FC Girondins Bordeaux ended the season at the bottom of Ligue 1. A catastrophic campaign saw Bordeaux concede 91 goals in 38 games. A record that was equalled after 44 years, when Rouen conceded as many. Bordeauxs games saw 143 goals across the season, a number that no team in the other top five leagues reached. While these games may have been entertaining for the neutral, Bordeaux fans were definitely not enjoying being pummelled week in and week out. On the other end of the pitch, Bordeaux were quite effective, scoring more goals than 10 of the other 19 teams, but ultimately, the poor defensive record was always going to cost them.
After 30 years in the top flight, a run only bettered by Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique Lyonnais, Bordeaux have been relegated from Ligue 1, and due to financial issues, have been further relegated to the third tier of French football. Although they made more money from sales, perhaps spending ??8 million on players who arent definitely going to improve the team and arent guaranteed their spot wasnt the wisest idea.
Vladimir Petkovic returned to club management after a seven-year stint as the Switzerland manager, but after 23 games in charge and stuck in the relegation zone, he was sacked in mid-February. David Guion was the man to replace him after a successful period at Reims, but the performances werent good enough to keep them up. This was a fall from grace for the club that was competing in the quarter-finals of the Champions League only 12 years ago.
This scout report will feature a tactical analysis of how David Guion set up Bordeaux during the back end of the season. It will also feature an analysis of how these tactics changed from the previous manager, whilst still having the same result of scoring and conceding more goals than anyone else.
Formation
A large problem Bordeaux had, was the lack of consistency in the team from week to week. As shown in the image below, the most common system for Bordeaux under Petkovic was the 4-4-2, which was only used 12% of the time translating to playing that system for 5 games in the 23 games he managed. When the new manager came, he brought some stability using either a 3-4-3 or 3-4-1-2 in 13 of the 14 games he was in charge of. This stability and consistency allowed Bordeaux to slightly improve performances, although they still endured some heavy defeats in that period.
Furthermore, only three players had over 25 starts in the league. This shows that the best starting team was unknown and the players were always trying to figure out how each other plays, with unfamiliar partnerships across the team.
Changing formations and personnel so often prevents players from building chemistry together and slows down the ability of players to make themselves familiar with the style of play. This lack of decisiveness in picking a team and sticking to it can definitely be listed as a reason for the poor performances across the season.
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