Rhian Wilkinson’s Wales 2024: A bright beginning under new management – tactical analysis

Following a lengthy career as a player, Rhian Wilkinson, which resulted in her amassing 181 caps for her national side of Canada, then turned to coaching and worked with Canada’s youth teams before spending time as the assistant coach for national sides Canada, England and Great Britain.

Then, in 2022, she got her first gig as a first-team head coach with the Portland Thorns. However, despite winning the 2022 NWSL Championship, she left the club having ‘lost the dressing room.’

After a one-year hiatus in February 2024, Rhian Wilkinson was appointed as the new Wales head coach following Gemma Grainger’s appointment to the Norway national team.

Since then, Wilkinson has been in charge of two games against Kosovo and Croatia. In those two games, they scored ten goals and conceded none. Although this is a small sample size, we believe there are lots of positives to take away from these performances.

In this tactical analysis, we will provide an analysis of the tactics both in possession and out that have developed the Wales side in their recent matches.

In Possession

The first aspect we are going to examine is Wales possession. First of all, we need to set the scene by comparing Wales’ output over the past four years. In 2021-2023, Grainger managed Wales, and in 2024, Wilkinson managed it.

This first graph looks at a comparison between the average xG per 90 and the number of shots per 90. What instantly stands out is that the years 2021 and 2024 have a much higher attacking output than the years 2022 and 2023; we will look at this aspect in more detail in a moment.

However, you may also notice that in 2024, Wilkinson’s Wales has created the highest xG of 3.10 over any of the past four seasons and has done so with fewer shots than Wales in 2021, suggesting that the quality of shots being created is of a higher value.