The Tactical Role Of Different Inverted Fullbacks & Why Cancelo Couldn't Replace Zinchenko

[@aes1373]

One thing that allows Zinchenko to do what he does at Arsenal is Gabriel covering behind him, effectively playing as both a LB and CB.

[@vladme5335]

Not just him. Arsenal transits into 3 fullbacks with White responsible to help more in center while Gabriel covers left zone

[@alexanderomucheyi1857]

One point you need to add is that Arsenal and Man City dominate games unlike ManU. More oftenly teams park the bus against Arsenal & Man City leaving only one person upfront. Why do you need four defenders when the opponent only has one person upfront?

[@aes1373]

@@alexanderomucheyi1857 depends on how their hold up play and aerial abilities are. Saliba for example is a great defender but his aerial capabilities are average, that's why against both Everton (away) and Brentford DCL and Toney would constantly backup on him and receive the long balls, holding it until their team mates rushed up the pitch, catching Arsenal on the counter. Crystal Palace tried a couple of times but Rob Holding would just dominate in air and Gabriel is decent in air, so they had no long ball outlet.

[@alexanderomucheyi1857]

@@aes1373 You will notice for all their aerial prowess, Brentford only scored one offfside goal and Everton needed a corner to score. As good as Ivan Toney hold up play is, he is always isolated and by the time his teammates come to support Arsenal would have already recovered. If Arsenal plays teams that attack en masse like Bayern or Liverpool of yesteryears, Zinchenko will have to go back to his natural leftback position.

[@dddffr4392]

Man City have been doing this for years with walker stones n Dias doing this

[@cyb3rG33k]

Zinchenko is a weird one at Arsenal, that guy's touch maps are crazy he's playing almost everywhere and an underrated skill of his is that on his feet he's quite a good defender, but I agree that Zinchenko is more of a midfield inverter, whereas Cancelo is more of a wing inverter

[@mrartdeco]

Zinchenko is a loose cannon and he can’t help the team to defend. 🥲 I am just one of the guys who can never understand his quality

[@anson23625]

If you play the game Football Manager, you will know that in the Inverted Wingback Role, it divides into 3 duty, IWB-at, IWB-su, IWB-de, so while they are all inverted wingback, you can tweak them and let them tuck into in different spaces to accommodate your tactic systems (whether you want him to go further up the half space, whether you want him to tuck into midfield to support, or you want him to tuck inside into defence to form 3 cb), just like how this video suggests, great video btw!

[@jetfitness7975]

U don’t have to play fm to know that. Even before I watched the vid I knew that the inverted full back has 3 roles either inverting into the defence like Walker and Ben white or into the midfield like zinchenko or into the half spaces like Trent or cancelo that’s the only way u can use an inverted full abvk

[@anson23625]

@@jetfitness7975 Well I didn''t said that you have to play FM to know that, I just explain how to implemented it in FM if people are interested.

[@maxchubs]

​@@anson23625I understand the point you were driving at and yes Fm was where I understood the role even deeper

[@MatSerappp]

@@jetfitness7975 no one asked 🙄

[@daviddjon1844]

Insightful..

[@ajmalaj4381]

Rico Lewis and Ivan Fresneda are the new generations of truly inverted fullbacks, others started in other roles and eventually moved into that role.

[@daquaviousbingleton9763]

Arteta is desperate to buy Ivan fresneda aswell bro wants two inverted fullbacks

[@No-Stack-Developer]

Ivan fresneda would be a great addition to arsenal. Cant wait for the sexy artetaball with new signings next season

[@sigfigronath]

Timber is also like this, but his injury mean we might need to get fresneda.

[@chris.48]

I really like Cancelo…that guy plays like a winger and I love it. He’s got the flair and everything if u allow him the free role

[@manwhoasked5942]

He was excellent in Portugal's game vs Liechtenstein.

[@chris.48]

@@manwhoasked5942 fr man…I watched that game instead of the England one. And the way the guy was taking on players, creating chances and stuff was amazing to watch

[@StoutProper]

@@manwhoasked5942 yeah but I mean it was Liechtenstein

[@akwilson1676]

Very good in terms of attacking, but poor when it comes to defending. That's why he was dropped by Pep in so many games. Imo he's almost as bad at defending as Trent. The only reason he isn't criticised so much is because City has other players cover for him unlike Trent in recent seasons (In previous seasons Fabinho dropped into the space he left when attacking).

