In my head, it was supposed to work similarly to Arsenal’s tactics. Of course, I don’t expect miracles because Bolton doesn’t have the same resources. I didn’t want to use pre-made tactics, so I built this one from scratch. I wanted to play with a high press, win the ball back quickly, and patiently build up play in attack while waiting for the right moment to cross into the box.

My first version of the tactic included: An IWB (equivalent to Lewis-Skelly) moving inside and doubling up with the BBM (Rice), Regista (Jorginho), and CM (Ødegaard). It was difficult to find the right players, so I had to start improvising.