Ashleigh Plumptre: 'I think there are so many ways to play in the modern game, the way it’s evolving'
Pressing Questions #6: Ashleigh Plumptre
The Women’s Super League has been a season fitted with twists and turns throughout. What seemed like a straightforward affair both at the top and bottom of the league has now transformed into a riveting end to the season. One team that is adding to the hype is championship winners Leicester City. Their relegation looked to have been an inevitability with the start they had but they’ve pulled themselves out from the depths, like Frodo on the steps of Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings novels.
Their recent resurgence has come courtesy of some diligent defending with their back-three providing a solid foundation. Jemma Purfield and Sophie Howard have stood out, but it’s Ashleigh Plumptre the 23-year-old Nigerian international that has really been an underrated success so far.
Plumptre’s insights into her first WSL season is eye-catching and it explores the intricacies of playing in two different divisions. I delve deep into the tactical mind she has to offer whilst also understanding her mindset.
I hope you enjoy the sixth instalment in the Pressing Questions series.
First things first, we're going to start very simple. How would you kind of describe your position and your role in your own words? Like, you know, what are you on the pitch?
Yeah, well, for me, I'm a left-sided centre-back and I guess that this is the first season really where I've played consistently in back-three or back-five, depending on how our attacking or defensive we are. Up until now when I've played as a centre-back, which I've only been playing at centre-back for three years, kind of relatively new for me.
I’ve always been in back-four, even though, for me anyway, both positions actually seemed quite different. In a back-three, I feel like I've got more ability to go forward a little bit, it's less because you always have your central and right-back always supporting you.
But for me as a player, I think my game actually adapted a little bit when I was in the Championship. I guess my most dangerous asset so to speak was my diagonal long balls. For some reason, in the Championship they just find it hard to deal with. But if I'm totally honest, my attacking game now is, I'm obviously out-and-out as a defender, you want to be the best defender you can be, but now in the modern game, you're – it's almost like, like taking American football [as an example] like your quarterback, they always start the attack, whereas that's defenders now, we have a job to start the attack.
For me, that's where, as I've got higher up in the game, and I'm against better opposition, I've realised that I need to be better attacking-wise because sometimes it's your defenders who are given the time that actually can exploit the space in behind the opposition or kind of do that penetrative pass to break lines. So that's been the biggest challenge I guess so far. But defensively, yeah, I learned how to be a defender in America when I was a kid. I'm going on a bit of a tangent now. I was a forward until age 17-18. Can't imagine playing there now.
So you transitioned from being a forward into a defender, how did that transition happen to centre-back?
Um, so I've been a left-winger, literally up until I was in America. So I must have been about 18-19 when I then started to play as a defender. So I was always left-winger or left-mid even now like, I can't think about playing there. I don't know, I just feel like I'm an out-and-out defender even like, the way that I'm built, the way that I like to defend and use my body. I just don't know how I was ever a winger, you know? Yeah, right. When I was in America, obviously, as you go through in the college system anyway.
Every year you lose a whole class. So we lost our right-back. So I was like, let's put you there. I'm still gonna give you the licence to go forward. I'm like, okay, great, cool. Then I remember loving when I played right but I loved, you know – get pinned to the sideline, get my body in, and use the outside of my foot to kind of like, protect the ball and spin back off again. I used to love doing that. And I really like right-back and I remember saying to my coach while I was in America... I said to him, and I was like, “I love playing here” because at first, I was tentative going into that position playing at right-back, but then I said to him “next season, I know Ally Prisock is leaving”, and she played as a centre-back for us. She was leaving, I said to my coach, I'm like “I know what you're thinking. I know you want to try me there because we're losing Ally”. I'm like, “I just can't do it”. I kept thinking like centre-back is that one position you can’t screw up. “They're going to score and yeah, it will completely affect me mentally. I can't do it. I know you're gonna try and put me there but I just can't”.
And then I think Ally left in the following spring. [My coach] is like “Ash, not putting any pressure on you, I just want you to try it”. I felt like in America, I could see the game quite well, but I would never verbalise it. So I was never very vocal, but obviously, as a centre-back, you always have to be communicating. And when I first moved there and that spring my coach kept saying to me was like ‘say everything you're thinking’ because, after a training session, I'll say I saw this, this. So he was like, “so why didn't you say it?”. I'm like “because I'm not used to having to say it”. So like directing everybody in front of me, I knew where they should be, but I just couldn't get out in words.
