Last season, Julien Stéphan guided Strasbourg to their best Ligue 1 finish since 1980, as they ended 2021/22 in sixth place on the table — a nine-place jump from 2020/21 under Thierry Laurey.
This was, of course, an excellent start to life at Stade de la Meinau for the 42-year-old manager.
However, this season has been far less positive for Le Racing, with the club sitting in 14th place after 10 league games, level on eight points with 17th-placed Angers — currently occupying a relegation spot.
Strasbourg were the last team in France’s top flight to get a win in 2022/23, with Stéphan’s men only managing to win their first game of the season last weekend in a 3-2 victory over Angers.
So, why have Strasbourg been struggling so much more this term than they did last term, when all seemed rosy for the Alsace-based club under the leadership of promising coach Stéphan?
This tactical analysis and scout report provide an analysis of some factors we’ve identified as essential contributors to Strasbourg’s struggles this season. We analyse their individual performances, strategy, and tactics to determine what is going wrong this term.
Less defending from the front in 2022/23
Strasbourg ended last season with the fourth-highest expected goal difference (+13.6) in France’s top flight when they finished in sixth place in the league.
Meanwhile, they currently have the fifth-lowest expected goal difference in the league (-3.0) and the joint-fourth lowest points total.
They’re currently scoring just 0.92 goals per game, which is a significant drop-off from 1.48 goals per game last season.
However, their xG per shot is actually better than last season (0.137 xG per shot this season compared to 0.133 xG per shot last season).
Stéphan’s side are also conceding more goals this season (1.29 per game) than they did last term (1.06 per game).
Their xG per shot against has also increased to 0.141 this season, up from 0.119 last season — a significant rise.
Along with that, Strasbourg have actually been conceding more shots too — 10.7 per 90 this term compared with 9.21 per 90 last term.
From this, we can see that Strasbourg have been performing worse at both ends of the pitch this season than last season but while results have notably dropped in front of goal, their performance levels — at least in terms of the quality of shot they’ve generated — has been similar.
However, the quality of shots they’re conceding has become a greater cause for concern than perhaps it had been last season.
There are plenty of contributing factors to this, without a doubt, but one major one, in our view, is the fact that Strasbourg have been defending from the front far less in 2022/23 than they did in 2021/22.
In a scout report here at Total Football Analysis from last December looking at: “Why ‘on fire’ Strasbourg are Ligue 1’s second-highest scoring side”, we touched on their aggression in defending from the front and even mentioned that they could, perhaps, be creating even more goalscoring opportunities from their pressing, given their aggressive nature.
Per Statsbomb via FBRef, Le Racing ended last season with the fourth-most pressures in the attacking third of any team in France’s top-flight but this season, they’ve made the fifth-fewest pressures in the attacking third of any Ligue 1 side.
Per Wyscout, their PPDA has increased from 11.13 last season to 12.52 this season as well.
Part of the reason for this comes down to Ludovic Ajorque playing far fewer minutes this term, with Habib Diallo starting more frequently.
We recommended Diallo in a recruitment analysis piece as an excellent option for Lille in the summer before they signed Mohamed Bayo — we rate the forward highly.
In particular, Diallo is an excellent option for Stéphan and his tactics in possession.
He’s exactly the kind of forward who thrives in Strasbourg’s offensive system (which you can read more about in detail in the aforementioned piece discussing the 42-year-old coach’s approach at Stade de la Meinau from last December).
However, Diallo offers far, far less without the ball than Ajorque, which is a significant drawback of his game that must be compensated for by his teammates.
While Ajorque presses aggressively from the front and contributes a lot not only to his team’s defensive efforts but also their offensive efforts by creating plenty of goalscoring opportunities via his defending from the front, as Figure 1 depicts, Diallo contributes far less in that regard, as Figure 2 illustrates, even counting for the fact that Ajorque has enjoyed slightly a few hundred more minutes of game time over this season and last than Diallo, in total, in that same time.
The per-90 numbers back up our claims, with Ajorque making 4.56 successful pressures per 90, according to Statsbomb via FBRef, compared to Diallo, who makes 3.46 successful pressures per 90. Additionally, Ajorque makes 1.29 tackles per 90, while Diallo makes 0.47.
