Analysis Corner: How Killie got 2 points out of 6 in Glasgow

By Dougie Wright (@dougie_wright)

The past week in Scottish football saw Pedro Caixinha sacked as Rangers manager. After a tumultuous seven months, the Portuguese’s reign ended with his side snatching a draw from the jaws of victory at home to Kilmarnock.

However, while column inches will understandably be devoted to discussing the next Ibrox boss, it’s certainly worth crediting Kilmarnock with a display that perhaps ought to have seen them leave Glasgow with the three points instead of just the one.

In Steve Clarke’s first game in charge, the Ayrshire side certainly defended in numbers. However, they were able to implement a direct counter-attacking tactic that ultimately paid off at both Ibrox and Parkhead, where they drew 1-1 a few days later.

Let’s take a look at the defending and attacking side of their two visits to Glasgow.

Zonal Man Marking System

Before I lose any of you, the above concept is actually pretty simple to understand. A man marking system is when each player is assigned to track an opponent wherever they go. A zonal system is where players mostly forget about the opponent, but instead protect an area of the pitch.

Unsurprisingly, zonal man marking combines the two.

It’s when you give each player a zone to defend, then tell them to aggressively mark anyone who enters it.

Take a look at this from the weekend:

In the final third, Celtic will use dummies, layoffs and one-twos to get their players free. As such, Kilmarnock couldn’t risk going 100% man to man. However, if you’re looking to try out a zonal marking system for the first time, Parkhead is not a very clever place to do it.

This makes zonal man marking the way to go.

Take Kieran Tierney at the top of the screen, out on Celtic’s left wing. Rory McKenzie is the nearest Kilmarnock player to him. McKenzie is not going to go out and stick to Tierney- that would open up too much space for Celtic to play in.

However, when Tierney gets the ball, McKenzie will rapidly close him down.

This allowed the team as a whole to defend so deep (the defensive line practically sat in the penalty area when Celtic got into the final third), but also ensured that Celtic’s players didn’t have undue time or space on the ball.

So how did this pan out?

This worked pretty well for Steve Clarke’s team. In killing all the space in the final 25 yards, Kilmarnock robbed Celtic of their quick combination plays that usually work so well. Indeed, their goal actually came courtesy of a long ball into the box- quite an anomaly for the Parkhead side.

Ok, the champions managed seventeen shots, but only five were in the danger zone (the area where teams are most likely to score).

Of those five, two were headers under pressure, two were first time shots and one was the goal. This was certainly not a game where Celtic had many good chances.

Attacking Strategy

Jordan Jones is a fast, direct and shoots accurately. He is a perfect counter attacking footballer.

As such, the Englishman played a large part in his side’s successes of the last week.

One of the ways Kilmarnock attack is to hit a straight ball from the defender into Jones in the half space between the opposition centre back and full back. This pulls either or both of the two defenders out of position, and the forward has it into his locker to turn goalside almost instantly.

This is nothing new that Steve Clarke’s introduced. However, it is notable the support play that Jones has around him on these occasions.

Kilmarnock’s midfield know when to push up and when to hold position. Their equaliser at Ibrox is the perfect example. Look how many of their players were in the box:

Ultimately, Kilmarnock came to Glasgow on two occasions with a tactical plan, and they held their discipline throughout.

Naturally Celtic will probably have had Bayern Munich’s visit in the back of their mind, while Rangers fans will insist that their club was in a crisis of confidence after the League Cup semi-final defeat. However this shouldn’t take away from two stellar performances from Clarke’s team.

There is still a lot of work for Clarke to do at Rugby Park. Despite two fruitful trips to Glasgow, they are still rooted to the bottom of the table. How will his side fare in games where Killie are expected to take the initiative?

However, Kilmarnock can certainly content themselves on a fine start under Steve Clarke.

For more analysis like this, follow Dougie on Twitter (@dougie_wright)

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