Tactical Analysis: Arminia 0–2 Schalke

Tonight Schalke started the post-Rutten era with a 2–0 win at the Schüco Arena against rel­e­ga­tion threat­ened Arminia Biele­feld. The first half started the same way most games had dur­ing Rutten’s reign, dread­ful and bor­ing. In fact Arminia were the bet­ter side in the first half and missed four clear cut oppor­tu­ni­ties. Unfor­tu­nately for the Blues, Schalke hit for a goal in added time and walked into the dress­ing room with a 1–0 lead.

It was a fan­tas­tic goal. Vicente Sanchez was hav­ing a hard time break­ing past Nico Herzig so as he moved the ball out of the left cor­ner he caught a streak­ing Chris­t­ian Pan­der with a cheeky back-heel. Pan­der then sup­plied a sub­lime cross to the cen­ter of the box where an unmarked Jef­fer­son Far­fan fin­ished as defender Andre Mija­tovic decided to spec­tate rather than mark.

The goal seemed to wash the team of Rutten’s pres­ence, for in the sec­ond half Schalke were some­thing com­pletely new this sea­son: fun to watch. With Arminia chas­ing the game, their counter was free flow­ing and excit­ing and should have led as many as a half dozen goals with off­sides dis­count­ing two goals and the wood­work deny­ing Kuranyi twice. A late goal finally clinched the full three, but it was a thor­oughly deserved win by the visitors.

So let’s look at what was different.

1. 1. Not Every­one is a DM

   The only per­son that was a legit­i­mate hold­ing mid­fielder for the Royal Blues is Levan Kobi­ashvilli since the depar­ture of Ernst. And tonight rather than try­ing to force West­er­mann or Jones or Kuranyi into the posi­tion while forc­ing Kobi to be a left back, Mike Buskens and Youri Mul­der let play­ers play their nat­ural posi­tions. West­er­mann was CB. Kobi a DM. Jones a box-to-box. Guess what? It worked!

2. 2. Orlando is not Dis­ney Magic

   In fact, he has been dis­grace­ful since join­ing the team in the sum­mer. And as a favorite of Rutten’s he was an auto­matic to start, which is one of the main reason’s Rut­ten is job­less. He sat on the bench tonight and wasn’t able to waste space on the pitch. The Dutch­man is meant for a 5 man mid­field with some­one to get him the ball and run­ners to find space for his strength: his long pass­ing. Rather than force Schalke to accom­mo­date his play, they had two cen­tral mid­field­ers, two wide mid­field­ers and two forwards.

3. 3. Old Dogs and Old Tricks

   Bor­don and Kuranyi were back. The defender and for­ward seemed renewed as if they had not got­ten on with Rut­ten. Bor­don was frisked leav­ing the ground and found to have Artur Wis­niarek still con­cealed in his back pocket. And Kuranyi should have had a hat-trick, but the wood­work was not his friend today. But it just wasn’t the out­come, it was the out­put. Both put in the hard graft­ing that we were used to two years ago.

4. 4. Sanchez Unleashed

   The Uruguayan had become an impor­tant player under Rut­ten, but today he was allowed to roam and be the play­maker that Schalke have been miss­ing since Lin­coln left for Turkey. Rather than iso­lated on a wing, he seems was free to explore the pitch and seems poised to be the tip in a dia­mond for­ma­tion. He could even take a #10 role sim­i­lar to Mis­omivic or Augusto.

Tagged as: Fred Rutten, Jefferson Farfan, Kevin Kuranyi, Levan Kobiashvilli, Orlando Engelaar, Vincente Sanchez