Cheltenham Town 2023/24: How Darrell Clarke has breathed life into the Robins’ survival bid – tactical analysis

Cheltenham Town made headlines for all the wrong reasons in the opening stages of the 2023/24 EFL League One season, going the first 11 games without scoring a single goal; it wasn’t until match number 13 that they picked up their first win. Darrell Clarke, the Robins’ current manager, took the reigns on September 29^th, just three days after we discussed the club’s woeful attacking record in this linked analysis.

While Clarke’s Cheltenham remain in a relegation battle, they are in a far stronger position thanks to the change in manager: Clarke has managed 21 games for the club so far, winning six, drawing four, and losing 11 – by all means, they have lots of work ahead to avoid the drop into League Two, but it’s a significant improvement on the winless & goalless opening nine games prior to Clarke’s arrival. This scout report provides a tactical analysis of where and how Cheltenham have improved under Clarke’s leadership, with the analysis looking at how the former Bristol Rovers manager has utilised his side’s greatest individual strengths in his tactics.

Attacking improvement

Sure, Cheltenham Town aren’t scoring for fun, but their 21 goals in as many games is a credit to the work done by Clarke and his team. The tactics he has deployed have been beneficial to the players at his disposal as he looks to lean into the individual strengths throughout the squad. This segment of analysis looks at some of their key attacking tactics.

This first image paints a clear picture of the improvement made by Cheltenham since Clarke took over. In the opening nine games of the season (led by Wade Elliot for the first eight and caretaker manager Kevin Russell for the ninth), not only did they fail to score a single goal, but they didn’t look all that threatening in attack. The visual above shows Clarke’s influence by looking at his most recent nine games in charge in comparison to those dreadful opening nine games of the season. What is interesting and important to note is that Clarke has often opted for 3-5-2 and 3-4-1-2: formations Cheltenham did use a couple of times prior to Clarke’s arrival – they also used three/five-men defence formations regularly under Elliot, so this tactical continuity was important.

More shots and a higher xG – total and per shot- are clear indicators of an attacking improvement. A boost in morale and confidence likely helped, too. They’re also not afraid to try their luck from range, though they’ve had next-to-no success with that. Additionally, it is worth noting that the Robins still have the league’s lowest goal tally despite their improvement.