That was my biggest challenge when I first moved there. Spring was pretty tough. It kind of took me a while to find my way in that position and then that fall is when I started playing centre-back. And now honestly, I cannot imagine being anywhere else. I think I actually played when I played with England at the youth levels, I was always a No. 11, always a left-winger and as I was joking with my teammates the other day, I'm like, “what on earth like I'm not a skilful player”.
I'm like, how? How? I wasn't even scoring headers at that age! But I think what I did have when I was younger is I was quite fast, not over like a short distance – because my legs are so long, I could kind of build up a lot of speed over a longer distance. So when you're younger, you don't have to, it was easy to outwork people, you kind of like play one-two and getting behind people or knock it past somebody and run. And I think that was more my game when I was younger. But yeah, now a defender, I can't imagine being anywhere else.
It's always fascinating to hear how, you know, players change from one completely random position to another position. And when you look at them play, you're like “I just know, how are you anything other than what you are right now”, which is hilarious. But it's good, I mean, I guess you got a perspective of playing in these different positions. So you played at right-back, but then how are you now playing at left centre-back?
Yeah. Um, so I moved. So it was right centre-back that I played in America initially. I don't remember the point where I switched to the left, I think they wanted me on the right in America because when crosses came in, I could always say that with my left foot being on the right side. But I’ve moved to the left. I don't actually remember that. It was better playing out from the back, I found it easy to play out of the left than the right. But the reason they put me [on the] right to begin with, 1) was because it was a like-for-like swap with Ally who left, and 2) just they were really emphasised, like being able to clear crosses with my left foot.
So you obviously know you've come up with the Championship, you're now playing in the WSL. I think, if I'm assuming rightly – and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think when you guys would have come up, you would have assumed you're gonna be playing a lot deeper, having less possession than you did when you were in the championship because you guys won the league, you would have been the more dominant side in most of the games.
How much of an adjustment was that in kind of going from contrasting styles, when we’re going from a possession-dominant side to someone who had to sit back and defend deep? How was that defending for you, and if I throw a couple of stats at you here: you are actually second for most aerial duels in the league right now. You're actually third for the most blocked shots, you are 15th for defensive deals done. But actually, you have the second-highest success rate in the league so far.
So you've had 83 Aerial duels. I don't exactly know how many blocked shots, around 30 or 40, and that makes you third. So the frequency of actually going in for tackles is just about 93. But your success rate is about almost close to 80%, about 78.5 percent.
How have you adjusted from being a defender that's probably a bit more ball-playing in the championship to someone who has to defend more? Especially when you're actually topping a lot of these stats.
Yeah, um, gosh, yeah, I did not know. It's really interesting. Because I'm probably, well, I can't speak for a lot of players, but I am so self-critical all the time. Like, I'll always see what I've done wrong before what I've done well, so hearing that was, yeah, I guess actually quite nice and reassuring because obviously at the minute we're losing a lot and naturally I'm like, I look at myself, what can I do better? Okay, the second goal that went in yesterday [against Aston Villa] when they scored in like the 92nd minute, I watched the goal probably about 30 times because the ball kind of bounced, it was like a deflection. I don't know if you've seen it but I literally tried to reach for it and I just miss and I kept pausing on the part where like, I was here, and the ball was here and I'm like that's the difference between drawing and winning. That gets you, you know, but yeah, championship, I guess I wasn't. Yeah, I wasn't challenged as much as I am now. I mean, I would speak to my ex-coach who's now while she's like my best friend, but she used to be my coach and we always used to say that I think I probably got away with things that now in the WSL you can't do.
So if I think of an example like, I have to be better at holding the line with everybody else, be more aware of my positioning when the balls are higher up the pitch than what I did in the championship because I just expected that we would win at home. I didn't really have to do a lot to kind of get complacent. When the balls higher at the pitch, even if the ball’s, you know, 30-40 yards away from me, I'm having to communicate with like the people either side of me about their forwards who were on our halfway line, because in the second, we might not get a press right or they could play out and they could be straight into that one person and we're not switched on and that's when they can hold the ball up and turn.
I didn't really have that last year in the championship – obviously, every so often you do but, you know, if you make a mistake, there was [sic] always people around you. And there was never, it was like, we were always plus one. So I say like plus one is I find marking somebody that was already sitting next to me, where if I screwed up, they'll be there and sometimes now in the WSL, sometimes everybody's occupied.
