Good morning analysis fans and welcome to the #TacticalThursday newsletter – full of analysis, scouting and tactics. Fill up on your football knowledge – follow the Total Football Analysis page and be part of the squad that want better tactical analysis, data and scouting in their world.

We’ve spent some time this week reviewing interesting arrivals in the winter window and today Brandon Liss looks at five in the Belgian Pro League – always a good league to monitor in terms of who they are bringing in.

Neil Warnock is now the Aberdeen manager, breaking the hearts of any Championship clubs who had him pencilled in as Plan B if needed – Alexandra Hunt looks at how Warnock has evolved and what that could mean we see at Pittodrie from the remainder of the season.

Saturday brings us a key clash in the La Liga title race – Real Madrid play Girona. Jack Chippendale tactically previews the game looking at Real’s main weakness and Girona’s defensive line.

ICYMI yesterday, it was Women’s Football Wednesday. Arsenal slipped up against West Ham in the WSL at the weekend – David Astill analysed the match to see what went wrong for the Gunners and how the Hammers exploited their faults.

Jamie Steenberg went deep into the numbers of the UCWL – unveiling the data-driven stars of the group stages.

Selim Ben Hmida looked at Suzanne Bakker’s tactics at Ajax following the surprise announcement not to renew her contract at the end of the season.

From the archives, Fintan suggests;

Nigeria are on their way to the AFCON 2023 Final. Their top goalscorer for the tournament so far is Ademola Lookman — take a trip back to 2019 with our vintage scout report and see what we had to say about the current Atalanta man after he made his move from Everton to RB Leipzig.

Sebastien Haller scored Ivory Coast’s only goal of the game versus DR Congo yesterday to send them through to the final as well, our 2019 scout report analysed his game before playing for West Ham United.

Union Berlin drew 1-1 away at Mainz in yesterday’s Bundesliga action. After earning UEFA Champions League qualification last season, they’re fighting to stay above the drop zone this term. A year ago, we analysed how their use of set-pieces was crucial to their ascent up to Germany’s elite.

Hansi Flick has thrown his name in the hat for next Barcelona coach, stating he “would love to work for” the Catalan giants. We broke down his positional play at FC Bayern.

And that’s it for today – we’ll be back tomorrow with more pieces old and new about everything analysis in the football world.

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