Bundesliga Tactical Reviews | Dino Toppmöller finished after 3-3 draw with Werder Bremen? | OneFootball

Having already supplied our Get German Football News match review and player ratings for Friday night’s six-goal Bundesliga thriller between Eintracht Frankfurt and Werder Bremen, it’s time to delve into the tactics of head coaches Horst Steffen and Dino Toppmöller. Both Steffen and Toppmöller’s game management leaves us with some interesting questions.

As it turns out, the most important of said questions might turn out to be whether this shall be Toppmöller’s last Bundesliga tactical review for quite some time. Yikes! Something of a very cruel coincidence to learn that, on the very same day former Eintracht coach Oliver Glasner announced that he would be leaving Crystal Palace after the season, his SGE successor may have opened up his old position!

Let’s have a look at this latest Bundesliga encounter.

Tactical Review, Werder Bremen

Despite the fact that Horst Steffen’s starting XI weren’t able to produce much in their 3-0 away defeat to Borussia Dortmund midweek, the Bremen trainer opted to roll with the exact same personnel again. If the author is honest, he’s never been much of a fan of “bolt-lock-sweeper” back-fours. It’s especially terrifying to see Bremen employ them as it conjures up traumatic memories of the Florian Kohfeldt days. Some of the ugliest football in German top flight history came via a similar SVW formation.

Lineup—SVW—(4-2-2-2)

The fact that this can effectively function as a back-six – and that this back-six immediately failed to stop Frankfurt from scoring 51 seconds in didn’t engender much confidence. Steffen’s players simply couldn’t get organized quickly enough to prevent the opening goal. Sugawara, Pieper, Lynen, and Coulibaly all looked lost on their opening marks. As Bremen’s play gradually improved, however, Sugarawara and Lynen made up for their early mistake with some excellent ball wins, adroit sprints, and solid passes forward.

Sugawara played an important role in gradually swinging the momentum in Bremen’s direction and, as a result, narrowly missed out on Man-of-the-Match honors. It proved genuinely impressive to watch the Southampton loanee fearlessly fight his way past tough opponents Nathaniel Brown and Arthur Theate on the SGE left. Overall, the arrangement worked out very well as Bremen racked up the optical points and won virtually every statistical battle. One wouldn’t mistake what one saw for glorious football, but it far exceed that of the so-called German Champions League representatives.

Toppmöller was the first coach to employ a single substitution and tactical tweak (Ansgar Knauff for Rasmus Kristensen in the 52nd. Steffen waited approximately 12 minutes to respond. New Stuttgart loan signing Jovan Milosevic entered for Isaac Schmidt in the 64th. The tactical re-format remained a bit difficult to discern. It looked as if Milosevic held a right-ward slant while Schmid slid left and Senne Lynen moved up. This, at least, would have made the most sense as it enabled Steffen to keep a basic 4-2-2-2 slant together.

In all honesty, this is the author’s best guess:

Lineup—SVW—65th minute (4-2-2-2)

Sometimes Lynen worked farther back, presumably to allow everyone to fan out and work a little wider in something more akin to a 5-3-2. Both shapes helped Bremen make more effective pinpricks in the SGE block. Njinmah could have easily scored the equalizer earlier. The eventual equalizer (off a dead ball) and the 3-2 (off that gorgeous team lightning) weren’t really directly related to tactics. Something that the author thinks he spotted through some very strained eyes might end up working rather well in the future.

Tactical Assessment, Werder Bremen

What might be a decent tactical arrangement for Werder heading forward? Samuel Mbangula’s inspired late performance in relief at least planted an idea bug in the brain. With his current set of professionals, Steffen might be able to return to the 4-2-3-1 he was attempting to build at the beginning of the season before things went off the rails. Njinmah right. Mbangula left. Milosevic up top. Schmid crushing it in the ten slot. Everything comes together with the right tweaks.

Lineup—SVW—(4-2-3-1)

It looked like the Hanseaten were attacking in a 4-2-3-1 late on. The top axes, with this personnel, accords the team with some wonderfully unpredictable rotation opportunities up top. In terms of personnel on the back line, obviously it would be great if Maximilian Wöber and Felix Agu were fit. The latter can take his time actually as Friedl does reasonably well as a left-back. A 3-4-3 with dropping Amos Pieper, throwing Leonardo Bittencourt into the midfield, and moving Schmid back a tad could also yield good outcomes. As the author believes he mentioned before, he doesn’t care what anyone says about Bittencourt.