So especially if we're doing a high press, the one thing we wanted to do when we came to do so is not just become ‘that team’ that just sits, you know, sits really deep, blocks off channels, and just hopes to get draws – we want to be up there and competing. That's why you can see sometimes we're stepping up into what we want to press in teams, and people don't really expect that from us.
We've learned our lesson. Sometimes when you are that daring, that's when you're exposed if you don't get the press right, and they get in behind on the wings and get good crosses in. Yeah, so for us – it's more for me personally – I have to be okay with, you know, what I matched at one-for-one, so is the person next to me? And so is the person next to them. So I have a job now, to make sure that I deal with my players. If I don't, then my team are going to be overloaded. Whereas before I might mess up here, and I didn't think like this, but I could like potentially mistime a tackle. And don't worry, because Sam or Esmee [de Graaf] are behind me, whereas yeah, now I can't be like that.
So obviously that also comes from the difference between playing in a four-at-the-back last season and now when you're playing three-at-the-back. But which one do you kind of prefer to play in, the back-four or -three? I think you alluded to it in the first answer, you get to attack more obviously which comes out from your left-winger days. Also, are you in the back three in charge of playing out those diagonal balls? Are you the main one playing it out, or is one of the other partners doing that role?
Yes, interesting. I was watching the game back this morning against Villa. I recognise I don't actually do those ‘diags’ (diagonals) that I did last year. I don't know whether it's a confidence thing, the way that we're able to play out more now that I have more options that I don't necessarily utilise it as much, but I want to get that back in my game to make my play a bit more unpredictable and harder to play against.
So we're in a back-three and they're some teams end up pressing with a front-two or three, so sometimes it's at the minute it's me and Sophie Howard on the other side, we can both stretch them; sometimes it's Abbie McManus in the middle, and when she plays to me or Sophie it's like kind of dragging them out so then we can play back to Abbie to make those ‘diags’. Sometimes, because she's a central one, I guess they're a little bit more unpredictable because you don't know if she's gonna go left or right. Sometimes if we're set up like she's [McManus] the deep one, and Sophie and I are here (wider centre-backs) when she plays it to us we're almost closer to pressure anyway.
So like when we receive it, it's probably easier to play like a pattern, well it's what works for me anyway. This is where I need to be better is you can tell when I'm winding up to do a diag. When I played with Remi Allen who now plays for Aston Villa. She always tried to emphasise to me how beneficial the disguise to be in my game because I think it would then be like for me with my long limbs [that] when I wind up it's like right, they've dropped and now they can defend the long ball which again in the Championship they probably didn't pick up quick enough, but in the WSL now if I do that ‘diag’, they can read that and head it on.
To answer your question though, when I first started playing in the back three in preseason, I actually really struggled. I don't know why, I think my confidence was down anyway, in pre-season, I just was nervous a lot like when I get down into the WSL. Obviously, it’s a big step up and I probably put too much pressure on myself. And because of that, when I played in a back-three, I wasn't as aggressive or composed on the ball. But now that I’ve played in it for longer, I do quite like it. I do, I just think, now for me, I know I'm playing as a centre-back, but I do think I can be a little bit more daring and in that sense, I think I could have more of an impact going forward.
Whereas when I played as a left-sided centre-back in a back-four, you can step out but you're normally like, for me anyway, I'm stepping out vertically. Whereas when I'm playing now a bit further out, I'm actually stepping in either vertically or on the diagonal. So I can run in to then play Jemma [Purfield], like our left wing-back with my right foot. Just for me, it's just taking time to be able to be more confident in doing that, but I think there are so many ways to play in the modern game, the way it’s evolving, I think there are so many options offensively and defensively – like yesterday, when we switched our tactics because we were overloaded in the midfield.
I don't normally talk about like tactics that much.
Are you enjoying it? [we laugh]
I do. I gotta be honest like I've always loved football. I love watching football. But I'm not like a football – like a fanatic. You know, there's people who like, live and breathe football. I'm not like that and I don't know, I'm interested in so many sports. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I love watching sporting success documentaries and I’ll cry to every single one of them. Because it's like, it's the foundation of who people are as athletes that gets to me, which is why I was drawn to Americans, because there, they are athletes that then based on their athleticism are directed into a certain sport. So all of lockdown I was in, I watched the All Blacks, the rugby one. I watched the Test, which is the Australian cricket one. The Last Dance with Michael Jordan, all of them. Honestly, I'm more of a sporting fan than an out-and-out football fan. But yeah, it's nice talking about it anyway.
