Marieanne Spacey-Cale is an English former international player and current head coach of Southampton Women. She started her coaching career with Fulham Ladies in 2003 before moving to AFC Wimbledon Ladies, England Under-16, Under-17 and Under-19 teams, as well as the Arsenal and Charlton Athletic coaching departments. Afterwards, she had a very enriching experience as assistant to the manager Mark Sampson for England Women in 2013, especially during the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup when the Lionesses finished third in the tournament.
As a head coach, she led the Under-23 English team to win the Nordic tournament in Sweden and then had a more significant opportunity at Southampton in 2018, where she got the chance to lead the team to win the double in her first season. Southampton played in the FA Women’s National League, Premier Division South during that season, winning the league title and League Cup.
On 21 May 2022, Southampton earned their first-ever FA Women’s Championship promotion after beating Wolverhampton Wanderers 1–0 in the play-off game. They are holding the fifth spot with 21 points, only two points away from the leading team, Birmingham City, at the time of writing this article.
This means that Southampton are seriously battling for promotion to the WSL, especially if they keep their good run of form going and make sure that they score more goals and concede less in order to have the advantage over their direct opponents in the standings at the end of the season.
In this tactical analysis article, we will aim to identify what is making Marieanne Spacey’s side become a feared team in the FA Women’s Championship and win seven games while also exploring what needs to be further improved or changed in order to lose fewer points and commit fewer errors in terms of tactics both in the defensive and the attacking phases. The analysis will begin by the team’s attacking strengths.
Attacking strengths
From an attacking perspective, we should note that Southampton are actually on the right path towards having a convincing and dangerous attack since the team scored 21 goals in 12 games this season so far and are the third-ranked team in terms of number of goals scored, coming right after Crystal Palace and Birmingham City. This means that Southampton will have to make more effort and some alterations in attack to surprise their opponents more frequently and score more often per game.
Moreover, working on finishing inside the box would help a lot in this regard, as some of the team’s attacking players need just a little bit of coaching and extensive individual training on finishing in order to become much more clinical. Spacey often alternates between attacks that rely on a main striker, mainly in a 4-2-3-1 formation and formations like the 3-4-1-2 that require two strikers.
In both cases, Spacey’s most used strikers upfront are Katie Wilkinson and Rianna Dean, the first with 3.38 shots on target per match and an xG that equals 0.52 and the second with 1.66 shots on target per game and an xG reaching 0.36.
The two players are capable of improving their numbers even further, primarily if they work harder on their final touch. This being said, the team, in general, and these two strikers, in particular, have been excellent in high pressing so far this season, enabling them to create goalscoring chances after applying such pressing on opposing defenders.
Generally, one of the two attempts to intercept passes or exploit wrong/mistimed controls and serves the other striker to finish the action, exactly like what occurred in this example against Crystal Palace. Such actions can often lead to concrete goalscoring situations, and therefore, Spacey’s side would benefit greatly if they intensified their high-pressing efforts in each game.
Also, focusing on crosses from both wings has been effective so far for Southampton, as Wilkinson has been excellent in the air during this period and was able to score goals with headers. Her movements without the ball are often well-timed, and she usually succeeds in anticipating the defenders’ actions/movements and reaches the crosses first.
That helped Southampton get away from many difficult situations and can help them score goals, especially when playing against teams with centre-backs who are not quick or not good enough in the air, just like they did in this example against Crystal Palace when Lexi Lloyd-Smith crossed the ball accurately towards the box, and Wilkinson succeeded in reaching the cross first and hit the ball with the needed power and precision despite being marked at the moment of crossing.
Moreover, putting faith in midfield players with attacking traits, such as Molly Pike, has paid off for Southampton, and Spacey would even need to work with midfielders a bit more to increase the number of shots executed by midfielders per match and therefore result in more goalscoring chances.
The following goal scored by Pike against Arsenal in the FA Cup game highlights the midfielder’s confidence in her goalscoring abilities. It shows that she has some natural attacking talent that can be exploited even further.
Having a talented and creative wing player like Lexi Lloyd-Smith has been adding a lot to Southampton’s attacking performances and the fact that Spacey alternates between using her in different positions, whether before or even during games, makes things even more complicated for the opponents as Smith’s roles can be unpredictable at times. As we saw above, she often plays on the right wing but sometimes on the left one, too, providing many key passes and crosses to the strikers.
