Jean-Marc Furlan at Auxerre 2021/22: Promotion specialist’s attacking artistry and defensive distress – tactical analysis

When Auxerre appointed Jean-Marc Furlan as their manager back in July 2019, they did so with one target in mind for the veteran coach: return Les Diplomates to the heights of France’s top-flight to battle with the likes of PSG, Marseille, Lyon, Nice and Rennes for the first time since their Ligue 1 relegation in 2011/12. It’s difficult to fault Auxerre for entrusting Furlan with this task, given that the 62-year-old is a promotion specialist, having previously won promotion to Ligue 1 on four other occasions — three times with Troyes and once with Brest.

The two-time Ligue 2 Manager of the Year took over a team that had finished in 15th place the season before his arrival and managed to improve their position to 11th by the end of his first campaign at Stade Abbe Deschamps. Then, last season, Furlan took Auxerre even closer to their ultimate goal, progressing them to a sixth-place finish. Now, at the time of writing, in what is his third season as Les Diplomates boss, Auxerre sit in fifth place in Ligue 2, with Furlan recently playing down his team’s promotion expectations to an extent, explaining: “When youre a coach, you want to win everything. You want to be up to it. My dream is to be first with a 10-point lead, I would be more relaxed. For the moment, we havent dethroned the big guys.”

However, while Furlan is clearly wary of getting too far ahead of himself, and though Auxerre’s league position suggests that they’ve still got some way to go in their promotion push under the veteran coach, this doesn’t change the fact that Auxerre have been a joy to watch for many Ligue 2 followers this season, with Furlan implementing a possession-dominant style of play that’s seen his side retain the third-most possession (56.3%) of any team in France’s second-tier.

This tactical analysis piece will take a closer look at three specific areas within Furlan’s strategy and tactics at Auxerre this term — his build-up and ball progression, his pressing strategy and his chance creation. As well as looking at Furlan’s structural setup in these different phases of play, I hope to provide an analysis of some outstanding individuals whose performances have been crucial to the execution of Furlan’s plans at Stade Abbe Deschamps in 2021/22.

Build-up and ball progression

Auxerre are primarily lining up in a 4-1-4-1 shape under Furlan, with the 4-2-3-1 shape acting as a distant second choice for Les Diplomates. When building out from the back, it’s common to see Auxerre get their entire backline quite deep, or at least three members of it with one of their full-backs — generally the right-back, normally Carlens Arcus, pushing higher. However, it’s very common to see all four members of the backline sitting deep during the build-up.

Additionally, it’s common to see Auxerre play very patiently at the beginning of their attacks. They don’t like to force the ball upfield, rather they prefer to circulate possession in deeper areas while attracting more bodies from the opposition upfield to create more space to exploit in advanced areas. Once bodies have been drawn upfield and an opportunity to ‘flick the switch’, if you like, and spring the forward pass presents itself, they’ll generally take it and this is where the technical execution, along with individual decision-making and off-the-ball movement, are crucial for the team’s success.

Positional rotations are key to Auxerre’s ball progression too, the success of which is largely a direct result of Furlan’s work on the training ground to prepare his players for how to interact with each other in-game but also, again, relies on players’ individual decision-making and technical ability both on and off the ball. For example, one common rotation we see is for the central midfielder to move out wide to receive, dragging an opposition midfielder away with him. This can create space centrally for another player like the full-back to exploit, which has been seen at times this season. With the full-back now positioned centrally, in space, the midfielder will look to play the ball back to him to continue the team’s ball progression. Another example of this that I’ve seen a couple of times from Auxerre is for the full-back to push high, allowing the midfielder to drop into the full-back position and the winger to move centrally into the midfielder’s position, which now may have more space available for the player to receive in a threatening position.

These rotations aim to pull the opposition defenders around and create space for players to exploit where there otherwise wouldn’t be any had they just remained static and allowed the opposition to defend in their base defensive structure that they started out with. By moving around and dragging opposition defenders with them in the process, Auxerre can dismantle the opposition’s defensive shape just through their off-the-ball movement and then exploit this new space afterwards with good technical execution.

Auxerre’s left-back, 32-year-old Quentin Bernard, plays a crucial role in his team’s build-up and ball progression. The left-back plays a unique role within Furlan’s system, as he essentially operates as a wide deep-lying playmaker. Bernard is comfortable operating centrally, particularly in the left centre-back position, but is also often seen moving into midfield a lot in-game, sometimes off the ball to exploit space as previously discussed, while other times on the ball to carry into space and move into a better position from where he can progress the team further via a pass.

Bernard has played more progressive passes (15.14 per 90) than any other Ligue 2 full-back this season by some distance, which is indicative of his unique role under Furlan.

As shown in figure 1, Auxerre will sometimes look to draw the opposition in centrally and/or to one side of the pitch during the build-up before then switching to the full-back — often the left-back — to continue their progress. Just before the example above, the goalkeeper had found the holding midfielder, who then played some short passes between himself, the right centre-back and the right central midfielder. This drew opposition bodies towards him, centrally and to the right side of the pitch, leading to plenty of space opening up for the left-back to exploit out wide if he could be found, which he ultimately was as the holding midfielder then sprung a switch of play to release the left-back into space behind the opposition’s midfield line.

This required some good technical skill and patience from the midfielders and centre-backs initially to successfully draw the opposition in while retaining possession and forging this opportunity to switch play early on to the full-back. Additionally, this required some good, intelligent off-the-ball movement from the left-back himself to get himself positioned at a good angle to receive the driven switch of play from the holding midfielder.