Yesterday, the Villa game, I was like, we were alone in the middle. So at halftime, we were talking about, like, some of us in the backline. We weren't dealing with anybody. So we'd be like 3 versus 1 and because of that, there's an overload of the midfield. So how can we get me, Abbie, or Sophie, how would I be able to step onto the midfield and how can we shift across or become more compact. So then we prevent the passing line rather than allowing them the extra player to play through and play out. So yeah, we finally got there at the end of that, and I think, you know, if we'll probably quicker to do that in the first half, it might have changed the game a little bit. But that's the thing fine margins in top-level football. That's the difference.
That's fine. I mean, again, we're looking at the table, you just, it's just you and Birmingham, it's so 50-50. Like literally anybody could stay up. I think you'll get a couple of big wins. I think it's coming. Just like the big one a couple of weeks ago, I think there's a couple more in the tank. That's my personal reading on the whole thing.
But, I was looking at your heat map, I was thinking, okay, so you talk about being aggressive in general and you talk about being able to be more aggressive in the back-three because I'm looking at the heatmap, you've actually even had activity in the opposition half from left centre-back, which kind of surprised me a little bit, but didn't at the same time because again, I'm looking at a team that's playing a little bit deeper, that's playing on the back foot a little bit more, but you're actually being able to be more aggressive in the system.
For example, you see full-backs now being able to become wing-backs coming inside and being present centrally. You look at Lucy Bronze who really is when she's playing at right-back, actually plays almost like an interior defensive midfielder with her kind of movements that are a lot more inside.
What do you think about maybe being an aggressive centre-back but also being able to step up into midfield and kind of play as an auxiliary midfielder? What do you think of that sort of concept?
Because I'm looking at your map, you almost play like a midfielder because to me, it almost looks like a midfielders heat map. If you can see it there. But this is you this season in the WSL you're playing in these areas here. But again, these are like positions that a defensive midfielder would pick up. So do you try and even transition into maybe being an almost a hyper-aggressive centre-back? Or even like a defensive midfielder? What do you think of that?
Do you know what, I haven't even thought about that? I think because I'm very much a person who, if I'm given like, a task or a role to do in the team, I just kind of focus on that. And like I said, I wasn't even aware of that. Obviously, I watched my games back. But I don't, I don't think… oh, like, it's just how my brain works. I don't think ‘oh, I'm in the midfield here. How can I be more of a threat in there’. And I think, partly because of our results as well this season, you naturally don't want to; I'm not taking as many risks as I should, but sometimes with risk comes reward. So yeah, I guess that's something I could potentially work on.
For me again, as I said earlier, I can't imagine being in the midfield or as a winger again, so it will be an adjustment. But looking at that, I mean, yeah, it would be cool to do that. I just think if I do, then I would need some kind of cover because if we do lose a ball there, then we are exposed. Where – let's say the wing-back and I have stepped up – that would be quite a big gap in behind.
Yeah, well, then that's obviously where your defensive midfielder is and your centre-backs would shift across and kind of because if the attack is coming from the left, everybody would just kind of have to shift across naturally to the left. But anyway, I will. I can break down tactics later. But yeah, so it kind of… I mean, you've already answered this.
How do you, and your centre-backs in this case, complement each other in terms of the roles that you play? So how do you feel like you benefit from the other to playing a different role and kind of vice versa?
I feel like I always hype [up] Abbie McManus a lot. I think just because she has experience and I haven't really played alongside a lot of people who have hers. She's obviously played internationally with England. She played at Man City, she played at Man United, at Tottenham, and even on the training pitch, she's the one out of all of us on the team who sees things and cannot just see, like, a lot of people have questions. They're like, ‘Oh, this is happening, that is happening’. But she always, whether it's right or wrong, she'll be the one to find a solution. So she should ask questions that other people don't. She is – I don't feel like she sees herself like this – but she is a leader in my opinion, especially on the pitch.
So, I think Abby and I are quite different. So I’ll just talk about the centre-backs I’m playing with at the minute. Sophie Howard and I are quite aggressive. Howard is a very good header of the ball, likes to step in, likes to be aggressive and Abby is… who can I compare Abby to? For some reason, like Vincent Kompany – I'm thinking of a good vocal leader, sees the game really well. But she would agree with me, she doesn't like to run a lot, even though she does. She doesn't like to run, which I agree with.
