Thierry Henry has had a disastrous start to his career as a manager at AS Monaco. Replacing
the popular and effective Leonardo Jardim, who won Ligue 1 in 2016-17, was always going
to be hard even after results and form dipped under the Portuguese manager. But it’s clear
that Henry is finding it tougher than expected.
As a player, Henry won the World Cup, the European Championships, and five titles at
three clubs, including Monaco – he’s yet to win a game in his new role. While a trip
to Caen [CO-N], two places and five points above Monaco, is next for Henry in Ligue 1,
the Champions League trip to Atletico Madrid is also a crucial fixture.
As these stats from OneFootball show, Monaco are failing to score even a goal a game in
Ligue 1, while conceding 1.7. And, of last season’s proven performers, only Radamel
Falcao is scoring regularly in the league, with four goals.
Monaco also have a lengthy injury list: highly rated prospects Willem Geubbels [GOO-BELLS]
and Pietro Pellegri, last season’s second top scorer Rony Lopes, defender Kamil Glik,
and World Cup finalist ‘keeper Daniel Subasic are all currently out. Aleksandr Golovin has
just returned from injury, but has so far failed to build on his stellar World Cup with
Russia.
Henry has failed to settle on a formation so far, setting his side up as a 4-3-2-1 or
4-2-3-1, as well as a 4-3-3 and even a 3-4-3. Although he impressed his new employers with
his knowledge of the Monaco squad to get the role, injuries and suspensions have made it
extremely difficult for Henry to settle on a side, let alone a system.
When Monaco play out from the back, they seek to progress the ball by moving it side to
side between the centre backs, before releasing the wing backs, either Dijbril Sidibe or Benjamin
Heinrichs on the right and Nacer Chadli on the left. The intention is to move the ball
in a controlled way up the pitch before pushing it quickly wide and, under Jardim, this was
an excellent ploy, with later runners arriving in the box to score and more dynamism from
full back in the shape of Benjamin Mendy, now at Manchester City.
Under Henry, though, the centre backs do not exert the same control, even with three playing.
This invites pressure, especially as they often pass the ball directly to or slightly
behind the pass recipient, and sides who press high can disrupt the build-up easily, as we’ve
seen already this season. This leads to loss of possession, either as Monaco are pushed
to the flanks and closed down, or because they have to resort to long balls.
Monaco’s midfield spacing and movement under Henry has yet to work well either. Defensively,
Monaco generally use a 4-4-2 shape, or a 5-4-1 if playing three at the back, but there tends
to be too much space between the forward line and the midfield, who sit very deep. This
allows the opposition time to break the first line of press and then progress the ball quite
easily.
In attack, Monaco’s midfield and wide attackers are often too static, missing the understanding
and interplay that comes from practice and cohesive team selection. The attacking midfielders
have a tendency to bunch in a horizontal line towards the opposition’s defenders, and
there is too little vertical movement to disrupt the opposition and pull markers out of position.
This movement does happen when Monaco try to counter with a long pass, with a player
dropping and another marking a run in behind, but these opportunities are hard to create
successfully as they rely on long passes, and there’s little of the incisive slickness
in attack that really breaks down well organised defences.
This lack of movement leads to issues out wide too. While Sidibe and Mendy sparkled
under Jardim, the former is struggling to replicate his form, and the latter is gone.
A lack of options for the full backs have either resulted in aimless cross-field balls
into space on the far side, which *can* work but rarely do, or passes up the line to a
wide attacker who must then rely on trying to beat their man without much in the way
of support – this, again, is a function of Monaco’s static midfield and lack of
understanding. Henry has also shown an unwillingness to use genuine wingers, even against teams
who themselves play wide.
Monaco’s best attacking moments come from players taking individual responsibility for
driving attacks forwards and, oddly, the lack of midfield shape can sometimes help this
as there is plenty of room to drive in to – the issue is that if the player attacking
runs into trouble, too often there aren’t many options to help him out. Monaco find
these cul-de-sacs all too easily and, like with the back three passing interchanges that
seem too often end up going backwards, this invites pressure or dispossessions that end
in opposition counter-attacks.
It’s hard to know how much of this is down to Henry as a coach and how much is down to
the loss of key players to transfers and injuries. In the summer, Monaco lost Fabinho, Thomas
Lemar, Joao Moutinho, and Kylian Mbappe, as well as underrated defender Terence Kongolo
to Huddersfield. Any team would struggle without players who aren’t just very good, but who
were so integral to Monaco’s style. While a few of their replacements are fine players,
particularly Golovin, many are *potentially* fine players – such a churn of squad and
a business model that depends on buy low, develop, and sell high is always going to
have the potential to create seasons where it just doesn’t work.
Monaco are in just such a season. In addition to the on-pitch woes, there are behind the
scenes issues, with owner Dmitry Rybolovlev being investigated for corruption, and allegations
that Monaco used underhand tactics and incentives to recruit underage players.
While Monaco are already out of the Champions League, any hope of finding a spot in the
Europa League could rest on this result and, with it, Monaco’s chances of signing the
next swathe of young talent to develop and sell, which has been Monaco’s business model
for the last few seasons.
Henry has suggested that the absence of European competition would assist the Ligue 1 campaign
and this is likely true, though it would impact Monaco’s standing should they fail to qualify
and make retaining some of those exciting prospects, and signing new ones, very difficult.
Henry needs to find a system and stick to it, develop some understanding within his
team, and hope that injuries don’t disrupt his project further. A game away against Atletico
Madrid might be the last fixture Henry wants but a surprise victory would be a much-needed
tonic for a new manager already in a very difficult position.