Drones in Rangers training, Jeugo de Posicion and team meetings: Why video analysis is crucial to Giovanni van Bronckhorst

Addressing the media from the blue room following his appointment as the 17th manager of Rangers there was a concession that 24 hours on from the League Cup semi-final defeat and 72 before the visit of Sparta Prague, he and his team would have to work smart to translate their ideas in limited time.

“I’m sure we can help before Thursday in getting some information across and some details,” the 46-year-old said, acknowledging his mid-season appointment didn’t afford the luxury of time to bed in his philosophy gradually.

Tactical tweaks and systemic switches were integral in a 2-0 win against the Czech’s and despite a continuously-packed schedule thereafter, new ideas have continued to materialise on the pitch in return for crucial points.

Key to this process in a period with limited free weeks to work extensively on the training pitch, prior to the international break, has been video analysis. Roy McKay was the big-name backroom appointment given his playing pedigree and Dave Vos’ Ajax heritage garnered a similar level of excitement – Yori Bosschaart’s arrival as an analyst has provoked fewer headlines but proved equally important.

The 35-year-old was one of van Bronckhorst’s first staff additions when he took control at Feyenoord in 2015 and followed him to China for a spell with Guangzhou City.

“I know exactly how he wants to play but I also know what he needs to develop the team in the case of presentations,” Bosschaart tells of his relationship with van Bronckhorst.

Van Bronckhorst adds: “He [Bosschaart] will support me with the video analysis we make from training sessions and for opponents we are playing against.

“He understands my way of playing, it’s very easy for me to ask things of him because he knows how I see games and translates that into video reports.”

“Analysis is very important,” he adds. “We use a lot of video footage. In training we use drones, we have overview videos from games.

“I use [video analysis] a lot to present to the players to make them better, but also to ensure tactically we are playing the right way. Images are always useful to present the players with things they have to improve or they have to change tactically.”

Using visual aids to upskill players in their tactical responsibilities, filming training sessions to determine the readiness of a system or clipping examples of where the team has gone wrong is part of day-to-day life in modern football.

The settling in period of the new management team has felt near non-existent due to their duck to water adaptation. Nine games, eight wins and two goals conceded is definitive proof that the details and information van Bronckhorst alluded to during his first press conference have been impactful. Right from his very first post-match media conference, the manager has detailed the importance of video analysis in this process.

“I put a lot of effort in the last few days in terms of showing my players how they have to play; with training sessions, meetings and images,” he explained after his debut in the dugout against Sparta.

The sheer volume of games professionals are subjected to means that training exertion must be monitored. As revealed by The Rangers Review last year, the club teamed up with Zone7 who use artificial intelligence to track players’ output, attempting to minimise the risk of injury.

The process behind every aspect of a football club’s planning is meticulous. Player welfare is of great concern given the value attributed to high-level professionals and the utilisation of different methods by which to train and learn is, therefore, crucial – particularly during the monotonous mid-season rhythm of preparation and recovery.

When there is the ability to put in team-wide tactical work on the training ground, the filming of such sessions is commonplace. It makes sense when you consider the level of tactical detail communicated, more resemblant often of a rehearsal that must be carried out to the yard than a rough practice that requires some level of mirroring. There are extreme examples, such as Julian Nagelsmann using a giant tv screen mid-training to show his players specific detail on the pitch during his spell at Hoffenheim.

Continuing with the trend of tactical innovators, recent footage from the Rangers training ground shows the introduction of vertical and horizontal lines on the pitch, a set of guidelines that determines on-pitch zones such as the half-spaces and popularised in the modern era by Pep Guardiola.

These boundaries known as ‘Juego de Posicion’ are used to help coach aspects of positional play, which in its simplest form is a tactical concept that requires “players to learn a series of movements into and out of zones depending on where the ball, teammates and opposition are”.

Therefore, by splitting the training pitch into zones players are able to learn how and where to move relationally, so that on a matchday they can occupy the pitch in a balanced manner laterally and horizontally.

An example of positional play could be a full-back overlap when a winger cuts inside or vice-versa, with triggers dictated by the movement of teammates.

The three main goals are to achieve numerical superiority (overloads), qualitative superiority (isolating your best players against the opponent’s weaknesses) and positional superiority (getting into opportune areas).

See this example of the second option below, as Ryan Kent remains as wide as possible to create a one-v-one.

It will take more time to learn the extent to which van Bronckhorst wants his team to play positionally and this winter break time will offer preferential room to not rush the introduction of such guiding principles.

However, his willingness to translate ideas through differing mediums has allowed the league leaders to adapt to a new style quickly. His presentations in the meeting room and work on the training pitch is collaborating to rewrite Rangers' tactical blueprint.