- 1 hour ago
18 games without defeat puts Crystal Palace in officially the best form in Europe right now... and that's without even mentioning the two trophies they've won. And with Liverpool (again) the latest team they've overcome, the question is... how has Oliver Glasner done this?Adam Clery looks at Crystal Palace's 3-4-2-1 formation to show what makes them the hardest team in the Premier League to play against.
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00:00Right then, hello there everybody, welcome to the Adam Cleary Football Channel and Crystal Palace.
00:05They've seemingly struck a deal in blood magic with some sort of witch to never lose another
00:10game of football, haven't they? And in fact that's actually why we're here today, because
00:15aforementioned witch has apparently done a very, very good job. Like genuinely, as I'm recording
00:21this, the five longest unbeaten streaks across Europe's biggest leagues are Elche and Dortmund
00:27tied with seven, very, very good. Bayern Munich on eight, very impressive. Barcelona on nine,
00:33wah-wah-wee-wah, and then Oli Glasser's Crystal Palace with 18. So, what the f***?
00:45Now before we start, I am very, very pleased to tell you, my friends, that this video right here
00:51is the first one we've ever made that was both suggested by and then voted on for
00:56by members of the channel. You guys suggested the ideas, we've put it to a poll, and now
01:02we are literally making it because that is a thing we do now. And if that sounds like fun
01:05to you, there will be a link down below which will let you become a channel member and you'll
01:10get to tell us what we make as well as all of this stuff on screen, because I can't be
01:16bothered to memorise it right now. Anyway though, Oliver Glasser's Crystal Palace, they are now
01:21on a very serious unbeaten run that spans both competitions and seasons. There's an FA Cup final
01:27in there, a community shield, games against Chelsea, against Aston Villa, against Manchester City, Arsenal,
01:32Tottenham, Bournemouth, and seemingly about ten that were against Liverpool. And they've done it,
01:37my friends, all the while playing this fabled 3-4-2-1 system that Ruben Amorim's Man United have
01:44gaslit the entire country into believing requires individually selected players very expensively
01:50assembled in every single position. And yet, as discussed, they are flying. So what is the
01:56difference? Well, to begin, this is the Crystal Palace team that started against Liverpool and I
02:01would say is a pretty good representation of this team. Like there are others that have been involved
02:06like Jefferson Lerma plays a lot, Will Hughes, Eberichi Eze, obviously he was a major part of it
02:11last season. But by and large, I wouldn't say there's any major components missing here. And the
02:16way it works is really interesting because they are currently the second lowest possession team
02:21in the league this season and they were the fourth lowest last season, just in case you're worried
02:25it's a statistical anomaly. They don't see a lot of the ball. But because of that stat, there is a
02:30bit
02:30of a misconception about them that all they do is drop into a back five, sit really deep, end up
02:36getting
02:36four in the midfield, everybody behind the ball, soak up all the pressure, and then
02:41wham, try and hit their opponents on the counter attack. Like Mateta is an absolute bulldozer when
02:46he gets going, the 210, so Sarr and Pino this season, but obviously Eze the last, they get
02:51forward really well. Munoz is a flying machine. So the idea is like, they're a bit like Forrest
02:56last season. They defend really well and then they attack purely on the counter. And I think
03:01possibly this reputation comes from the FA Cup final. If you remember the big moment in that
03:07match, they are deep and then they go really direct into Mateta, sweep forward with the wing
03:12back and then one of the 10s barrels in to score the goal. Thing is, right, while they absolutely
03:17can do that and it is part of what it is they are trying to do, that goal in itself
03:23is not a good
03:24representation of like the overall plan, I think. Like even purely from a numerical sense, right,
03:30their carries into the final third, their carries into the penalty area, even just their total number
03:35of carries, which I need to stop saying carries, just running with the ball, are all at the very
03:40lowest ends of the league. So they are not a team for whom sprints like this necessarily are the be
03:48all and end all. But they are still incredibly direct. Like, don't get me wrong, when they win
03:55the ball back or even when they just have it at the back, the objective is to move it up
04:01the field as
04:01quickly as they possibly can, either by carrying it or do the fewest number of passes. Just doesn't
04:08really matter which. And this might be a new term for some of you, right, so let's all sit on
04:13the
04:13floor with our legs crossed, be very, very quiet, pretend we're at school, okay? Opta, have them down
04:18currently as the league leaders for direct speed. And no, it is not about amphetamine consumption,
04:27my friends, even though they do sometimes play like that. It is a statistical measure of how quickly
04:33a team gets it, done the hand gesture too early, from back to front. Basically, the distance the ball
04:39travels in an attack, divided by the amount of time you spent attacking, and on average, Palace are
04:45getting the ball up the pitch quicker than any other team. So just to put that in English, right, the
04:52way
04:53Oliver Glasner has this team set up, forget about the formation, right, is to simply be the most
04:59attack-minded side in the Premier League. They retain possession, yes, but not an awful lot of it. They do
05:05not focus on having the ball on the back. They attack instead as directly and as relentlessly as
05:12anybody else. And I mean, yeah, okay, you're right, that is just literally the entire point of football.
