Game of Numbers #28 – The magic touch of fullbacks with Kieran Trippier & Joao Cancelo

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It’s been well established over the past decade that fullbacks have grown in prominence and importance in the final third. Just about every team will have their fullbacks involved as active members of the attack, if not one playing high up the pitch as another stays more reserved. Two of the leading figures over the past five-ten years have been Kieran Trippier and Joao Cancelo, each of whom had excellent performances this past weekend. Here is the magic touch of fullbacks as part of Game of Numbers #28, featuring Kieran Trippier and Joao Cancelo.

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KIERAN TRIPPIER’S TRIPLE ASSIST

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Kieran Trippier has long been one of Newcastle’s top creators and most influential players in the attacking third. Yet within Newcastle’s scheme, he’s often holding quite a reserved role down that right-hand-side. This often allows Newcastle more opportunities to facilitate long passes out from the back.

Trippier essentially acts at times like a secondary ‘Deep-Lying Playmaker’ from that right-back slot. He’ll creep into slightly more centralized positions, and then spray long passes forward to his forwards to try and break the lines of pressure. He’s great at selecting those moments to play the ball over the top, and players like Wilson and Isak will often thrive at the prospect of having space in behind to run into.

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But the 33-year-old is not held to a defensive role once Newcastle break into the attacking half. He’ll frequently make overlapping runs on the outside of Miguel Almirón (who loves to come inside on his left foot).

From these positions, Trippier can produce dangerous crosses in space, after Newcastle have won the moment with a wide overload. This is how Trippier created his third assist of the day, patiently waiting on the right-hand-side to deliver the ball on a one-touch and putting it on a plate for Callum Wilson.

He often gets his weight of pass spot on, and this moment perfectly exemplified his brilliance, lobbing the ball over the nearest pair of defenders and giving them no chance.

But ‘quarterbacks’ of sorts are also quite adept at generating moments from set-plays, and this is where the Magpie man produced some of his best moments in that 8-0 route of Sheffield United. Newcastle’s nicely worked short-corner routine here threatened a second goal early on.

A few minutes later, Trippier perfectly perceived the open space within Sheffield United’s covering from the corner kick, putting it on a plate for the double-teamed Dan Burn to head home. His in-swinging delivery with pace and power mixed with the traffic jam in front of the keeper gave Wes Foderingham no chance of claiming a punch, so it was only up to Burn to find the finish.

On his second assist, Trippier again gave Foderingham no chance. This time he knew the keeper would have room to come and claim if he didn’t swing the ball closer to the original line of height from the Sheffield defense. The delivery fell right onto the noggin of Sven Botman, who produced a sensational header into the back of the net.

This was a complete rout by Newcastle and one of their all-time victories in the Premier League. Some questions have been raised about whether or not they can repeat their success with European football this season, but they immediately showcased exactly what they can do even with a midweek game to play for on the first time of asking.

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JOAO CANCELO’S FINAL THIRD INVERSIONS

Joao Cancelo has practically become synonymous with the ‘Inverted Fullback’ innovations of the past few years, making that role his own at Manchester City. Barcelona have played with their own version of an ‘Inverted Fullback’ in recent years, deploying more of a centre-back in Jules Koundé to hold down that side, with a high-flying wing-back like Jordi Alba or Marcos Alonso down the other.

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Joao Cancelo can still invert in the traditional sense that we’ve seen with Manchester City, and even Barcelona’s use of Dani Alves when Xavi first entered the door. But as the match evolved against Celta Vigo, we witnessed something that we haven’t really seen to this extent with an ‘Inverted Fullback’. That is – Joao Cancelo continued to invert all the way into the final third – in the positions that we’d normally associate with an ‘Inverted Winger’.

This is not a drastic and surprising departure from the normal positions of that ‘Inverted Fullback’ who typically creeps into central areas to facilitate build-up to progression. Underlapping runs on the inside of a winger are not anything new either. At Manchester City, Cancelo would rotate and overload central channels inside the final third to help break down crowded areas. But his moments of genuine chance creation often continued to come out wide.

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Against Celta Vigo, Joao Cancelo created his best moments from the right half-spaces, rather than the wide areas. This might not have happened if Ferran Torres stayed on the pitch as the team’s right-sided attacker. But with the young Lamine Yamal entering the fold in the second half, Barcelona now had a more natural wide man to hold the width, freeing Cancelo up to roam into the half-spaces.

The former Man City man is genuinely one of the best in the world from these types of positions, where he (like Kieran Trippier) can produce deep crosses into the penalty area – whipping the ball into dangerous areas. This is where Cancelo assisted the goal that would draw Barcelona level.

But he’s also exceptional with his movement into space, and it’s what separates him from the vast majority of players in his position. He’s excellent at not only perceiving the spaces for a through-pass or moment of connection with a teammate, but how to exploit space through his own running power into the penalty area. This is how Cancelo scored that all-crucial goal to win the match right at the death.

Questions have been asked with his attitude at both Manchester City and Bayern Munich this year, but if Cancelo continues to play to this level of footballing IQ, he’ll be hard to drop from the Barca eleven.

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So there it is! Game of Numbers #28 – all about Kieran Trippier and Joao Cancelo. Be sure to check out more editions from this series, and follow on social media @mastermindsite and @desmondrhys. Thanks for reading and see you soon!

-> Game of Numbers #27 – Heung Min-Son as the ‘9’ & Evan Ferguson’s hat-trick

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