[@chris.48]

@@akwilson1676 I mean Yh cus he very attack minded and players like him u don’t even have to play him lb or rb as u said he’s not great at defending so he can’t fit in at rm or even rw… hopefully Bayern sign him on a permanent or if not Madrid sign him or something

[@freddymakola8212]

What’s common among most of these players?! Pep, Pep Guardiola. Man has influenced so much of modern football. Legend 🙌🏾

[@lawbsk1048]

Yes and no because some of these tactics have been around for 100’s of years

[@nerdifymusic7322]

The defensive IWB you described is how I expected it to play out in Football manager but it's not so far.

[@nerdifymusic7322]

@José Miguel nope. You lack control with NCB. The closest is FB on Def and told to sit narrow. FB on su works too if your player has stay back at all time PPM.

[@thabangtlhoaele8757]

I like the way you break it simple like *The defensive inverted FB & *The Controller FB & *The attacking FB

[@birKOoOo]

Great video! About Zinchenko, I feel like he does perform as more of a controller when Arsenal are in control of the game, but he definitely becomes an attacker when they need a goal. In fact, movements that you attributed to the attacker role are what allowed The Gunners to clutch several last-minute wins this season.

[@0M0rty]

Napoli's Di Lorenzo deserves a mention here. Not strictly an inverted fullback, as he spends fair amount of time on the touchline, but he's capable of playing all the inverted roles to a fairly high degree. Tucking into a back three when Napoli's struggling to play out of the back - something he's comfortable with as he's played a centreback fair few times in his career. Sometimes tucking into midfield, usually when Anguissa is really high up or when the ball is on the opposite flank to help switch the ball quicker. Finally, his trademark, the underlapping runs into the box, from which he can score and assist. Comparing his stats to other players in the video, he's just at the tail end in progression numbers (7.03 progressive passes/90, due to low amount of touches/90 at ~70 when others are around 80-90). He's only beaten by Trent in Shot Creating Actions (3.24) and by Cancelo in Touches in Att. Pen. Area (2.42), and again only beaten by Cancelo in G+A in League and Europe (3G+6A). All of this which being really solid defensively, much better than Trent, Zinchenko or Cancelo, and being on the ball less than all the others.

[@56night]

I just love this tactical board. I also like the other one but this is the one i would prefer

[@favouramoul]

You should make a video about what went wrong for Julien naglesman at Bayern Munich tactically and transfer wise

[@oneoneday]

He only lost 3 games in the league so it was harsh. Probably more politics than anything else

[@jordandavis3867]

He did nothing wrong tactically.

[@EugenesBackpack]

He kinda got the same exit as pellegrini at madrid, a "better"/proven manager was available so they hired him before someone beat them to it

[@syntheovaldy5173]

nothing went wrong, bayern board are just dumb. look at tuchel now

[@K-xor]

This channel is fantastic. In-depth explanation with examples. Not just the surface. I would like to see more in-game examples of these plays happening, but guess copyright is an issue.

[@jamesbaxter4920]

Incredible content. So clear and concise, great presentational structure, top analysis and nice polished visuals

[@tientrandinh15]

Looking forward to your video about different roles of center forward position. It would be very exciting.

[@billal2731]

Inverted fullbacks are one of my favorite tactics, if we can call them that.

[@kimemia_maina]

Inverted, deep-lying, playmaking...

[@am5790]

@@kimemia_maina controllers

[@devinpolek9940]

You should do an analysis video on Griezmann! The man plays almost every position for France and Atletico

[@gabrielalohan728]

😂 Right now as far as it's midfield and attack, Griezmann plays em all

[@petertromp8786]

I love how Pep "chop and changes" himself out of the Champions League season after season - even going back to his time at Barcelona, where he used to do wacky things, like chase after another away goal against Inter at the San Siro in 2010 when he could have played defensive passing football with the most capable passing team ever assembled. Just a tinkerman through and through.

[@thuo1000]

Keep that same energy when City win their first CL under Pep in a week's time.

[@petertromp8786]

@@thuo1000 Hasn't happened yet, has it. And the exact reason City reached the final this year is because he didn't tinker much this season: he hasn't had this settled a first team lineup since Barcelona 2010/11.

[@brocephus1107]

Do you think Alphonso Davies is molding a new style of fullback where speed and passing is better than defending? Not that Davies hasn't developed incredible defensive instincts, but his speed allows Bayern to have an extra attacker (that is developing into an impressive passer), who has the ability to recover defensively from an extremely advanced position. He's just as much a wingback as a fullback purely due to his speed.

[@honestarsenalfan7038]

if you are an incredibly dominant team like bayern maybe you can get away with it

[@doom6144]

he's not fb or ifb he's more to modern wing back

[@garyanderton]

I'd say he will be an evolution of Kyle Walker. Better ball control, similar speed, similar physical traits (Davies is taller, actually, but as he fills out his frame with age he'll perhaps move to a CB role like Walker).

