'Dissecting' the good and bad points of SLNA in the 2019 V.League season

Last year, the Nghe An team's performance was divided into black and white halves, with the first 12 matches having only 1 win, 6 losses and 5 draws, but since round 13, they have had a winning streak alternating with only 2 losses and 1 draw.

This season, if defense is the strong point, the attack is a big disappointment. SLNA's attack has 12 matches without scoring a goal, 11 draws, of which 8 were 0-0 draws. Throughout the entire season with 26 rounds, only in rounds 17 and 18 did they receive 2 consecutive defeats, but SLNA also only had 2 consecutive wins (rounds 5 and 6). In other words, coach Duc Thang and his team could not maintain stable performance throughout the entire season.

Perspective for coaching staff and players

Among the 14 teams participating in V.League, SLNA is the team with the fewest goals (32 goals), only 1 goal more than the relegated team S.Khanh Hoa, equal to Nam Dinh. Surprisingly, the home team Vinh has more away goals (19 goals) than home (13 goals). Only the Nghe team has such a scoring form.

One of the reasons for the lack of goals is because Olaha often drops back too deep. Photo courtesy of Duc Anh

In fact, in theory, SLNA often plays with a 4-4-2 formation when they need to score or 4-5-1 when they need to defend, but there are many times when they play with a 4-3-2-1 formation, in which Olaha often retreats to the home field to participate in defense. With this plan, in front of the 2 SLNA central defenders, a "yellow wall" is established, but the Nghe An team's midfield loses a playmaker.

The fact that Michael Olaha and Pape Omar (Hanoi FC) topped the list of players with the most passes to the player who created the most (Pre-Assist) with 6 times showed that SLNA's coaching staff focused too much on defense. The reason why Pape Omar became the top scorer with 15 goals was because Hanoi's coaching staff discovered this early, pushed Hoang Vu Samson to Quang Nam, and returned the scoring position to this foreign player.

Not only Michael Olaha but also Khac Ngoc, this season also played lower than usual. This midfielder No. 12 also had 4 passes to the assist player, which means he was quite far from the opponent's goal. The fact that Khac Ngoc had the same number of opportunities to pass the ball to the assist player as Do Hung Dung (Hanoi FC), Ngo Xuan Toan (Sai ​​Gon FC), Nghiem Xuan Tu (Than Quang Ninh), Nguyen Hoang Duc (Viettel FC)... but was not in the top 10 assists in V.League 2019 made this midfielder's path to the national team significantly narrower.

Only 1 signature song

This season, SLNA's ball possession time is only 47.1%, only better than Hai Phong's 46.7%. Photo: Document

Remember, coach Truong Viet Hoang's Hai Phong team plays by "ignoring" the midfield, the ball is passed straight up to the foreign players. When playing against S.Khanh Hoa (won 4-1), SLNA's ball control time was only 43%.

Throughout the entire season, the Nghe team's possession time was lower than Nam Dinh (47.3%) and S.Khanh Hoa (47.2%), which is really hard to understand and hard to accept. SLNA cannot be compared to Hanoi FC, a team with a possession rate of 59.3%, but losing to teams with quite bad form like Thanh Hoa (49.3%) or rookie Viettel (47.8%) is something no one wants to admit.

If the opponent does not have room for Olaha and his teammates to play defensive counter-attacking football, SLNA will definitely encounter difficulties, regardless of playing away or at home. In football, SLNA's coaching staff cannot ask the opponent to play according to their wishes, so the goal drought continues and there is no solution.

In addition, SLNA was the only team that did not score in the first 15 minutes of the match. Coach Duc Thang and his team seemed to deploy their troops quite slowly, their favorite time to score was from the 15th to the 30th minute.

An Thanh