At the time of publishing this piece, Michel Der Zakarian’s Montpellier sit in eighth place on the Ligue 1 table the same position in which they finished the prematurely concluded 2019/20 Ligue 1 campaign having just endured a narrow 3-2 defeat at the hands of league leaders Lille. However, they sit level on points with sixth-placed Monaco and just four points off fourth-placed Rennes, who occupy the UEFA Europa League group stage qualification spot, and eight points off PSG in the third UEFA Champions League qualification spot in France’s top-flight.
Der Zakarian, who finished his playing career at Montpellier in 1997, has been leading La Paillade since May 2017 and is currently under contract with the Occitanie club until the end of June. The season before he took charge of Montpellier, the club finished in 15th place on the league table but they’ve improved under the Armenian, finishing in the top 10 in each of his three full seasons so far.
This consistency has been achieved with the Ligue 1 side playing in a very distinctive way, at least when compared to how the rest of France’s top-flight typically play, and in this tactical analysis piece, we’re going to examine Montpellier’s tactics, as well as try to determine how and why they’re so unique. This tactical analysis piece will explore Der Zakarian’s tactical philosophy, using his Montpellier side to underline some of the key aspects of his footballing vision.
Montpellier’s build-up play
To kick off this tactical analysis of Der Zakarian’s Montpellier, we’re going to look at how La Paillade build up their attacks. To give you a very basic idea of how Montpellier play under Der Zakarian, they’ve kept an average of 44.3% possession this term the third-lowest possession percentage that any Ligue 1 side has accumulated at this stage of the 2020/21 campaign.
So, evidently, they’re not a heavily possession-based side, as we will explore at greater length later on in this tactical analysis piece. However, they do quite often like to play the ball out short from the back in order to build their attacks through their centre-backs/full-backs/wing-backs.
They typically play this way from goal-kicks or when building up other attacks where the opposition are settled in an organised defensive block, not leaving much space in behind. During these situations, Der Zakarian likes his deep-lying players typically the centre-backs, full-backs/wing-backs and at least one central midfielder to try and attract pressure from the opposition, with the aim of creating more space in behind their last line of defence for Montpellier to exploit.
Der Zakarian typically sets his side up in either a 3-4-1-2 or a 4-3-3 formation. However, the way in which they build-up doesn’t really change, either in terms of the general aim of their build-up or the shape they settle into when building up their attacks. In the image above, we can see them playing out from the back while playing in a 3-4-1-2 shape. Their wing-backs spread out very wide and begin to push high into the midfield line, while their centre-backs also spread out quite wide.
The wing-back nearest to the centre-back on the ball pushes slightly higher than the wing-back on the opposite side, while the centre-back on the ball also carries the ball out wide, forming something similar to a back-four and that’s why the shape they use when building up with three centre-backs doesn’t differ greatly from the shape they use when building up with four centre-backs. There’s generally a cross-formation consistency with regards to their build-up, with their players knowing their respective roles.
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