Formation, leadership and dealing with the long ball - 5 things we learned from Crawley Town's win over Eastleigh
Crawley played in front of a crowd for the first time since May 2 when they played Salford in the last game of the season and they came away from Eastleigh with a 0-1 win.
Dion Pereira was the Reds goalscorer with the goal coming midway through the first half after a well-worked move from left to right involving Stephen Duke-McKenna and Ade Adeyemo before it was rifled into the back of net by Crawley’s number 19, slamming the underside of the crossbar on its way through.
The Reds fielded two different XIs in each half of the game in which we found out a lot about the foundational elements of how Colin Kazim-Richards wants to set up his team as well as some similar trends between both halves in terms of particular patterns of play, positional placement and movement but also some slight tweaks for example in the way play was built up, so here are five things we learnt.
Formation established
One of the most notable things that was established from today’s friendly was the formation that Kazim-Richards intends on playing.
In both halves Crawley set up in what appeared to be a 4-2-3-1 formation with some slight tweaks in possession, particularly in the forward line and when the Reds built up from the back.
The slight tweaks in formation between the half’s were mainly with regards to the two midfielders who in the first half operated more as holding midfielders with Jude Arthurs and Klaudio Krasniqi but the pairing in the second half, Jude Robertson and Justin Ferizaj, had a bit more license to operate higher up the pitch.
The Reds played a higher line in the second half and more of a sweeper keeper as they swapped the man between the sticks from Vito Mannone to Jackson Izqueirdo as the Reds also brought a faster centre-back pairing on of Pele Arganese-McDermott and Akin Odimayo.
The second shift in formation between the half’s was with Crawley’s frontline which in the first half saw Pemi Aderoju act as a lone striker and in the second half Gianmarco Di Biase and Danilo Orsi were more as a striker partnership.
Building from the back
The signing of Jackson Izquierdo this morning gave more of an insight into how Crawley intend to build from the back. Having come through the youth ranks at Crystal Palace, these goalkeepers spend a lot of their time working on distribution and typically focus their work on playing out from the back with a lot of Premier League sides employing this style.
This is exactly what we saw in both of the halves of the game as Crawley patiently built up from the back albeit there wasn’t much of a press from Eastleigh’s front line.
In the first half Arthurs tended to peel away from his central role and drop into almost a left-back or right-back position (more often the left side) to allow the full backs to push higher up and to also to saturate one side of the pitch before quickly shifting the ball to the other side which space had been created to step into by one of the centre-backs.
Beyond the halfway line
There was understandably a lack of cutting edge in the final third today as the players are very much still in the gelling stage, but the intentions were clear with how Kazim-Richards wanted his side to create chances.
In the first half Crawley were more direct once they crossed the halfway line, more often than not looking for the ball into the channel for Aderoju to run onto with his pace and physicality.
The second thing to point out from the first half would be with regards to how high the full backs pushed which saw which saw the left and right midfielders/wingers Duke-McKenna and Pereira operate more inside the pitch rather than making overlapping runs and then the ball would be worked around the box.
In the second the wingers stuck out wide more often with the full backs still pushing high. The Reds found themselves in great positions to cross the ball on a number of occasions, however, weren’t quite able to get the ball in the box as much as they may have liked to.
Dealing with the long ball
Crawley were faced with a lot of long balls from the home side as they looked to play direct but the Reds dealt with them well, but why is this of such importance?
Well this is something that Crawley will be faced with a lot in League Two with a lot of the sides at this level looking to deploy the long ball onto teams or at least have it in their repertoire.
The Reds dealt with this well during today’s encounter, picking up the second and third plays well and getting into their defensive shape so this was a good practice for what they will come up against a lot in League Two next season although the test will be greater.
Mentality and leadership
On the whole Crawley were very positive in their play, they always looked to play forward and they moved the ball well though they could have manoeuvred the ball quicker which Kazim-Richards addressed in his post-match reflection, but at this stage of pre-season you can understand the lack of sharpness.
Arthurs was very vocal in the first half, switched on and focused throughout the 45 minutes he played, commanding the Reds and shouting orders.
The former Bromley midfielder will be pivotal going forward for Crawley with his leadership qualities and experience having won the League Two title with the Ravens last season.