She said before [that] the best centre-backs do the least running in the right position. Granted, I actually like, I like to be able to, I don't know why… maybe it's because I used to be an attacking player. I don't know. So yeah, you could say that. I'm probably in the wrong position because I'm running a lot. She's the one that kind of runs the line and is the vocal one whereas Sophie Howard and I are more aggressive and then if we're including like the wing-backs in this, Jemma's [Purfield] left-footed like I am and she's got a very consistent left foot but she is our set-piece taker and she scored yesterday from it. And then Esmee is slight, fit, fast, and can get a tackle in. So Esmee is one of those people who sometimes [will] be reactive to things, but because she's so fast she can make up ground really quick and kind of get back in position quicker than anybody else. I’m trying to think who is the quickest on the team and I probably say Esmee.
I think in a sense it's good that we all bring different qualities. I think we're all as a back-five just using them. I think we're all very different and if you include Georgia Brougham in the mix, she hasn't played much recently, but again, she's very experienced and, gosh, an unbelievable team player. Like she would be one of those who would happily put her hands up and say, if she's not good enough to play that moment, she will know her role as a sub, always offer advice, or in training, if she's not on the starting team, she'll be the one to ask us in the starting team, ‘what do you want us to do? To make it harder for you or to figure out things’. Not too many people are like that, I think in the professional game. But yeah, Georgia Brougham is a different kind of player because she's super good with her feet. She doesn't really back herself with speed, although I do think she is quick. But yeah, technically really good. Like, you know those people who don’t move the ball but move their body which moves other people? She's very, very good at that. All very different.
That's good. I mean you kind of need that, everyone's got their own speciality, but it all just works as a back-five. Another centre-back I was thinking of is Thiago Silva, you look at him now, he's 37 and doesn't run, but he's in the right place at the right time, all the time. And he's the one in the same back three, kind of got the same role. So I can see how Kompany, Silva, and all of these players are similar.
The last thing is I'm going to show you two clips of you in-game. I just want you to talk through your decision-making, about what you were thinking at that moment and kind of why you were doing that.
This is against Everton early in the season. So Everton are on the attack. It goes in the middle, and then into Claire Emslie and you're right there pressing into her, and then you get it out. So what are you thinking when the ball is coming out from the back? It's getting into Claire Emslie, and then so you really pushing out?
Oh, yeah, If I'm able to get touch-tight with somebody, I love to, because I think I have an advantage anyway because of how tall I am. I really am quite a nuisance with my arms and my legs. I do like to use my physicality when I play. I always feel like if I've got somebody that close to me, I can find a way to use it.
I was taught this in America actually. So it sounds quite childish, but my coaches would always talk about using what was called ‘the chicken wings’. So obviously, you can't literally grab somebody and pull them down. But you can direct a player by using your forearm, though, a lot of the time I'll step in and push them using this part of my arm [points to her forearm]. It means that they either have to go back or they can't spin me because then if they… if they come this way, then I can use my arm to push them back. Or if they can't really because they're gonna hit this side of my head, it's really hard to explain, but they'll always call it ‘the chicken wing’ because you're actually able to direct people. So I love being able to get contact like that. But I think for me, that's the prime example where there could be an overload in midfield and one of us are freed up then they can just turn and run at us and I was just thinking ‘let's get there before she’s able to turn’.
That's good. You did force them back and they have to restart their attack as she goes all the way back again. So I guess you did exactly what you wanted to do, which is amazing. And now the second clip is against Arsenal. This ball comes in here and it goes into [Vivanne] Miedema and now it's you versus Miedema. How do you stop a forward like Miedema in a position like this? I know there are a lot of people there. But then how difficult is it in a 1 v 1 like that with her?
Yeah, do you know I'd actually respond pretty similarly, because I was thinking was, ‘this girl can shoot with both feet and you give her the half a step and she'll get shot off’. So I wasn't necessarily thinking about, like, full-on tackling her. I was just thinking ‘do not allow her any gap to be able to get a shot in’. I think you can see as well I kind of probably was using my arm again while she’s getting the ball under control. She's kind of balancing on-off, on-off. So it's obviously harder to get a shot off that way. So if I could just keep nudging, I thought that that would probably prevent a shot.
And you blocked it. And this is why you're the third-highest shot-blocker in the league!
Cover Photo by Charlotte Stacey
Photo by James Holyoak/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Photo by Tom Dulat/Getty Images
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