Scottish-born, Jack Iredale, has spent time at the AIS, Perth Glory and had a brief stint at ECU Joondalup but it was with Greenock Morton in the Scottish Championship where he got his first taste of being a professional footballer. Now playing in the English third division with Cambridge United, it’s been a slow and steady rise for the versatile defender with a penchant for scoring a spectacular goal.
Cambridge, as a promoted team, were one of the favourites to go down but are surprising many with only being a few points off the top half. It appears that League One is a level that suits The U’s and Jack well.
With the help of Jack, we took a look at his progression from the Scottish Championship to the English Championship and everything in between. Jack’s insight gives a unique perspective and context to the analytical data from his performances.
First we looked at his league performances at left back at each club, from his final season at Greenock Morton to his current season in League One. Below is a graph of the statistical value of Jack broken into ATT (attack), DEF (defence) and FB (full back specific actions), as well as his WR (actions per minute) and SWR (successful actions per minute).
We can see that at Greenock (18/19) and Carlisle (19/20), Jack was the most active but the value came more in his defending than in attack. Both teams struggled for wins in their respective seasons, although Morton were able to grind out some draws which helped their league position.
His time at Cambridge United has been his best value wise even though he’s been less active. This current season in particular has been his best by far as his attacking contribution is better balanced to his defence despite the step up in level.
“This year is definitely the best football I’ve ever played,”said Jack.
“I changed a lot of things off the pitch around Christmas time last year such as diet and mentality stuff which has helped me massively.
“And the consistency of playing every week has helped. Last season I was in and out but this season I’ve played every minute.”
Some areas that has seen a lot of improvement since moving to Cambridge has been his dribbling and his distribution into the final third. This season his passing into the final third has improved by more than 10% and that can be seen in his overall attacking value.
“I do love to have a run when I get the ball out wide.”
“I identified a few areas I could improve on with the coaching staff and have worked on them constantly since being at Cambridge, so it’s nice to see it paying off.”
The lower WR, especially for a defender, can be explained as much by how the opposition plays than his own team. Cambridge have the second lowest possession in the league with 42.3% which is normal when a counter attacking team faces possession based teams. Even as Cambridge finished second last season to win promotion, they only enjoyed 47% of the possession.
“League One has a lot more possession based, slower build up teams so there’s been a shift towards a more tactical setup in terms of off the ball positioning.”
This style of offence while defensively trying to win the ball back as quickly as possible by the opposition explains why Jack’s actions per minute are down.
He’s recently been required to fill in at centre back so we compared his time in both positions from this season. We can see that playing at full back has seen a much better balance between attacking value and defensive value and he’s both more active and provides more value at full back than at centre back. He’s defensive value at centre back is quite good.
“Left back is my preferred position but I played centre back in Australia so I’m relatively comfortable there,” explained Jack.
This experience and being 186cm and 84kg gives him the ability to handle the position and his improved aerial duel success playing centrally has contributed to a higher defensive value.
“When I’m playing at left back, I’m encouraged to get high up the pitch and support the wingers.
“We’re a high crossing team and a lot of our attacks go through our wings.”
“At centre back, I have to be as aggressive as possible in my duels and try to bring some control on turnovers, finding a pass to a full back or midfielder instead of panicking and clearing the ball.”
Cambridge like to play variations of a 4-5-1 but it depends on the opposition as well as squad availability. They also like to exploit their pace out wide on the counter attack
“Either we have one sitting midfielder and two more advanced or we can flip that the other way. One thing we are good at as a team is adapting to different play styles.
“If we need to roll our sleeves up and get stuck in we do that really well and we’ve been improving a great deal on being able to bring control to the game when we get the ball back.”
So far so good for Cambridge United and Jack in League One. Jack’s individual success and continued improvement has fueled his ambition, with an eye on the national team. If his statistical value continues to improve with his hard work, it might not be too long before more people back home learn the name, Jack Iredale.
