Robbie Savage at Posh: How would Darragh’s great gamble pay off?
Robbie Savage falls to his knees on the Wembley touchline. Leonard, Mills, Woods and Khela lift him up and over their heads.
Bolu has just scored the winner that has led Peterborough United back to the Championship through the play-offs, after eight months of pure box-office entertainment.
No, I haven’t entirely lost my mind. I've been highly sceptical about this appointment. As much as I’d love it to work, I can’t see it.
But I’m tired of being negative and articulating why that is more realistic, which you can read here:
So, let's look at the upside. In the spirit of the appointment, let's have some fun. If Savage works at Peterborough, what does it look like?
A team that attacks quickly, presses aggressively, scores goals and, above all, starts looking like Peterborough United again.
This is the best-case scenario of Darragh MacAnthony’s greatest gamble. Strap in.
Make Posh look like Posh again
Savage inherits a mess.
Posh sit 23rd in League One after eight games, with five points, four goals scored, and 13 conceded. They have spent just 2.1% of their league football in a winning position, the lowest figure in the division.
The squad is young, confidence is low, and the football is stale. The atmosphere around the club is lower than a snake's belly.
But Sav is a character. He’s played in the Prem, captaining multiple teams and his country. His aura changes the dressing room and lifts everyone.
There is also something here tactically that fits him.
We have already seen glimpses of what this group can look like when it plays aggressively. The best football under Luke Williams came when Posh stopped worrying quite so much about controlling every phase and went after teams.
AFC Wimbledon were thrashed 5-0 last November by a Posh side with intensity, pace and power. Twelve days later, league leaders Stockport were beaten 3-0, with Ben Woods opening the scoring after five minutes and Posh pressing from the outset.
Those performances eventually proved to be flashes rather than a formula.
Savage’s job is to find the formula.
His Forest Green numbers suggest he will at least try in the right way. Their shots jumped from 10.5 per game under Steve Cotterill to 15.7 in Savage’s first season, while opposition shots actually fell from 9.7 to 8.4. Yet Forest Green made fewer passes, dropping from roughly 420 to 392 per game in the available data.
Savage isn’t coming to Peterborough to win the possession. No 600 passes for this guy; he wants goals.
Get it forward. Press after it. Make it wide. Attack the full-back. Get bodies around Harry Leonard or Ormerod. If the first attack fails, win the second ball and attack again.
It is direct without necessarily being long-ball football, and aggressive without requiring 60% possession.
For a club that has spent large parts of its modern history at its best when games become basketball matches, this feels more like it.
The first signs
The first proper indication comes at Leicester on 10 October.
Posh go toe to toe in a 3-3 draw.
After weeks of struggling to score at all, they suddenly have runners everywhere, force mistakes higher up the pitch and create enough to take something from the game.
They also get caught behind their own defensive line twice, with Leicester in oceans of space.
Welcome to Savage-ball.
A week later, Burton come to London Road and Posh win 3-1. This time, Ben Woods is everywhere.
That perhaps should not be surprising. Woods already has two of Peterborough’s four league goals this season despite starting only five of the opening eight games.
Savage doesn’t try to turn him into a deep-lying playmaker. He gives him licence to run.
Woods presses midfielders, arrives late in the box, attacks loose balls and covers enormous amounts of ground. What sometimes looked slightly positionless becomes the point.
By Christmas he is one of the first names on the teamsheet. Brandon Khela, Harry Ashfield and a rejuvenated Matt Garbett also begin to impose themselves with all-action midfield displays.
There are setbacks. Huddersfield play through the press. Bromley go right over it.
Alex Bass saves Posh more often than Savage would care to admit.
Bass has already faced 38 shots on target in eight league matches this season and prevented around three goals according to FotMob’s post-shot model. He also ranks extremely highly for both sweeping and claiming crosses.
If you are going to defend 15 yards higher up the pitch, having a goalkeeper who is a strong shotstopper comes in handy.
The wingers find their mojo
The biggest coaching job is out wide.
Ethan Williams and Owura Edwards have started the season with no league goals or assists between them. That is nowhere near enough output.
They have shown glimpses of some quality, though. Savage doesn’t need to teach them how to beat a man. He needs more bodies in the box, and more chances to deliver.
Williams becomes the bigger success story. By the spring, his decisions are quicker. One touch inside and shoot. Release the overlapping full-back. Cross early when Leonard has stolen half a yard rather than taking the extra touch.
Edwards improves too. He never becomes an automatic 90-minute player every week, but his directness becomes useful rather than decorative. Frith comes back into the fold and delivers big moments, like against Orient last season.
By 28 November, when Cambridge come to London Road, it clicks.
Savage vs Harris.
Pretty Boy Vs Chopper.
Posh win 4-2.
Williams scores one, creates another. Woods arrives late for the third. Leonard gets the fourth. For the first time, it feels less like a new-manager bounce, and more like a real team identity.
Leonard gets fed
The obvious winner is Harry Leonard.
He scored 17 goals in all competitions last season, 16 of them in League One, in a side that finished 18th.
