Bundesliga Tactics Check | Daniel Thioune’s unenviable task at Werder Bremen | OneFootball

In this evening’s Get German Football News feature, we’ll undertake an assessment of Daniel Thioune’s first match in charge of Werder Bremen. Tapped for the relegation race at the beginning of the season. one of the two Bundesliga Hanseatic city-state clubs finds itself in serious trouble. In the words of squad captain Marco Friedl himself, Werder are “back where they belong”. A second relegation in five years remains a real possibility.

Thioune received his trainer appointment midweek. The appointment itself is inauspicious enough given that the former trainer of Hanseatic rivals Hamburger SV was neither Bremen’s first nor second choice. Thioune has never trained a top flight club before. In point of fact the 51-year-old’s previous two appointments (HSV and Fortuna Düsseldorf) were defined by his inability to get former Bundesliga clubs back into the top division.

Thioune maintains his fair share of fans among the German football faithful. He’s known as a solid character and decent family man who quietly leads by example. Unfortunately, that has led to slow starts and plenty of ill-timed stalls at his previous professional stations. Werder don’t exactly have time on their side in this instance. A more hand’s on “mover and shaker” might have been a better fit.

How did Thioune’s Bundelsiga debut go?

The new trainer literally made no attempt to change Horst Steffen’s previous system. Steffen himself had been attempting to desperately back track from his disastrous attempt to re-format Ole Werner’s old 3-5-2 into a 4-2-3-1 at the beginning of the season. Steffen’s ultimate compromise yielded an ultra-protective 3-3-2-2. Thioune stuck with this, handing Keke Topp the start over Samuel Mbangula as his lone personnel change.  

Lineup—SVW (Round 21)

Justin Njinmah got off to an exciting enough start with a spectacular overhead kick that nearly produced a spectacular opening goal. After Njinmah found himself denied by Freiburg keeper Noah Atubolu, however, the 25-year-old’s confidence plummeted. Werder totally flattened out. Njinmah and the rest of the Bremen attackers only tested Atubolu with distance efforts over the duration of the match.

A full 40 minutes of limp football with a man-advantage doesn’t inspire much confidence moving forward. Thioune’s team furnished a paltry 0.97 xG in Freiburg loss. Steffen’s team’s generated more excitement in front of goal, though the fact the SVW management procured no real quality finishers in the last two transfer windows isn’t the fault of either coach. Neither is the fact that personnel chief Clemens Fritz doesn’t understand loan quotas.

What personnel options does Thioune have?

Errmm..Steffen tried about everything he could to squeeze blood out of the stone that is this horribly unbalanced squad. Fritz and Peter Niemeyer stacked this roster with an endless amount of buttressing support attackers. There remains no shortage of players capable of working on the second attacking axis. Jens Stage, Romano Schmidt, Samuel Mbangula, Jovan Milosevic, Patrice Covic, Cameron Puertas, and Marco Grüll can all work behind the front line well. 

Who leads the line? Wouldn’t it have been nice if Fritz and Niemeyer made some effort to keep Marvin Ducksch or Oliver Burke. Hell, now that they have Thioune, one wonders if it would have been worth it to recall Dawid Kownacki early.Neither Topp nor Njinmah possess the midfield chops to operate as false-nines. The latter possesses the speed to fill the role, but does Thioune have the time to teach him? 

Will clearing injuries help?

A healthy Felix Agu working opposite a still solid Yukinari Sugawara solves the wingback dilemma. It nevertheless doesn’t really solve the overall issue of how to place finishers in the box. The return of popular club hero Leonardo Bittencourt gives Thioune an extra edge in the midfield duels without helping him get the team to drive the game forward.

Mitchell Weiser may be back in time to help a bit off the bench during the last spurt, but how on earth can one expect the 31-year-old to reestablish any sort of rhythm given the nature of his surgery? The potential return Maximilian Wöber, Niklas Stark, and Amos Pieper (all central defenders) is totally immaterial. The long answer to the short question above is “no”. 

What about the schedule?

Here, Thioune may be able to catch something of a break. As Steffen so aptly reminded everyone at this near identical point in the Hin-Runde, the worst will soon be over and done with. Bayern next week, followed by St. Pauli, Heidenheim, Union Berlin, Mainz, and Wolfsburg. Bremen were hexed from the start this year, beginning with that brutal opening round DFB-Pokal draw against Arminia Bielefeld. 

Steffen’s team pulled a total of 11 points off the five opponents that followed Bayern in the Hin-runde during an unbroken unbeaten run. Unfortunately, the matchday ten win over Wolfsburg constituted the last time the club won a Bundesliga match. We’ll run an extrapolation experiment. An additional 11 points over the next six rounds translates to 30 points through 27 matchdays.

Good enough for safety?

Nope. Only 35 points guarantees safety in the Bundesliga. 

More inauspicious numbers:

Florian Kohfeldt’s 2020/21 Werder Bremen also had 30 points through 27 matchdays during their relegation campaign. Actually, Kohfeldt’s crew achieved 30 points on matchday 20 following what would be their last win of the season over Arminia Bielefeld. They gained one point over the course of the rest of the season. Thioune has multiple cracks at a point here and there over the next few weeks. 

The new trainer still desperately needs a “dreier”.

GGFN | Peter Weis