0. The interesting thing was because we had concentrated solely on the defensive part of the game, when CMS went 1-0 up, our team had no idea what to do. They figured we were now 1-0 down and they had no idea how we would score a goal. Naivety on the team in some respects, but a valid point also.

What am I getting at? Well, when putting together your game plan for away games, yes, focus on being hard to beat, but also give your team enough confidence and give them the tactics they can use to score goals as well. In an ideal game, your game plan will work, you shut down the oppostion, frustrate them and then you nick the game 1-0 from a set play or a breakaway.

Let me know you thoughts and Let” Talk Soccer…