He needs better chances created and his confidence back.
Savage’s Forest Green side generated nearly 16 shots a game. His Macclesfield side scored 109 league goals. His teams are built to move the ball forward and keep attacking.
Leonard spends far less time wrestling centre-halves while waiting for the rest of the team to arrive. Crosses come earlier. Woods and Ashfield run beyond him. One winger comes inside while the other stretches the pitch. When Posh win the ball high, the first thought is Leonard rather than another safe pass. He goes through Christmas already into double figures.
Then comes the run that really gets us excited.
Barnsley arrive on 12 December and lose 4-2.
A week later, Posh go to Wigan and win 3-1. It is swashbuckling, occasionally stupid and unmistakably Posh.
They still concede goals no under-12s should be conceding. There are still afternoons when Bass makes three excellent saves, and we come away with victory by the skin of our teeth.
But people want to watch it again. That counts for something.
Not everybody wins
There are casualties when a manager changes the emphasis this dramatically. Savage said not everyone will like him in his opening press conference, and he has a history of freezing players out at Forest Green.
Liam Kelly could be one surprise example.
Kelly remains a classy footballer. He produced nine assists for MK Dons last season and has started seven of his eight league appearances for Posh so far. He can also play in a more direct style, as he did at MK.
But a midfielder whose value to Posh is largely in dictating and connecting possession is no longer automatically the centre of the team. One also wonders how well O’Connor defends the high line.
Some games, Savage wants him. Others, he wants Woods plus another pair of legs, like Khela. Tom O’Connor and the returning Hughes struggle sometimes with the high line. CJ’s value of being a full-back who can take the ball centrally declines markedly.
Then Savage nearly ruins it
Forest Green changed players relentlessly under Savage. 40+ signings in under two seasons. Posh supporters therefore watch the transfer window with some trepidation as one new arrival becomes three, then four, then five.
For a fortnight, the team gets worse. Savage rotates too much. One new winger starts ahead of the previously rampant Williams. A new midfielder changes Woods’ role. Two different defensive combinations appear in three games.
At Luton on 30 January, Posh are beaten 3-0 and look every bit like a group that has only recently been introduced to each other.
It is the most important defeat of Savage’s season.
Because this time he changes himself, rather than another five players.A settled defensive unit. Woods in midfield. Williams and Edwards alternating with Shofowoke from the wide positions.
The details change according to opposition, but the core stops changing. Savage finally finds the squad management he never consistently found at Forest Green. Our injury hell finally relents as well, as the players adapt fairly seamlessly to the new high press.
The same chaos, under control
The difference becomes obvious at Cambridge on 27 February. Posh don’t just attack attack attack; they suffocate them with the press. They win 2-0.
Bass makes no saves. Woods gets through another enormous amount of work. Garbett looks a class above. Leonard takes the chance when it arrives.
Earlier in the season, Posh needed the game to look like a basketball match. Now they can overwhelm and control.
Then comes Plymouth at home on 20 March. The afternoon the rest of League One noticed with a convincing home win.
Williams is outstanding. Leonard scores twice. Woods drives through midfield for another. For 25 minutes in the second half, Peterborough are everything Darragh probably imagined when he made the appointment: young, quick, aggressive and horrible to play against.
The high line still isn’t perfect, and they concede goals. They always will.
Stockport exposed it twice at London Road on 13 April. Bass saves the first one-on-one and watches the second roll narrowly wide. Posh win 3-1.
It also feels appropriate given where this story started. Last November, Williams’ best Posh performance came in a 3-0 win against Stockport. Savage has bought it back.
From 23rd to the play-offs
By the time Leicester came to London Road on 24 April, the conversation had completely changed.
In October, Posh went there trying to escape the relegation places. Now they win 2-1 to secure a play-off place.
The play-off semi-final awaits.
A 2-2 away draw at Plymouth is frantic, open and occasionally horrifying.
The return at London Road is different. Posh win 3-1 with another dominant display.
They press everything that moves. They don’t just throw both full-backs forward whenever they have the ball. They choose their moments wisely.
Then Wembley. Huddersfield Vs Archie. We like Huddersfield in a Play-Off final.
Promotion.
The case for Savage
There are very real reasons for lots of scepticism, as I have outlined too many times.
He inherited a third-placed Forest Green side and finished seventh. He made them much more dangerous going forward but less secure defensively. He changed his squad far too often. He’s always had expensive squads, either way too good for the level, or just very good for it.
But the case for Savage has never really been that he is the safest appointment. It is that some of what he does well fits Peterborough unusually well, despite his record.
He likes young, athletic players. He wants wingers to attack people. He wants midfielders who run rather than stand. He gets the ball forward quickly. He presses high. His teams shoot a lot, score a lot and can often leave their goalkeeper wondering where everybody else has gone.
There are worse descriptions of a successful Peterborough United side.
There are myriad understandable, valid and correct reservations about why this unusual appointment is not the best idea. The above is what Darragh sees playing out, as precious few others do.
I hope he’s right.
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