The 32-year-old remains solid!

Tactical Review, Eintracht Frankfurt

First and foremost, Toppmöller had to address the loss of newly acquired striker Younes Ebnoutalib. There would be no like-for-like replacement for the exciting new addition. Instead, the SGE trainer switched from a 4-4-2 to 4-1-4-1 formation. Four personnel changes from the loss to Stuttgart saw AFCON returnee Fares Chaïbi, Mahmoud Dahoud, Nnamdi Collins, and Nathaniel Brown replace Ebnoutalib, Oscar Højlund, Ansgar Knauff, and Auréle Amenda.

Lineup—SGE—(4-1-4-1)

One would have foreseen a 3-4-2-1 formation and there were a few rare occasions when it looked like one on the press. Naturally, the prolonged loss of Kristensen to injury in the first half threw a wrench into everything by forcing Theate and Skhiri back. Once Eintracht were back to full strength, it became apparent that the 4-1-4-1 was indeed Toppmöller’s order-of-the-day.

Unfortunately, the press never functioned in a consistently coherent fashion. Having Skhiri serve as the midfield point man constituted a very big ask after the Tunisian international’s grueling and exhausting AFCON campaign. It came as almost no surprise to watch Eintacht accomplish next-to-nothing in the middle. Kristensen (once re-introduced) got some promising sorties rolling on the right with Doan. 

The above-mentioned insertion of Knauff for the still bleeding Kristensen in the 52nd-minute should have probably heralded a back-three re-format. Instead, the formation remained the same. Perhaps Toppmöller didn’t wish to confuse his young fullbacks Brown and Collins (who have been making horrible tactical positioning errors all season) too much.

Lineup—SGE—53rd minute (4-1-4-1)

The problem we have here, of course, is that Toppmöller actually ended up directly placing more pressure on Brown and Collins. Young fullbacks aren’t always apt at managing their directional shifts in a match with lots of transitional play. As silly as it may sound, much of this has to do with the fact that youngsters just haven’t learned how to properly listen to their body yet. Directional shifts sap an enormous amount of energy from a supply they falsely assume to be infinite. 

Brown already had a tough shift working up front and was far too gassed to handle the new assignment. Were Elias Baum not out injured or Auréle Amenda not dealing with shattered confidence after that disastrous midweek outing, Toppmöller might have had other options. Toppmöller probably should take responsibility for the fact that new addition Keita Kosugi wasn’t ready to step up yet, or that either Aurelio Buta or Timothy Chandler weren’t at least drilled for a brief relief shift. 

Eitracht’s defending problems this year have much to do with the inexperience of Brown and Collins. Skipper Robin Koch deserves his fair share of heat for all his mistakes this year, but Toppmöller somehow hasn’t managed to cultivate the potential of his two young talents. At the very least, both of them should have their basic synchronicity straightened out by now. 

We’ll need to mention the very nice late offensive work of Can Uzun and marquee 3. Liga signing Ayoube Amaimouni-Echghouyab before moving on. Everyone clear on how to pronounce Amaimouni-Echghouyab? Be sure to get on it. Morocco may very well take the current Africa Cup of Nations crown and add two new Bundesliga pros to their ranks in Frankfurt January signings Ebnoutalib and Amaimouni-Echghouyab ahead of this summer. 

There’s a tip for everyone.

Tactical Assessment, Eintracht Frankfurt

Is Toppmöller indeed on the chopping block? Yes. Sadly, a man with a neck perfectly suited for a whetted halberd won’t be able to avoid medieval-style decapitation for much longer. The packed fixture schedule for the duration of the month (five more fixtures before January is out) might buy him some more time. Once more, Toppmöller and the staff will go over the team’s defensive errors.

Once more, everyone associated with the SGE will discover there isn’t enough time to correct them. Markus Krösche has effectively painted himself into a corner with his recent statements. Eintracht’s chief personnel executive can’t hope to save face if he finds himself ranting again about the team in a post-match interview. Krösche’s rage level is already dialed up to 11. It can’t go any higher even by “Spinal Tap” standards. 

The RheinMainAdler might go the “Nuri Sahin January 2024” route and simply wait for things to get worse. More likely, with a few extra days ahead of the easier Champions League fixture against Qarabag, they’ll pull the plug this weekend. This constitutes the best opportunity. An interim coach probably won’t help matters much over the next few weeks, so assume the search for a replacement has already begun. 

GGFN | Peter Weis