“How we resolve issues depends upon if we play towards a man-marking crew or an entire zonal crew,” stated Matos.
“Once you play towards an entire zonal crew, an important factor is that you simply perceive that you must transfer them. By transferring the opposition, you create areas, you create a free participant.”
A lot of the historic success of positional play has been underpinned by that very same concept – discovering the free participant.
In opposition to zonal defences, an attacker can occupy a niche between opponents and develop into a free, unmarked participant. If a defender comes throughout to mark him, they danger leaving one other attacker unmarked elsewhere.
However the rise in man-to-man strain in recent times presents a distinct problem. With defenders following particular person opponents, the free participant can stop to exist altogether.
To unravel this downside, Matos has drawn on his time in China for solutions.
“In China, I understood that to reach at a extra positional recreation, you can have totally different steps beforehand,” he stated.
“There’s a profit to having extra gamers shut to one another, relatively than spreading them over area.
“Should you unfold them over area, you’re demanding that, technically, they’ll resolve many conditions one-v-one. If they arrive nearer to the ball, you may generate extra potentialities. You may create a tempo that enables different gamers to be higher within the huge areas.”
It’s distinctive fashion of play however these overloads have given Swansea further options across the ball, serving to disorganise each zonal and man-marking programs.
Matos added: “Particularly for those who play with a midfielder exterior, you may overload one aspect somewhat bit extra. Let’s alternate the ball right here 5 occasions, eight occasions after which once we go, we actually go.”