05:18So it does sort of beg the question, why are a team who don't spend particularly big and lost their
05:23best player again this summer and nearly their captain so much better at doing this than everyone
05:29else? And Man United fans, maybe just look away now, right? But honestly, one of the answers to that
05:35question is this formation. When you set a team up this way, it is supposed to give you much better
05:43speed of attack than virtually any other way you can play. Sorry, just changing my jacket because
05:48I'm sweating. It's just a really quick loving ode to Jonathan Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid, right?
05:544-2-3-1 gives you three number tens, basically really good creativity at the top end of the pitch
06:00with a stable base. But 4-3-3 gives you loads of different players between different lines of the
06:05opposition, allowing you to control possession really, really well. And as we all know,
06:104-4-2's point these days is to simply make you really defensively solid.
06:16England will be playing 4-4-2.
06:21But 3-4-2-1 is supposed to be the system that is all about the speed of your attack.
06:27Because this
06:27base of five here gives you a number of ways to play through the first line of pressure.
06:31And then from there, you are supposed to have runners in behind or dropping in between the
06:36lines across the entire width of the pitch. And it's in this area in particularly that Palace
06:43really excel with this. So we'll start here, right? Munoz is out of shot, but this 3-4-2-1
06:49is back in
06:50its defensive shape of a 5-4-1. Like when you compress everybody in, that's the shape you go to.
06:56Liverpool have the ball on this side. And over here, Munoz is still sitting on Kerkhez,
07:03who is pushed up naturally. And the whole shape of the team, therefore, is pulled over into this
07:08right-hand side. And you know what it's like? That's what shuffling across is. That's what
07:12compactness is supposed to give you. Are you with me thus far? Every single Liverpool player is marked
07:18and attended to, except for Connor Bradley. And of course, Virgil van Dijk, he is the capable sort.
07:25Liverpool do this in training all the time. There are no options directly in front of him. So he
07:30smartly gets his head up and sees if he can move it elsewhere. And he spots Bradley. That's exactly
07:36what he does. He launches it over, but just... And I'm going to just use my Jamie Carragher voice,
07:41right? If we just stop it there. As it leaves van Dijk's foot, look at both Mark Gaye and Tyrik
07:52Mitchell. They are already sprinting out of their current positions, with their current responsibilities,
07:59into something else. And what's happening here is that Gaye is leaving his man and getting across
08:04to Salah so that Mitchell can leave Salah and stop this ball. And that is exactly what they do. And
08:10they time it so well and is so coordinated that Mitchell actually beats Bradley to that ball and
08:18ends up intercepting it. Like, just take it back to the point where van Dijk will have spotted this
08:22passing option. You would not say in a million years, because of the fact that Salah is tying up
08:27the defender here, that there's any issue hitting this pass. He doesn't underhit it. It's not bad or
08:33anything like that. It's the Palace are specifically set up to defend one side of the pitch like this,
08:39but be so good at moving over as a unit when the switch comes. And I really do want to
08:46drill down
08:46into this exact moment because it shows you what sets Glasner's version of this system apart from
08:52other Premier League sides that I may or may not have already mentioned. Like, most teams here,
08:57I promise you, right, would see this as Pino's responsibility to sprint over to Bradley and put
09:03pressure on him, even though he would be doing so from the wrong side. Like, Bradley could take a touch
09:08infield towards the Palace goal and get rid of him. But still, common sense tells you,
09:13while the wide players should get out to the full-backs. That's not Palace's approach at all.
09:18They shuffle across as a unit instead. And because you've jumped Richards onto Bradley here,
09:23and everybody's done it together with him, you've wound up with Marguet on Mo Salah. Lacroix is keeping
09:29his eye on Wirt. Wharton is on Gravenberg. And Kamada is on Sabozlai, leaving Pino free to now
09:36loiter in this space instead. And because the organisation was so good, because the timing was so good,
09:41because the desire was there for Richards, not just to jog over and do his job, but to actually try
09:46and
09:46win this ball, when he does, all of a sudden, this is the situation you've opened up. Anyway, though,
09:52they break up the field as quickly and directly as they can with Mateta, both the 10s, and both the
09:58wing-backs. And this attack is actually what gets them the corner that leads to the first goal.
10:04Brilliant. Wait, hang on. Did I... I think I said Richards before about jumping out the back
10:10line and get Connor Bradley. That's clearly Tyrick Mitchell. I already said it was Tyrick Mitchell,
10:14and I've just said Richards for literally no reason whatsoever. If either of you two are watching
10:18this, I'm very sorry about that. I'm just... I'm terrible with names and also quite thick.
