Oliver Glasner - The Deep Dive - Part 3

In Part 3 of this series, we'll look at the data on how Glasner likes his sides to build up, and Crystal Palace created their chances from.

This is the third part in a series that will analyse how Glasner will fit at Forest. This post is available to paid subscribers, please consider a subscription to support my work. You can read Part 1 here, and Part 2 here! Thanks!

What Positions Were Key in Glasner’s Build Up?

One player who I think will be really excited to work under Glasner, is Murillo. The idea of playing in a back 3 should really help bring out some of his fantastic attacking qualities, whilst giving him an extra safety net in numbers in the defensive line.

Why should he be excited though? Well, because the left sided centre back for Oliver Glasner was involved in a greater proportion of their build up to create chances than that position was for any other team in the Premier League.

Chadi Riad was involved in almost 40% of the expected goals that came from Crystal Palace’s open play attacks while he was on the pitch. His former captain Marc Guehi, whom he replaced after his January departure, was also ranked very highly in 4th position.

It’s interesting then to see the further to the right on the pitch we go as far as Palace’s central defenders were concerned, the less they were involved in the build up. This may very well have been an attempt to create overloads on the left, draw teams over to that side of the pitch, and then give some more space for the dangerous Daniel Munoz to cause havoc high on the right flank.

If we look at the position as a whole throughout the season (rather than the player), we again see the most prominent positions being very left-side heavy. RWB (normally Munoz) ranks 3rd, with the RDM in 4th, but then the other right-sided players don’t appear until 7th & 9th position.