Sean Dyche eats Porto for breakfast, and possibly worms for lunch | OneFootball

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Each edition features an in-depth explainer on one of the week’s biggest tactical talking points, along with a few snippets of other curiosities I’ve spotted in recent matches. There’s even a Q&A section – your chance to weigh in on whatever nonsense has been going on lately.

Back in 2018 – you remember it, you were there – there was a news story about Sean Dyche eating worms. Not metaphorically, like some sort of money-bro quote that would only impress people who take Diary of a CEO seriously: “any man can be the early bird, but how many of them have the strength to eat the worm,” or some such. Literally. There was a news story about Sean Dyche literally eating worms.

Former Bristol City striker Soren Andersen, who is Danish, went on a podcast – which was Danish – and said, in Danish, that Sean Dyche’s gravelly voice was the result of him eating loads of worms when the two were at Ashton Gate together. Dyche, in what to me is one of the key cultural moments of modern football discourse, was forced to deny it in numerous press conferences.

Now, for legal reasons, I must stress that Sean Dyche almost definitely didn’t go around eating loads of worms. But the fact is, if you search deep down within yourself, you will realise that you can’t entirely discount the possibility that he did. You can visualise it with a consummate ease that simply isn’t there for other managers. Guardiola, Arteta, Howe, Iraola – your brain cannot summon an image of them doing it. Glasner, Maresca, Parker, Hürzeler – an imaginative impossibility. Thomas Frank is the only ‘maybe’ I have, and even then, only as a small child.

Anyway, all of this is to say two things. Firstly, yes, I did agree to start writing a newsletter because it lets me do the sort of deranged, rambling intros that the YouTube algorithm would actively punish for “not getting to the point,” and secondly, that Sean Dyche is not like other managers.

This week he took charge of Nottingham Forest for the first time (a mere two-hour drive from Cheshire? Where the UK’s biggest ever worm was discovered? Interesting.) and almost immediately fixed football in this country. Twenty games since their last clean sheet, ten without a win, and facing a Porto side that are unbeaten in 11 this season, Forest won 2-0.

I saw someone tweeting, “penny for Ange Postecoglu’s thoughts!!!” and I cannot stress enough how little you would care about a ‘penny’ if you got an estimated £8m payoff for 40 days’ work.

Anyway, if you’re wondering how Dyche managed to fix this mess in the space of two training sessions, the answer is comically simple: an immediate return to the 4-2-3-1 they were so comfortable in last season, pressed aggressively in the opening stages to get the energy up and the crowd engaged, and then immediately dropped into a compact 4-4-2 block once they had the goal.

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Forest's shape before the goal (ACFC)

Like, this is their shape a few minutes before the goal: denying time, denying space, forcing Porto to go long into areas where Forest could aggressively challenge in the air or contest second balls.

Classic ‘big squeeze’ at a point in the game when everyone still has the energy to do it effectively – and rouse a nervous crowd into feeling murderous.

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Forest's shape after the goal (ACFC)

And this is the shape a few minutes after: completely changing the questions you’re asking the opposition and denying them access to the middle of the pitch.

It only feels like ‘negative football’ if you’re not already winning – and suddenly, Porto were invited on in a way that immediately played into Forest’s other notable strength… direct counter-attacking.

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Forest back to their bread-and-butter (ACFC)

They scrap for the ball in the middle of the pitch, it breaks to Elliott Anderson, and he sets Callum Hudson-Odoi free into the space Porto have left by pushing up. This wasn’t just Forest’s bread-and-butter last season – it was their entire weekly shop, plus the little treats you get from the farmer’s market on a Sunday. Reverting back to it immediately beat the only team besides Bayern this season who were still unbeaten.

The Premier League will, obviously, be a bigger test. Towards the end of last season it was painfully obvious to Nuno – and to just anyone with eyes – that Forest’s aversion to possession was both the team’s main strength and the best way to beat them. He’d been in the process of making them “more footbally” before someone foolishly stuck 50p in Marinakis, but Dyche will, at least initially, represent a return to that style.

In fact, do you want to guess which two teams had the lowest average possession over both the last two seasons, if you exclude everyone who got relegated? Yeah, well done: Nottingham Forest (40% and 41%) and Dyche’s Everton (40% and 40%). Still, this was a team in freefall this time last week – and it’s… uh… not now.

Underestimate Sean Dyche at your peril, my friends. Many are the tactical naysayers he’s forced to eat their worms̶ over the years.

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