[@abidoyesamuelabolaji9036]

Sergi Roberto has certainly played all this inverted fullbacks role, although not to perfection.

[@BeerLicious]

Well Roberto imo is one of those players that just never peaked due to many reasons but not him . Great vision & ethic but trust & Barcelona on down fall just made him look worse.

[@sauledwards1781]

Need that Thomas tuchul Bayern tactics video bro !

[@derptroll012]

Now it's already changed, as Stones steps up from cb to play that role. Football moves fast!

[@afellownerd]

will you be doing a video on how tuchel will setup Bayern?

[@FootballMadeSimple]

Der Klassiker on April 1st!

[@vishnu_._pb]

Can you do a video on De Zerbi's Brighton tactics

[@notresponding3794]

Great video, please a video on how tuchel will adopt his tactics into Bayern . I wonder how they are gonna play maybe he uses kimmich as a Controlling inverted wing back and Jamal alongside Goretzka in his 3-4-3 system?

[@taizyaharawa7543]

More than informative. Perfect video, explanation and pacing.

[@Hentzau.]

Can we keep the old tactical board for analysis? For some reason it just makes it easier to understand what happened in the match

[@angadsingh6997]

Personally feel it's a bit rudimentary to just label someone like Ben White as a "defensive inverted FB" considering all the overlapping work he does with Saka and Odegaard. Tomiyasu may fit this role better if you're looking at Arsenal particularly

[@g-nillerpt7061]

Loved this video, keep up with the good work!

[@nathankerr5619]

Love this version of videos

[@mahaberrada9480]

Dani alves is one of the most players i like . He played very well at the inverted fullback role so he shows attacking and defensing performance all the match like what he did with messi busquets....

[@ptrim1902]

Excellent explanation and analysis 👏🏼.

[@brianbagonza704]

this is the best version of fullbacks in the history special thanks to Pep Guardiola on make the world believe that it can work

[@nkosingiphilemalindisa1698]

Great analysis 🔥everything now makes sense

[@jcsports8698]

Bro can u break down England Vs Italy? The game was a tactical madness, both half’s were completely different

[@alykoresh1957]

great content like always 👏👏👏

[@jbfunk3]

Y’all gotta talk about Alejandro Balde. Dude is blowing up as we speak. Hype is real!

[@alexanderomucheyi1857]

Before watching this video I didn't understand why Arteta doesn't play Tierney. Now I understand Zinchenko overloads the midfield while Tierney overloads the wing. And Arteta wants an extra midfielder not an extra winger.

[@doom6144]

yeah because Tierney is classic fb who's not good with the ball, that's why when he replace zinchenko sometimes he looks lost in the midfield area, a second later you will see him in the corner of the pitch and Martinelli will go more in the middle...

[@Nathan_NYX_8]

Luke Shaw belongs to the attacking inverter group. He's one of the best on his day.

[@ikhwannfauzi]

he has same role as walker who inverted into centre back m

[@homoerectus3355]

The thing I don’t understand is city played well last season with Cancelo and Walker as there fullbacks but it didn’t work this season. Hence causing the change to incorporate Rico Lewis. But Zinchenko wasn’t a starter for them last season anyway so why was Cancelo being too attacking for them a problem now, is it because of Haaland not dropping deep or something?

[@muhammedgamal5871]

Very important one, although there were still fullbacks very important withoutbeing inverted like tripper and estupinian

[@Nahanoo]

Adding these to my FM saves

[@Indomakio]

Watching this kind of videos and others tactical analysis from the likes of De Zerbi, Potter and Arteta I keep wondering why Real Madrid is still such an ''old minded'' club tactically. Players like Nacho could be a great Defensive Inverted FB and Alaba or Camavinga would fit into the Controller/playmaker FB, but they keep stitching them to the lines like classic fullbacks.

[@balazskosa2487]

Dude that's because they probably have the greatest central midfield trio in the world.

[@Indomakio]

@@balazskosa2487 When Xavi, Busquets and Iniesta played for Barcelona they were the best, but they still had tactical instructions and different positioning depending on the game.

[@garyanderton]

Camavinga playing as a LB in the absence of Mendy, Valverde playing as a RB, RW, Vazquez playing as a RB, using Rudiger as a LB, I'd say the old man at Madrid has shown his tactical flexibility, just that as Ancelotti himself has stated, with me paraphrasing a bit: He will provide them defensive structure and offer free reigns for the attackers to develop an understanding. There's nothing he can teach Benzema to develop him at this point in his career. Just last night Alaba moved into the advanced LB role after Rudiger came in to replace the LB Camavinga. When Nacho plays, Carvajal bombs forward, so they still have 3 at the back for security, whereas yesterday you saw Madrid get countered early when Cama was in the half space and the 2 CBs were caught lacking by Felix.

