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| Jonathan Woodgate cheering his side after his side secured a 1-0 win against Rotherham. |
The Newly appointed Cherries manager received Championship Manager of The Month for April 2021 following six wins in seven games. But did he do well enough of a job within his 4-month tenure?
Expectations were always high as the former Real Madrid manager Jonathan Woodgate took the helm of the club after a disappointing spell from manager Jason Tindall saw his departure from the role. The new Bournemouth boss was appointed as the head coach on 21 February 2021 after serving some time as caretaker manager of the senior first team under Jason Tindall.
The recruitment of free agent Jack Wilshere, along with Shane Long, Ben Pearson, and Cameron Carter-Vickers as first-team regulars meant that Bournemouth had no room for an excuse to deserve anything less than a Play-offs finish. The departure of former coach Jason Tindall meant that Jonathan Woodgate had to pull up his team from a 4 straight consecutive losing streak.
The newly appointed manager stuck to the usual 4-3-3 formation in his first match as Bournemouth head coach at home against Birmingham where he managed to secure a 3-2 win after Phil Billing tucked in the ball to his near post from Danjuma freekick in the 77th minute. The two goals conceded by the team were much to the fault of the shaky Bournemouth defense, specially Asmir Begovic, whose second mistake of the week led to the first goal for Birmingham.
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| Phil Billings celebrating after scoring the 77th-minute winner against Birmingham |
To his advantage, the attacking line consisting of Dominic Solanke, aided with star player Arnaut Danjuma and David Brooks along with their superb midfield meant that he had to worry very little on the scoring front. The only worrying sign for the team was its shaky defense as the Cook-Cameron duo were failing to stop goals leaking to their post as they were conceding an alarming 10.8 shots per game, their weakest side of the game mostly defending set-pieces.
The next match saw Bournemouth cruise past Burnley in a 0-2 victory in the FA Cup fifth round thanks to a goal from youngster Sam Surridge and a Stanislas penalty.
A fine start under Jonathan Woodgate saw a boost of morale in the dressing room as the Cherries managed to stop their drop from the Play-offs spot, following the four back-to-back league losses under Jason Tindall.
Confidence was high as they were going to face against the struggling Nottingham Forest side who were hovering around 18th place in the league. But the side saw a complete shift of balance as the defense stood out in the entirety of the 90 minutes where on the other hand, the attack lacked its edge with Stanislas, Danjuma, and new loan signing Shane Long failing to get any result out of the created chances, leaving City Ground with only a point.
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The match against Nottingham Forest saw Jonathan Woodgate implement the new 4-2-3-1 formation with Jack Wilshere in a more attacking role in the middle of the pitch. Heading into the Rotherham match next week, Bournemouth saw a shift back to the old 4-3-3 formation and sneaked out with a narrow win from Phillip Billing's goal, Another unconvincing display against a relegation favorite side as they were preparing for the tough game against QPR two days later.
The match on Saturday saw the side make a huge defensive mistake that led to a goal for Stephan Johansen on the 58-minute mark. It was getting eminent that Shane Long was not the signing Bournemouth was looking for as the Forward shot a beautifully delivered long ball from Jefferson Lerman straight to the keeper. The Southampton loanee only managed to find 2 goals out of 22 matches in the Premier League and Championship combined. Although he later managed to score the only goal of the match for Bournemouth from a chested tap-in from Sam Surridge's headed ball. The Cherries, however, came short as Todd Kane's strike over Begovic at the 83rd minute meant that the team had to leave Loftus Road with another disappointing result.
It was getting clear by then that the new formation was not doing any charm for Bournemouth as they managed to get only one narrow win in three matches with the 4-2-3-1 formation in use. And another huge blow came in the form of a 1-2 to Cardiff City five days later at home.
Bournemouth found themselves outside the play-offs position on 7th in the table, their lowest of the season, with 14 matches left in hand. The fruitlessness of the 4-2-3-1 formation forced the Cherries to get back to their usual 4-3-3 formation, with Ben Pearson acting as the Pivot alongside Lerma and Cook. And Dominic Solanke featured as the forward in the starting XI, replacing the fairly poor-performing Shane Long.
Bournemouth went back to their winning ways with a 1-0 win against 4th place team Watford. The single Danjuma strike deciding the outcome of the match. They followed it with another win against Bristol City the next month. Two top oppositions defeated within the distance of a month made it evident to the fans what to expect from the team from then on.
For a team that likes to play a vertical tiki-taka style rather than favoring counter-attacking plays, the 4-2-3-1 formation made little sense as it makes the attacking midfielder pretty useless in possession plays while also bring pressure to the side in defending counter-attacks, having no midfielder acting as a proper pivot for the side. The only case in which this formation has any good chance of standing out is when the opposition plays with a 3 man defense. Because it lessens one extra man for the opposition to play counter-attack with three in the back, while the attacking midfielder can exploit the space behind.
The Overall season saw Bournemouth score a total of 64 goals from open play, the most of the league than any other team while scoring only 2 goals from direct counter-attacks. Bournemouth also has the most SPG(Short Passes Per Game) with 437 passes per game. 18 more in average than Derby County who follows in on the second position.
Having Ben Pearson working as the holding midfielder in a 4-3-3 formation lets the other two around him have more creative freedom, joining in the attacks in a patient manner, while also not facing too much pressure on opposition counter-attacks.
Bournemouth has been incredibly vulnerable against indirect set-pieces, conceding 14 goals in the 20/21 season. Cameron Carter-Vickers has especially been bad in the aerial department, with a poor average of 2.8 aerial duels won per game.