10:24So to review, they stay compact. They don't let themselves get too deep. They stop Liverpool
10:29playing through the middle. They jump out as a collective when you play into their trap, and then
10:34they break forward with both numbers and pace. That is the secret to Crystal Palace, if it's even a
10:42secret. Anyway, though, back to my actual point. I did say before that defending deep in a block,
10:47not letting the opposition have space, then bursting out in a counter is not a good way to describe what
10:51they're about. So I'm going to show you how they do this exact same thing, but with settled possession.
10:57Here we are with the ball. There's no danger on. The centre-backs have it. The midfield two are
11:01sat just in front. Liverpool then put the pressure on, and I would say, me personally, that the smart
11:08passes here are either into the goalkeeper or nice and long and safe into this centre-back.
11:14The thing is, neither of those passes are forwards, are they? So instead, Richards fires it into Pino,
11:21who, despite a bad touch, flicks it round the corner to Wharton, of all people, who plays
11:26Mateta in, and again, they should probably score. And it's this mentality of always forwards on the
11:33ball and big, coordinated efforts off the ball that are just proving too much for pretty much
11:39every team they come up against. This isn't an over-performance this season. They've had the
11:43joint highest number of shots on goal, level with Liverpool, and have generated the third-highest
11:49XG, and in fact, are actually underperforming in front of goal. Like, the numbers say they should
11:56have had more. Like, I don't know how astounded to sound by this, but they could arguably be doing
12:00better than third place in the table, and the only undefeated side in the league, which is...
12:07a thought.
12:08In fact, it's actually quite mad. Like, the finishing here is the only part of this team which is not
12:13currently in the ruthlessly efficient bracket.
12:16They had a stat on the Totally Football show on Monday which said that Crystal Palace
12:20had an attempt on goal for every 11 passes they completed. Like, for context, if you need it,
12:27Man City have had the most shots in the league this season, and are actually trying to pass the ball
12:32a lot less than in previous years, and are still one shot every 56 completed passes. Arsenal are every
12:4058. Wolves at the bottom of the league are every 60. Palace were 11 passes per shot in this game,
12:47and are like 31 or 32 average for the entire season. They are an enormous statistical outlier
12:55in this regard. And again, they can do that from a deep, compact shape that other teams can't break
13:00down and then break up the other end of the field, but it is also that when they have it,
13:04they just look to move it forward so quickly and so directly that they're not messing about with it.
13:10And that is the best way to explain what Oli Glasner is doing with this team. It is pure,
13:15from front to back, efficiency with the ball. He has got, like, total buy-in from all these players
13:21to work as hard as this style of play requires you to. And when you combine that willingness to work
13:28with the actual quality they've got and the individual performances that are being put on
13:32display, and that is a recipe to not losing a game of football in 18 matches. So it is absolutely
13:39zero fluke what Crystal Palace are doing here. And the underlying numbers, whisper it, actually
13:44suggest they might get a bit better before they even start thinking about getting a little bit worse.
13:50But just to wrap up, right, they do face two quite serious problems, in my opinion.
13:55Number one, fixture congestion. Like, they are a better team than merely their best 11. Like,
14:01we've already mentioned Lerma and Hughes and Nketiah. But Palace fans, a little bit of roleplay
14:07here, right? I want you to look at this starting 11 and then hear in your head the words...
14:12After a bruising midweek game in Europe, Oliver Glasner is forced into eight changes for Crystal
14:19Palace's trip to Everton this weekend. And did you wince? Did you wince? Because if you winced,
14:24then you have concerns over the depth of this squad. And in my opinion, you are correct too.
14:28And two, arguably the most important one, is that right now these players are playing fantastically and
14:33they are implementing a system that is getting the most out of them. But what will happen as the
14:38season goes on when other teams come up with ways of negating said system? Nottingham Forest struggled
14:44with the exact same thing last season. Like, when teams realised they were deliberately trying to
14:49counter, so they set up much better to defend against counters. They went from third in the
14:54table on match week 31 to finishing like, what was it, sixth or seventh. So that's, that can happen.
15:01So to put that another way, one, how adaptable is your manager? And two, how creamy are them
15:08hamstrings? You answer both of those sufficiently and sky's the limit, I think. So yes, that's the video.
15:15Crystal Palace, everyone's new favourite Premier League team. That is how they are doing the things
15:20that they are doing. But if you're a Palace fan or even just an interested observer, please let me
15:24know what you think of it in the comments down below. And please, my God, if you haven't already,
15:28subscribe to us here at ACFC. The next target is just on the horizon. I would dearly like to hit
15:33it
15:33before Halloween. Won't tell you what it is, though. You can, of course, become a member of the
15:38channel as well if you like this video and you would like to help us choose what videos we do
15:42in the
15:42future. This was really nice. I had no idea what to do this week. So thanks, everybody,
15:46for that. And you can get me across all the social medias at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
15:51But
15:51until next time, my actual, in-real-life friends, sort of, I've been Adam Cleary. This is ACFC.
15:57I'll see you later. Goodbye. It's an eagle.
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