[@calc1657]

Outstanding presentation.

[@Evalsworld]

Another excellent piece 👌

[@bruh8285]

Jorge Jesus uses Lincoln Henrique and Ferdi Kadioglu as controlling iwb's at Fenerbahce. Kadioglu who can play almost anywhere on the pitch, can be a great mid-term project for a top european club and Lincoln was desired by Porto last summer, sadly suffered a torn acl against Sevilla. Two players that should have eyes on them imo.

[@miloudbouchefra200]

Such an informative video. Do you think that Camavinga can be a good controlling inverted fullback? He looks like he has all the qualities to play that role as he tucks in alongside Tchouameni.

[@SenCrypto]

Ancelotti is an old school coach. None of his fullbacks really inverted in the CM. However, Canavinga sometimes tends to move up in the half spcae when he plays as a Fullback.

[@miloudbouchefra200]

@@SenCrypto Hopefully, this would be his last season at the club, it's high time Real Madrid got a more tactical coach who give them an identity and give a chance to the youngesters instead of relying on the same old guard.

[@dryames4319]

I’d love to see more of these kinds of videos

[@Machinationstudio]

More football fans need to watch this tactical role breakdown

[@honestarsenalfan7038]

i really enjoyed this video but calling Ben White limited on the ball is almost an insult

[@danielmessi1092]

5:18, if you play efootball you know that fullback finishers play like this. They dominate the half spaces and can even be in CAM positions.

[@ikhwannfauzi]

there is more like overlap fullback like robertson,chilwell,james,marcos alonso not inverted

[@rondochu5339]

Very good explanation !!!!

[@souryajitganguly4523]

Please upload Messi's video of Argentina tactical evolution

[@manishmohite2393]

Damn and i thought Cancelo was probably the only inverted fullback. It may just be because I don't have much football knowledge but its the 1st time I heard about "inverted fullback" when pep started using Cancelo as one.

[@hassanabdulkadir8099]

Love your channel

[@victoreric4557]

Thank you for this explanation

[@shaheemjackson283]

Amazing insight as always mate! Any chance we'll be seeing the evolution of Harry Kane's game anytime soon? (Think this is the best time for this vid with all the attention on him)

[@FootballMadeSimple]

Hadn't even thought about that but that's a great idea!

[@shaheemjackson283]

@@FootballMadeSimple Thanks mate!!!

[@allcrazy7285]

The lb or rb are very important, Cause they were massievly underused. Indvidualy they were used, but in terms of position being used was missing. Cus defending when losing ball should be like a whole team think and lines of player thing. And not like sit ready thing. It is a risky thing but 1 that should have taken care of decades ago.

[@delightikennaobinna2943]

This is beautiful analysis

[@andyandre7814]

Great analysis

[@juniornkosi4741]

Lovely video🙏🏾

[@TheTrooper9169666]

I actually hate the term "football has evolved". I'm not against the idea, and in many things of course it has, but often times we just tend to look at what the best teams in the world are doing and proclaim that everything else is outdated. For example, in the beginning of the video you say fullbacks used to sit deep and manage counterattacks but that has changed, then you talk about Kyle Walker doing exactly that. Also, what's really interesting is that City's shape that transforms into 3 CBs and 2 pivots looks like any 3-4-3 double pivot, for example - Mourinho's Roma - a manager often falsely described as outdated. It's just that instead of an inverted fullback going pivot - he just has 2 pivots in Cristante and Matic who are excellent at controlling spaces and breaking lines. Also going back I doubt that players like Roberto Carlos, or more recently Marcelo were just limited to up and down fullback roles, considering their technicality. But don't get me wrong, I don't mean to sound patronizing, your videos are 97% gold and I enjoyed this one as well. Keep up the great work!

[@MichaelAMVM]

He uses a very british perspective. Attacking fullbacks existed since the late 1940s. And inverted fullbacks existed since Paul Breitner pioneered the role at Bayern in the 70s.

[@Rocky-yg3on]

It's not how it looks on paper (the 3-2 structure at the back). It's the versatility between having or not having the ball. Mourinho plays with 3-2 all the time, but he surely won't have one of the dms step back into fullback areas when defending. This is something that Pep popularised and for which he's often called an innovator. It is innovative, to use a 3-2 structure on buildup then going back to 4-1 in defense.

