Doug Starnes dissects Saturday’s draw against Ottawa Fury FC. As always, you can follow Doug and/or shake your fist at him on Twitter at @GrassInTheSky1.

If you braved the weather Saturday to support Indy Eleven at The Mike, good on you. I’m sure a win would have warmed your bones a little more than did the draw, but imagine how cold you would have felt had Nemanja Vukovic not smashed home that equalizer? Hoth cold, that’s how cold.

The match was interesting in that it forced Indy to chase a goal by changing their formation and tactics. In so doing, Hankinson may have discovered some useful alternatives to the way the team has thus far been set up to begin matches. I’m not suggesting that the 4-2-3-1 will suddenly be scrapped in favor of a more attacking formation, but their were a number of adjustments to the side in the second half Saturday – in role, personnel, and formation – that jump started the Eleven’s attack and led to the late goal.

4-2-3-1 Status Report

I imagine not a small number of Eleven supporters are unconvinced that this formation is the best way forward (pun intended). Through two-and-a-half matches, the 4-2-3-1 (with an unchanged lineup) has not produced much of substance in attack. It’s been difficult for the team to combine with Éamon Zayed and much of the team’s attacking play has centered around playing Duke Lacroix in down the flank and then trying to catch up. With Brad Ring and Nicki Paterson playing as dual pivots, the numbers getting into the attacking third in a timely manner are somewhat limited. On Saturday, Paterson seemed to have a little more license to get forward – he was even the Eleven player closest to the goal in the 18th minute when Braun’s header led to a half chance inside the Ottawa six-yard box – but that amount of box-to-box running is tough to maintain and can lead to dangerous counterattacking moments if your team is not especially adept at maintaining possession in transition.

The real problem for Indy in the current 4-2-3-1 is that they cannot bring their front four players into the match in any meaningful or consistent way. With limited options going forward, opponents can sit in their defensive shape and let Indy give them back the ball with forced passes or long balls.

Long story short, I’d expect the 4-2-3-1, or at least its current iteration, to be on a fairly short leash.

Ottawa Goal

Expanding on my previous point regarding Nicki Paterson getting forward more in Saturday’s match, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. In the Tampa Bay match, with Paterson and Ring sitting behind the front four as dedicated numbers six, it’s much easier for the two of them to balance one another and keep the game in front of them. With Paterson playing more like a number eight on Saturday, Ring had a more complicated job with concern to balancing Paterson, especially in transition moments.

On Ottawa’s goal, as Julian de Guzman switched fields from Indy’s right to left with a square pass to Rafael Alves, Ring made a bending run through the center circle from right to left as he started to follow the next ball from Alves to Idan Vered. In the Tampa Bay match, with Ring and Paterson playing as dual sixes, one could reasonably expect Paterson to be sitting behind Ring in a more central position. On Saturday, as Ring started to make his recovery run, he realized too late that Paterson was in fact just as high as he was and well to the Indy’s left. Because of this, Vered was able to play Gerardo Bruna, who had ghosted into the space behind Ring and Paterson, with the killer pass of the move.

So far, the 4-2-3-1 has been tough to break down, but if the answer is to allow Paterson license to play box-to-box, Indy will be perhaps more prone to exposure in transition moments than they might otherwise be with a tweak of formation or the roles of the front four players.

Dylan Mares? Or Two Strikers?



It’s unfortunate that Siniša Ubiparipović picked up a hamstring injury and had to leave the match at the beginning of the second half, but Dylan Mares stepped in and arguably became the most influential player in the match. If you compare Ubiparipović’s statistics to those of Mares, the difference is interesting.

Ubiparipović :

51 minutes played

22 touches

9/11 passing

1 Chance created

Pass direction – 18.2% forward, 36.4% left, 36.4% right, 9.1% backwards

Mares :

39 minutes played

28 touches

14/18 passing

1 chance created

Pass direction – 38.9% forward, 11.1% left, 22.2% right, 27.8 backwards

I’ve bolded what I believe to be the really important statistic here, but there are others that are certainly worth noting. The fact that Mares had more touches and was on the ball more than Ubiparipović in fairly significantly fewer minutes is interesting.

Before you get all “Team Ubi” or “Team Mares” on me, let’s talk about what those statistics actually reflect. I don’t believe it’s that Mares is a more dynamic attacking player than is Ubiparipović. They’re both good, but they bring different skills and abilities to the match.

If you look closely at Mares’s statistics, he didn’t really start to catch fire until around the 70th minute. Prior to that, Mares was a straight swap for Ubiparipović in the 4-2-3-1 and he didn’t do much. In the 63rd minute, Jair Reinoso came on for Justin Braun and things started to get interesting. This, however, was not a straight swap. Indy shifted their formation to accommodate Reinoso as a second striker and moved into a 4-4-2 with Mares playing on the right side of a midfield diamond that included Brad Ring at the base, Nicki Paterson at the point, and Duke Lacroix on the left. Suddenly there were options forward and Indy started to look more dangerous.

In the 74th minute, Don Smart came on for Duke Lacroix and another formation shift followed. Vukovic and Smart became left and right wing backs, respectively, and Mares was moved to a number ten role behind Reinoso and Zayed. In this role, he staked a legitimate claim to player of the game. I think Ubiparipović would have as well.

The shift worth noting – and I think what Hankinson will be mulling over moving forward – was the addition of a second striker. Whether in a 4-4-2 or a 3-5-2, a second threat playing off of Zayed opened up many more options in advance of the midfield that simply were not there in the Tampa Bay match and much of the game versus Ottawa.

Takeaways

This is a work in progress, but I’m sure Hankinson took some valuable lessons from Saturday’s match with concern to Indy’s attacking play. It’s likely too early in the season to completely scrap some form of the 4-2-3-1, but the danger Indy presented once they shifted to a two forward system cannot be denied. If the team continues to struggle to create chances in the 4-2-3-1 with which they’ve started the first two matches of the season, the systems deployed at the end of Saturday’s match will likely inform any changes that are made.