Who Is Adi Hütter?
After seven games of the 2024/25 Ligue 1 season, Monaco are top of the table with 19 points, two points ahead of second-placed Paris Saint-Germain.
They’ve conceded just four goals at this stage in the campaign, the second-lowest total in all of Ligue 1 and two lower than their nearest rivals for the title at this point in the season — PSG.
Last season, in his first as manager of the club, Adi Hütter tactics guided Monaco to a second-place finish, ending the campaign nine points behind Les Parisiens.
Their last seven games of the 2023/24 campaign saw them keep five clean sheets and concede four goals—very similar to their first seven games of this season.
It’s clear that Hütter, who won the Austrian Bundesliga title in 2014/15 with Red Bull Salzburg and the Swiss Super League title in 2017/18 with Young Boys before going on to manage Eintracht Frankfurt (2018-2021) and Borussia Mönchengladbach (2021-2022) in the German Bundesliga, has placed a great emphasis on shoring up his team’s defence ever since making the move to Ligue 1 just over a year ago.
Thus far, his efforts have been highly successful.
But what exactly are Hütter’s flourishing defensive tactics with Les Monégasques?
This tactical analysis and team-focused scout report aims to provide some in-depth analysis of Hütter’s out-of-possession approach with Monaco, mainly centring on their masterful use of blind side pressure.
Wide Pressing Traps
While their general shape will usually vary along with specific tactics from game to game and opponent to opponent, a team’s strategic principles will largely remain a consistent blueprint that is filled in by the tactics and roles that a given match demands.
In Monaco’s case, they’ve slightly favoured the 4-2-3-1 shape this term, though the 4-4-2 and 3-4-3 have also made appearances.
Indeed, they’ve been flexible in terms of their shape based on the demands of particular matches.
Still, their strategy has been consistent in that Hütters style of play requires them to be an energetic, fast-paced, aggressive, pressing unit that tries to get at the opposition right from their build-up play.
Their adherence to these principles has made them statistically the most aggressive pressing side in Ligue 1 at this point in the campaign, with the lowest PPDA (7.55) and highest challenge intensity (6.7) of any side.
Using the 4-4-2 shape against Montpellier, we see Monaco pressing the opposition right from their build-up.
At this point, Monaco’s shape is positioned quite centrally.
Th
