About halfway through the Belgian Pro League season, Bernd Hollerbach decided not to renew his contract with Sint-Truiden, with the 53-year-old German departing the club at the end of the season.
Following this announcement, Hollerbach went through some problems with the Belgian side on the pitch, with Sint-Truiden’s 37 goals scored the second-lowest total in the Belgian Pro League this season.
However, they partnered that with one of the league’s better defences, with Sint-Truiden only conceding 40 goals this season, the best of the teams that finished in the bottom half of the table.
This tactical analysis and scout report will take a look at the troubles that Bernd Hollerbach style of play had this season at Sint-Truiden, and in general, what went wrong for the German manager from an attacking perspective in the current campaign, and how the new manager, Thorsten Fink, can fix it.
This article aims to decipher why they scored so few goals but had a really good defence, and what some of the reasons were behind these troubles.
Taking a closer look at the goal-scoring problem
When taking a deeper look at the problems that Bernd Hollerbach tactics ran into with Sint-Truiden from an attacking perspective, the first thing to look at is the lack of goals distributed among players.
In total, this season, the Belgian side only managed to score 37 goals, with 18 of those coming from on-loan striker Gianni Bruno, who will return to Gent this summer, with Sint-Truiden unlikely to make his move permanent.
Just under half of the Belgian sides goals this season will likely not be there in the next campaign, meaning whoever replaces Hollerbach on the touchline will have a huge first responsibility.
The next highest goal total came from Japan forward Daichi Hayashi, with 7 goals, meaning over half of Sint-Truiden’s goals came from these two forwards.
It makes for worse reading when you analyse some key attacking stats among Belgian Pro League clubs this regular season and look at where Sint-Truiden ranks in these categories.
For instance, the club had the third-lowest number of shots this past season, with 346, and the second-lowest percentage of shots on target, at 34.4%.
Hollerbach’s side also finished the season with the second-lowest number of touches in the penalty area, with only 437.
Finally, the club also had the second lowest number of attacking corners this season, with their 3.55 per 90 minutes total only beaten by relegated Seraing.
The data viz graphic above shows the shot map of Sint-Truiden from this past season, which again emphasises the struggles that the Belgian club had in front of goal this season.
As the graphic shows, the majority of Sint-Truiden’s shots have come from outside the area, which is a result of their inability to progress the ball into the penalty box and their lack of touches inside the penalty box.
