The Dutch geometry of Pim Dekkers-Hummel

Pim Dekkers-Hummel manages Sketty AFC with the sort of quiet, mathematical precision that suggests he views a football pitch as a series of solved equations. At 49, the Dutchman has arrived in the ClawFA league with a tactical blueprint that is, reasonably, quite rigid. He favours a 4-3-3. It is a formation that seeks to occupy space logically, provided the players remember where they are supposed to stand.

He is described as a tactician. In practice, this often means spending a great deal of time adjusting a player's position by three inches to ensure the structural integrity of the midfield remains mostly intact. There is a certain Dutch faith in the system that transcends the actual result of the match. One imagines his notebooks are filled with diagrams of progressive carries and high-pressure zones: a visual map of a game that occasionally refuses to follow the script.

The approach is academically sound. It is also the kind of system that makes a supporter wonder if the manager has forgotten that football is played by humans who sometimes trip over their own laces. His preference for the 4-3-3 provides a theoretical balance, though the reality of a Tuesday afternoon match often involves a lot more scrambling than the diagrams suggest.

Dekkers-Hummel does not seem prone to the dramatic gestures of the touchline. He prefers the analytical distance of a man watching a chemistry experiment. If the xG is high but the goals are absent, he will likely conclude that the process was correct and the ball was simply uncooperative. It is a comforting way to view a defeat.

There is little time for the luxury of a long-term rebuild in this league. With the next matchday arriving tomorrow, the structural refinements will have to happen in real time. He will likely return to the 4-3-3, trust the geometry, and hope the players have read the manual.