In 2017, following the sacking of Corinne Diacre – the first female manager to coach in the first two tiers of a men’s European league – Clermont Foot 63 turned to reserves manager Pascal Gastien to become the club’s new head coach.
Gastien was not a well-known name in France by any stretch of the imagination and had managed just two professional clubs in his career, Chamois Niortais and LB Châteauroux, respectively.
Clermont were going through managers at a rapid speed as none were performing well enough with the squads at their disposal, but with a sixth-place finish in his first season in charge, Gastien proved he was more than capable of bringing glory to the French outfit.
This was followed up by a disappointing tenth-place finish in 2018/19, a respectable fifth-place in 2019/20, and finally, after many years of trying, Clermont managed to reach France’s top-flight division for the first time in the club’s 111-year history since its foundation.
Gastien’s men are no pragmatists, though, and play some of the most exciting and attacking football in European football at the moment, despite being in the bookies’ top-three favourites to go straight back down before the season commencing.
As of writing, the team are sitting sixth in Ligue 1 and has blown away any doubters, although there are still a lot of games left to go.
This article will be a tactical analysis of Clermont Foot under Gastien in the form of a team scout report.
The analysis will particularly focus on their tactics in possession.
Formations and Lineups
Gastien’s formation is extremely fluid and there is a heavy emphasis by the French manager on positioning and space occupation as opposed to a rigid structure – a prerequisite for modern positional play.
The 4-2-3-1 has been Clermont’s main base formation this season, playing with one number ‘6’ as the single pivot and two ‘8s’, although the manager has also deployed a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-2-3-1.
That being said, whilst in possession, the three-man midfield works more like a single pivot ‘6’ and two ‘8s’ as opposed to two ‘6s’ and a number ‘10’ which will be analysed in further detail later on.
This is Clermont Foot’s first-choice starting eleven this season.
Gastien has been quite constant with his selections but there has been a slight bit of rotation within the first eleven.