[@MichaelAMVM]

@@Rocky-yg3on That stuff with the DM droping he took from Bielsa. And it's not a new idea either. When teams were playing the 2-3-5 formation a.k.a. the pyramid, it was the duty of the central half-back to drop between the center backs.

[@Rocky-yg3on]

@@MichaelAMVM sure, but it's not the same. Central half back dropping between center backs has been done since the dawn of time, but if was usually to help ball progression on build-up phase. In this case, the dropping-back happens in the opposite way, where the half back drops in the side for the sake of forming a 4 men line in defensive phase. Also, while other coaches such as Bielsa or even Cruyff might have used such resource, Pep is the one famous for using it consistently and achieving the best results. It is innovative in the way it stops becoming a niche/1 coach-tactic to become a relatively popular strategy specially amongst big clubs.

[@jasonwhittle5494]

Would really appreciate more of these generic tactical videos rather than analysis of specific matches

[@freedomnkululekoluthuli2334]

Great stuff ❤

[@lindilebangose7667]

Remember mentioning this to a friend that the experiment to invert Walker as a controller failed miserably 🤭 Rico Lewis did well against the lesser teams, it was against the big teams with better forwards where he struggled.

[@skm5974]

I know the video was made earlier, but look at John stones now. Thats a whole new role😂

[@PhilipOcansey]

Superb, thanks

[@JamesandSabeenThisIsJS-zm5py]

Amazing job

[@S.Anderson-Bey]

Brilliant video.

[@eu.maverick]

perfectly summed

[@christopherkane370]

Love the new intro

[@wse964]

Hi brilliant analysis! May I know what software you use for the tactical/formation board with animations please?

[@jamiepeirce526]

Destiny Udogie is also an excellent inverted fullback.

[@thabangtlhoaele8757]

Can you please do the different roles for Wingers or Midfielders

[@Japandude10]

My guy said there’s a lot of overlap at 6:16 😂

[@Aditya-wc9sw]

Good analysis

[@mohitdeshmukh3398]

Marcelo was the best case i have seen in last 8-10 years in terms of attacking and defending now all those podcast,reels, twitter kids will reply as if they know everything from a Tik tok type content

[@les61442]

Both Arsenal and mancity now having two player with 2 different kind of inverted FB?? Wow, that explained how they dominating the league

[@pierregeopardi1481]

And now Stones is playing the role

[@mebarkiimad4575]

I love football tactics

[@stefanoliguori5009]

There is a Manager between that glued Crujff and Pep Guardiola tactics. Sir Alex Ferguson.

[@juanpapi1015]

Pep tactics are literally cryuff tactics

[@KFC-rl9wr]

can you do a video on how to exploit the the inverted fullback formation? tactically i hardly see them being “outplayed”. i know spurs are good at beating man city but they’ve been destroyed by arsenal with this inverted fullback system. how do you truly outplay them?

[@amu7379]

Yeah I'm interested in that too. Even in games Arsenal were poor in seemed to be because of Zinchenko's individual defensive weakness rather than a tactical issue with the inversion itself.

[@tweetarankin7948]

The team with the best fully backs always do well

[@MorrisseyMuse]

Basically Rico Lewis is the modern IWB GOAT

[@harryblack460]

Good one🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@FootballMadeSimple]

Thanks 🔥

[@HT3897]

Pep won the CL with 4 center backs 😅

[@Mthandeni14]

Need to change it to inverted CB! Johnny, Johnny Stones

[@sandrest8773]

I guess Kounde in IWB-de at Barca and Balde as WB-at.

[@user-IGM343]

wow, very informative

[@Abdelrhmann7997]

Brian clough used Inverted full backs gary Charles and Stuart pearce in 90s

[@Nahanoo]

This is a Lewis Cole appreciation video 😂

[@lulaxv3492]

Upload about new pep strategy with stons

[@abdulrahmanalmughrabi690]

We want analysis for Ralf's Austria tactics

[@Inspactah1]

Subscribed :)

[@SP-cp3qu]

nice vid

[@gl0bu]

Folks tend to forget Zinny started as a CM and was forced into the fullback role at city due to their outstanding talent. A very natural role for him to play.

[@footballhipstertv]

I get the point about Zinchenko but he wasnt necessarily a nailed on starter, Cancelo even played ahead of him there despite being a natural RB.

[@boubi9329]

Cancelo replaced Zinchenko but didn’t did his role. I suggest you to watch Ac Milan and how Pioli plays his full back especially Theo Hernandez and the runs without the ball he makes.

[@footballtactics5364]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 tactical analysis

[@simoncaton1226]

It’s interesting that Fullbacks become less and less like “Full” backs with every passing second So the name is purely nominal