Carlos Corberán Tactics In Possession: West Brom’s Attacking Dynamism Explained

Who Is Carlos Corberán?

Carlos Corberán is in his second year implementing his coaching philosophy at West Bromwich Albion, who have begun the 2024/25 campaign competing at the higher end of the Championship.

Currently, West Brom certainly looks like they will be one of this seasons promotion contenders.

Corberán has overseen quite a bit of tactical progress during his time at WBA. 

Before joining the Baggies, he had coached at Leeds United U21 and Huddersfield Town in England.

Some of the principles of Carlos Corberáns style of play bear a similarity with Marcelo Bielsa.

This wont come as a massive surprise, given Corberán was Bielsas assistant coach at Leeds United for some time.

Since Corberán joined West Brom, the team has practised positional play with different resources to avoid being predictable.

They have some key roles in the system, but generally, they have order in each phase and an initial idea about the shape to make the pitch larger.

They are providing very interesting synergies in their attacking style of play, with Josh Maja (the joint-top scorer in the Championship at the time of writing) and Tom Fellows (the top assist-provider in the Championship at the time of writing) as the main protagonists.

In this tactical analysis and team-focused scout report, we will provide an in-depth analysis of how Carlos Corberán has developed his team in recent months and the tactics he is implementing in their attacking style of play.

Carlos Corberán Preferred Formation

West Brom usually attack in a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 with a pure winger (Tom Fellows) and an inside forward (Karlan Grant).

They tend to defend in 4-4-2 with the attacking midfielder or the inside forward in the first line of pressure.

However, under Carlos Corberáns style of play, he adapts his team to each rival.

West Brom has varied their defensive shape between a 5-3-2 and a 5-4-1 (with a winger dropping as wing-back) depending on the opponent.