At the same time, she has some excellent goalscoring abilities and has proved that recently with an impressive back-heel goal against Bristol City. Being this clinical inside the box gives Spacey more goalscoring solutions. Therefore, instructing her to be more often present inside the box can confuse opposing defences and result in goals like the one shown below.
Build-up, transitions and playmaking
In terms of playmaking and transitions, Southampton tend to make quick transitions as soon as they get hold of the ball in their own half, and the aim is to always try to surprise opposing defences with quick counterattacks and exploit the spaces left at the back of the defensive line.
As soon as a midfielder advances with the ball, at least two wingers or strikers advance on both wings to propose passing solutions and make the counterattack useful and as quick as needed. Southampton often tend to create a lot of counterattacking situations, yet, finishing these counterattacks with accuracy and success is what needs more work to make the average of counterattacks converted into goals higher.
Regarding defensive transitions, what is positive with Spacey is that she usually instructs her players to retreat quickly and usually form two compact lines of defence to alleviate the danger of counterattacks.
It is true that on some occasions, the players cannot retreat with the needed timing. Yet, the defensive transition routines are already there, and the players tend to be disciplined in this regard, which saves Southampton from the danger of numerous counterattacks per game.
Defensive problems and possible improvements
From a defensive perspective, we can argue that Southampton’s level is good enough for the FA Women’s Championship standards but requires a lot more work in order to attain to concede less, especially if they plan seriously on promoting to the WSL where the attacking performances of many teams (such as Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City) can be much more dangerous.
Considering Southampton’s numbers so far, we notice that they conceded 15 goals in 12 games, with an average of 0.93 conceded goals per match. This can be considered a positive average for the FA Women’s Championship standards, knowing that only Sunderland, Charlton, Birmingham City and Blackburn Rovers conceded fewer goals.
Nevertheless, trying to avoid individual and collective errors would help Southampton concede even less — this would help them win more points eventually and have more confidence and motivation in attack.
For instance, one of the aspects that need to be urgently addressed is how to deal with crosses and mark opponents more tightly inside the box to avoid conceding goals like the one shown below. Defenders will have to be more prudent when dealing with quick strikers, and following their movements, especially without the ball, is necessary to avoid leaving space for them to get to the ball first.
Moreover, complementarity and teamwork are necessary in defence, and this means that midfielders and wingers are asked to join in the defensive phase and support their teammates in marking and covering. At the same time, teamwork and complementarity should not turn into confusion and lack of coordination between the players when defending since this can cause immense issues for the team. Communication in these cases is crucial, and extensive training on the different defensive situations the team can be put in can be very beneficial.
Southampton often succeed in being united and compact when defending. But sometimes things can go bad when there is confusion and lack of coordination, like in this action against Birmingham City, during which two Southampton players relied on each other to mark the opponent holding the ball.
Ultimately, the result was that the Birmingham player was left alone and, therefore, succeeded in shooting on goal without issues, scoring a goal that could have been avoided with more coordination and communication.
In addition, Spacey will have to work more with midfielders like Lucia Charlotte Kendall and Alice Griffiths, who receive the ball in defence and are required to initiate the build-up from the back. What will need to be addressed with these midfielders is to work further on ball protection and quick passing while avoiding being put under excessive pressing from the opponent.
This would help Southampton lose fewer balls in midfield and, therefore, avoid conceding goals like the one conceded against London City Lionesses due to an error of a midfielder who kept the ball for a bit too long and, therefore, was surrounded by two opposing players who succeeded in stealing the ball from her before Lois Joel hit the net with a surprising shot from distance.
It might seem that this was just a detail that did not need all this attention and could be underestimated. However, it should be noted that this midfield mistake cost the team not just a goal but also three valuable points since this was the single goal of that match.
Conclusion
Marieanne Spacey-Cale is doing an excellent job at Southampton Women and is expected to help the team battle for promotion with reasonable chances of promotion. Nevertheless, some tactical improvements and disciplinary obligations need to be implemented on the pitch to help the team concede less and finish the actions more accurately, knowing that the team’s attacking performances are convincing.
