EVA THE SAVIOUR? What can United fans expect from Olid?
After months of questions on both sides Marc Skinner is officially gone from Manchester United. Replacing him is Eva Olid, from Hearts!
If only we had someone who’d watched Olid’s team over the last few years…
Well, luckily Gethin Thurlow anticipated this a year ago and moved to Glasgow in September, and despite Hearts putting their stadium in the hardest location to find, he managed to get to a number of Jambos’ matches.
Here he gives United fans an insight into what their new, progressive coach could bring to the WSL.
What I witnessed – even in the first half of the season when the SWPL title wasn’t even in the dreams of Hearts fans – was a team consistently building each year under their coach, Eva Olid. Lacking the absolute firepower found in the squads of the other four professional teams, the Spaniard had to work hard to make that difference up with other methods.
Scottish women’s football has not been renowned for its tactical brilliance. You struggle to find much of a defined system anywhere. Leanne Ross’ possession football is about as close to an identity as you’ll find. That is, aside from Eva Olid’s Hearts.
Tactical Nous
The first thing you notice is the 3-5-2 formation. In those games against top teams it helps with defending, and allows the counter-attacking threat to come through the middle quickly. When facing easier opponents, it gives maximum control of the ball and offers the wing backs more of an attacking threat, although goals are still frequently generated through the middle of the park rather than wide areas.
As Hearts keeper Emma Thomson told us earlier in the year: “Eva and Pascal demand that you’re good with the ball at your feet and that’s the style of play they’ve brought into Hearts.” This really sums it up; an insistence to move this team into the modern era with the ball-playing goalkeeper trope that is much more befitting of top level football across the world than the Scottish league is used to.
Central to her formation is using two strikers. So often these days teams look to score by getting the ball wide and putting into the box that way, with generally a front three of some sort involving a striker and two wingers.
Olid however favoured a traditional two-striker approach at Hearts, with Georgia Timms and Carly Johns working together to maximise their output. It does depend slightly on the relationship between both players – with an almost telepathic connection ensuring that when one made a darting run in behind the other would drop to receive the ball, or make a different run to occupy defenders, so it won’t be such a simple move for Olid and her system at United.
Bring on the Youth
Youth development was also something that Olid’s team excelled at. Young twins Jess and Erin Husband are a prime example of this, having fought into the team and become important regulars for Hearts all while still in the Scotland U19’s setup. While some of this is undoubtedly down to the club’s scouting department, you still need a good coach to bring that talent through effectively, and with United looking to go in a similar direction for the future that could’ve been a deciding factor when the recruitment staff identified Olid.
Looking at Hearts’ title push in particular, and the way she had her team playing in the second half of this season is not that she’d magically turned the team into a dominant force in Scottish football which blew everyone away, it was that they just got all the right results at those crucial moments. One-nils where they were outplayed by the opposition, grabbing three points through late goals. Securing the wins they should have done as other faltered under the pressure.
It’s those intangibles of management, that however she achieved it, she was able to put the team in a position where time after time they delivered in the big moments, and that’s what eventually confirmed her a championship-winning manager.
Now just the small feat of trying to repeat this with Manchester United lies ahead…
Photos: Man United; Instagram
