Tonda Eckert has transformed Southampton’s season completely.
The 33-year-old manager, who spent the early days of his career as an analyst, has stepped up to the hotplate at St Mary’s, taking the side from 21st to 4th in the table in five months.
The German head coach has proved to be tactically versatile, using a variety of systems in his time at the club. And they usually pay off.
Let’s take a look at all the systems utilised by Eckert so far, and why they’ve been successful, or moved away from.
Tonda Eckert’s favoured system in the most recent and successful weeks at Southampton has been built upon a back four.
It has allowed the team to defend in a natural manner, then use their creative threats in the most effective way possible. On paper, it has been a 4-2-3-1 formation, but extremely fluid and interchangeable in possession.
Without the ball, the Saints have defended the first phase of play in a 4-4-2, with Finn Azaz, who has missed just two league games since Eckert’s appointment, pushing up as part of the first line of defence.
The Saints have pressed high, but also sat in, while opting for this setup. Since switching to a back four against Hull City, they’ve lost just once – and it was that game against the Tigers.
The back five that worked so well in the early days of Eckert’s Southampton tenure was scrapped completely, in exchange for the back four, and the Saints haven’t looked back since…
A formation that was used from the start by Eckert in his first couple of months in charge at Saints, until flaws began to appear.
Six wins from seven with the system under Eckert made it look like the back five under Will Still was an issue. And of course, Eckert platformed his Saints players a whole lot better – but it still wasn’t good enough.
To date, the last time the system was used from minute one was against Middlesbrough, where Saints lost 4-0. Players being dragged out of their natural positions, important attacking outlets like Scienza having to start from narrow, awkward positions – it became detrimental.
Eckert still often brings the back five out, but only to see out tightly contested games in late stages. There will probably be other days for it to return, but the argument that having five defenders makes a team better defensively has been completely eradicated.
Saints have been extremely defensively solid since going to a back four, though part of that is down to the upgrade in the goalkeeper department, with Israeli shot-stopper Daniel Peretz coming in.
In games against Coventry City and QPR, Saints opted for a varied style of the back four.
While every week isn’t just plug and play with the 4-2-3-1 formation like on FIFA (a game Eckert in fact used to work on the ratings for), the most obvious tweaks of note from that setup have been in these matches.
Instead of going man-for-man with the opposition, like they often have done since going to a four-at-the-back, Saints compromised by creating an extra man in midfield at all times.
It won the midfield battle and stopped both sets of opposition from finding forward passes, forcing them long. Saints did this in their FA Cup games against Arsenal and Fulham, too, but stuck with the two banks of four without the ball in order to gamble on the counter-attack.
Saints stopped league leaders Coventry from playing through the lines and made them force the issue, before scoring two goals from counter-attacks.
A very satisfying tweak, that can mean having less possession (which is not always a bad thing), Eckert will surely try this one again in future.
Eckert has come up with a clear approach to playing sides that utilise a back five in recent weeks.
Against these systems, designed to defend first, then launch counter-attacks through the flanks, Saints have pushed Ryan Manning high and wide in possession, forming a front five. This pins the opposition’s wing-backs into their own half, preventing them from becoming outlets on the counter-attack.
It’s an approach that stretches back fives designed to be more compact and solid. These opponents hope to defend deep, expecting the opposition to have a plus one in midfield, but putting an extra man on the frontline has proved threatening.
The Saints are on a roll, and with their tactically astute manager, Tonda Eckert, who is getting a capable group of players to perform at their maximum, could be looking at promotion.
The 33-year-old has had to learn on the job and has become much better with his in-game management, though his team setups have rarely come into question.
Southampton’s season is almost back on track, as they sit just three points off the automatic spots.
If they win promotion under Eckert, they’ve got an extremely intelligent manager at the wheel. If not, they’re sure to be contenders once again next year.