Following the success that the 4-3-3 formation, the fans were left with visible confusion as the Woodgate decided to field yet another 4-2-3-1 team in an important game against Barnsley. The Cherries got behind early in the game from a corner kick targeted in the near post that was flicked on to the far post by Andersen, only to be put in by Michal Helik. Bournemouth equalized shortly after a beautiful counter-attacking play launched by Begovic. They went on to take the lead at the extra time of the first half, much to the awe of Barnsley who found themselves out of place following a good long ball launched by Pearson to Danjuma, who then puts a low cross to Solanke to find the back of the net.
But their celebration was short-lived as a deflected cross was converted by Dominik Frieser on the 60th minute and another indirect set-piece from Mowatt was converted into a goal by the substitute Carlton Morris. The striker exploited Carter-Vicker's lack of aerial prowess very well and left the Cherries biting the dust in Vitality Stadium.
The following weeks saw an inspired Bournemouth side as they went on to win 7 straight league games from March 17 to April 24, winning Woodgate the Manager of the Month award for April. To everyone's surprise, Woodgate stuck to his favored 4-2-3-1 formation in all of those 7 games and came out victorious in every single one of them. The formation that proved mostly futile in his first one and half month tenure as Bournemouth manager surprisingly saw his side get back to 4th position in the league and a become strong candidate for promotion.
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| Arnaut Danjuma after scoring in a 3-0 victory against Swansea |
Taking a closer look to see what change resulted in such a drastic change in performance, we found two simple tweaks in his tactics. More so in the player placement than the formation itself.
Firstly, Phillip Billing was pushed forward as an attacking midfielder in an attacking role, a place where Wilshere was used mostly in supporting-role previously. Billing's good off-the-ball movement, aided with great positional awareness and physicality meant that he was always going to be a greater threat in the area than Wilshere.
On the other hand, Wilshere was moved to the right central mid-position where both Pearson and Wilshere were switched regularly every game as their playing styles had little difference, with Lerma holding the left-center side of the midfield on a regular basis. With Lerma's 0.8 key passes per game leading to more than 17 Bournemouth goals this season, and Pearson and Wilshere both acting as holding midfielders now, the Cherries found a good balance in the attack as well as their defense. The constant overlapping runs from the right flank by Smith and Stacey added to the attacking threats. This simple tactical changed proved to be a really great move as Billing scored 5 matches in that 7 win-run and Bournemouth only conceded 5 goals during that spell.
The Bournemouth fans had another good news to celebrate as David Brooks got back to the side after missing 8 matches since February 20th. He featured for 70 minutes in the 0-2 win against Blackburn before being taken off. With the entire squad back on its feet, promotion chances seemed to be closer than ever for Bournemouth as they found themselves 4th in the table after winning 1-4 against Millwall. Danjuma was in the form of his life as the winger already scored 15 goals for his side, of which, 6 goals came in the last 7 games.
The real blow came in the game with Brentford as wasteful Cherries failed to pile up on a ten-men Brentford team after Pontus Jansen got his second booking of the match. Junior Stanislas threw away one-on-one with the Brentford keeper as he misplaces his shot badly and sees it fly away. The top scorer of the League, Ivan Toney also missed a couple of big chances near the Bournemouth goalpost. It all came to hit them when Bryan Mbuemo wrestled his way to beat Begovic following an Ivan Toney cross, securing a win for Brentford which seemed unlikely for most of the match.
The Brentford loss made the side collapse in the next two matches as they faced bitter defeats against relegated side Wycombe and 14th place Stoke City, with their poor set-piece defending coming back again to haunt them. With the end of the 46th matchday, Bournemouth found themselves hanging on to a 6th place finish with 77 points, facing the play-offs semi-final against 3rd place Brentford.
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| Arnaut Danjuma takes Bournemouth to the front by scoring a wonderful placed shot against Brentford |
With tension reaching its peak, the fans watched their players take the field on Dean Court. Bournemouth started the match on a positive note, creating chances patiently. The supporters had to hold their breath for the whole 55 minutes as Danjuma yet again, showed his magic by placing a beautiful ball from David Brooks to the bottom right corner. The team manages to end the first-leg match with a one-goal headstart.
With the second leg approaching, Woodgate chose to mix up his squad and bring in Chris Mepham for the captain. And that single move was the downfall for the team, as another magical goal from Danjuma was left in vain as a handball in the penalty area from Lloyd Kelly and Chris Mepham's dreadful display to get a red card at the 28th minute meant that there was little Bournemouth could do with ten men for the rest of the match.
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| Chris Mepham sent off following an awkward pull to stop Mbuemo at the 28th minute |
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| Kelly's handball gives Brentford the chance to equalize early in the game with a penalty |
A fantastic strike from Vitaly Janelt on 50th minute and an 81-minute tap-in from Marcus Forss helped Brentford cruise through to the Final of the play-offs, leaving Bournemouth to rue on their disappointing defense that they struggled with throughout the season.
The loss to Brentford on the play-offs means only one thing for Bournemouth. They have yet another mountain to climb next season if they want a piece of the promotion race. The future of Arnaut Danjuma and David Brooks also remains uncertain as many clubs would be on the hunt to add them to their squad.
Jonathan Woodgate's performance this season is considered to be good enough to see him getting an extended contract from the board. But some of the very small decisions made his side witness a slip from the promotion race at the very end of the season. Some of his starting XI choice this season has let him down on the pitch as the cherries failed to bring out the intended outcome. Their awkwardness in defending set-pieces has cost them a total of 14 goals this season, a part of the game they will surely want to work upon for the next season. Bournemouth actually has the second-lowest goals conceded from open plays of all the teams in the league. And their tremendous midfield also claimed them the most through balls per game, averaging 2 per game.
Although a good overall showing from the club that was struggling in the mid-season, Bournemouth will kick themselves for throwing away the momentum at the very end of the season. And hopefully, Woodgate will be able to prepare his squad effectively by the next pre-season.
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