KRC Genk — anatomy of a meltdown !?
KRC Genk had a annus mirabilis last year when they became League champions!
But this season the wheels have really come off! They are at 6th place with 37 points and in serious danger of not making the Play-Off1!
In this Write-up, I have tried to understand what happened — why the wheels came off so suddenly!
Last season: Last year Genk lit up the league with a 4–2–3–1 morphing into 4–3–3 attacking formation with Trossard and Ito shining, Malinovskyi (earlier Pozuelo) and Sander Berge controlling midfield. Samatta was in the form of his life! They were playing fast, high pressing attacking football enroute to winning the league.
From TransferMarkt:
Current season: Current season can’t be more different! It started with a new coach — Felice Mazzu! because title winning coach Clement went back to his beloved Club Brugge.
The beginning was good — they won their 1st league game. It started going all wrong there after! Champions Racing Genk started miserably with 3 out of 9. Next 2 games were chastening defeats in hands of Zulte Waregem (0–2) and KV Mechelen (3–1).
While a slight decline was expected with many new faces and a new coach, this kind of crushing defeats at the hands of non-top opposition were unexpected. Losses piled up and Genk was in real danger of losing any chance of reaching Play-Off1!
After matchday 15 home match loss to Gent, Genk pulled the trigger and sacked Mazzu!
He has been replaced by young German coach Hannes Wolf — a protege of Klopp!
The results has improved a bit — Genk is now upto 6th place but has been really inconsistent and are still at risk of losing a Play-off 1 place!
From TransferMarkt:
Big issues:
Transfers: They sold Leandro Trossard, Ruslan Malinovskyi and Alejandro Pozuelo for a total of 43 million by the end of last season.
But they also lost 32 goals and 29 assists. Those were the figures that the three combined in Belgium last season. Genk replaced the established greats with decent names with potential but they will always take time to adjust!
They were hoping on Bongonda, Hagi and Nygren to come good. None of that happened. Genk is also still waiting for Patrik Hrosovsky to get the balance in midfield. In the winter transfer window, they sold their best midfielder Sander Berge and biggest goal threat Samatta.
They have tried to replace them but the replacements are mostly untested talents!
One example:Iaanis Hagi was bought with the idea of replacing Malinovskyi!
Apart from failure of Hagi to acclimatize to JPL, there was another issue it highlighted.
As you can see from the visual from Smarterscout,
besides helping attacks, Malinovskyi used to take a lot of defensive responsibility.
It’s missing this season - Hagi was never defensively active and while Hrosovsky is better, it still has not clicked completely.
Tactical confusion under Mazzu: After the great year being the champions under Philippe Clement, Genk replaced him with Felice Mazzu. He was doing very decent job in Charleroi and gave him his first chance at a top Belgian club.
But after 15 league matches, Genk was only 9th after 6 defeats. The loss at home against Ghent on the 15th match day brought an end for Mazzu .
His record in the Jupiler Pro League matches were sad looking!
Stef Wijnants wrote in an article in Sporza — “They also brought in a trainer who used a different kind of tactic at Charleroi for 6 years. He was successful with that, but in Genk he had to do it differently.”
In truth it looked like a very bad fit! Genk seemed to be in a state of tactical schizophrenia between defensive and offensive football. Mostly because of the nature of the coach!
Felice Mazzu was infamous for his practical defensive football in Charleroi, it brought him success but it was never eye pleasing. This now created a confusion, as he was trying to balance his ingrained defensive mindset and Genk’s attacking philosophy from last season. He wanted to build in some security and therefore did not resolutely opt for the attack dominant game that Clement hammered into Genk players.
Player mentality: It was clear this season that players like Sander Berge, Samatta, Maehle were looking for big club transfers! Samatta and Sander Berge got their wish! Now that Winter Transfer Window is closed, the team would hopefully be fully focused on the games in hand!
Statistical differences between 2 seasons highlighting negative tactical changes:
As we can see from Wyscout data,
- xG/90 is reduced, same as possession and passes to final third from the last season!
2. A big change is PPDA value indicating that Genk is playing a much lower pressing game than last season’s high tempo, high press!
3. Another big difference is their through passes/90: from 8.24 in 2018/19 season to 6.63 in current season!
4. Lastly, touches in the box/90 data is down from 22.88 last season to 18.62 this season!
All this point towards the lack of penetration, attacking flair and loss of pressing game that characterized Genk last season. Genk has tried to play a more reactive slow build up game under Mazzu!
They have also vacillated between different formations as 1st Mazzu and then Hannes Wolf have tried desperately to bring some good results!
The stats have improved somewhat under Hannes Wolf but he would need time and I am still not sure what his football approach is!
Future:
Genk is again in a reconstruction phase. It will be interesting to see how they adapt themselves. They have bought potential but they need the remaining players from last season like Hynen, Ito, Maehle etc. to step up!
New coach Hannes Wolf (38y) has been moderately successful (5W, 2L, 1D from 8 League matches).
Hannes Wolf has made a smooth, relaxed and solid impression till now. He loves his laptop but is definitely no laptop only coach!
For Genk, losing a place in the top 6 would be a really bad situation but there is still hope.
Conclusion:
In my view, the biggest issues were two —
- selling their best players and not replacing them with tried and tested players and buying talent. That always takes time and this season can be now considered a transition.
- The biggest issue for me was Mazzu’s not fitting into Genk’s playing ethos!
It was a bad combination in summary — in one hand getting rid of their best players and then getting a defensive coach for a team who played one of the most offensive football last season (with players like Pozuelo and Malinovskyi not there to guide the team during transition).
Data sources: Different Belgian Newspapers, Smarterscout, Wyscout, TransferMarkt
N.B. My Facebook page https://t.co/sgGtdc2gHm?amp=1 is a place where you can catch details of Belgium League Football in English!
