If I was to ask you to sum up United as a club in terms of tactics, you'd say two things wouldn't you? 4-4-2 and Wingers.
As a club we've always been blessed with great wingers, Meredith, Spence, Best, Coppell are names that spring up from the past and in the Ferguson era and it becomes very obvious how he likes his wingers you have the likes of Sharpe, Kanchelskis, Giggs, Beckham and Ronaldo and more recently Nani, Young and Valencia.
When you have that quality of Winger at your dispense, your tactics are dictated as such, or you are dictating your tactics as such.
United, rightly in my opinion have played 4-4-2 in all but the biggest and European games. Even in those games when at Old Trafford we have sometimes still favoured it.
It allows two strikers to work as a partnership, two midfielders to work as a partnership and two wingers to stretch the play and be the focus of our distribution. The midfielders role is actually very limited in terms of play. It's why Scholes in his latter years and Carrick now excel, it asks for limited mobility, limited creativity and limited defensive play. Their role is to distribute and contain which is something both are up there with the best in the world at doing. I'd argue that Scholes was the best in the world at it around 06-08 and he isn't far off now.
So what is the problem with this? Well we've seen it against any team that looks to press our midfield, it's like having a tap attached to a lawn full of sprinklers. Some teams run around madly trying to stop one sprinkler and in doing so it just makes another sprinkler spray out more water, they run to that sprinkler and the other one becomes more effective again. Some teams walk up to the tap and turn it down, or sometimes off. The sprinklers aren't getting much water out now. In simple terms, strangle our midfield and it doesn't matter how talented Rooney, Welbeck, Hernandez, Nani, Valencia or Young are on the ball if they aren't seeing the ball.
Newcastle did it, Ajax did it to an extent, Bilbao did it brilliantly, Wigan did too and City did it brilliantly on Monday night.
What worries me is that Ferguson isn't looking for a remedy to this, he's just looking to make us better at it. If reports are to be believed rather than looking for natural centre midfielders who are comfortable on the ball and comfortable creating or defending we are looking at the likes of Hazard and Guitan, players who will again rely on the source of that Tap in order to play their game.
Ferguson knows that with our 4-4-2 being played in the majority of our 60 game season, say 50 and 10 with a 3 man midfield that leaves just 130 starts to be spread out between:
Carrick, Scholes, Cleverley, Anderson, Giggs, possibly Fletcher and possibly Pogba next season.
Spread evenly that would be 18 starts each. When Carrick is going to start 40 of them, you can start to see why he thinks £30m and wages on a top Midfielder isn't "Value".
It's a conundrum though as not only is 4-4-2 and wingers ingrained in this clubs blood it also makes it very difficult to change your midfield supply.
Change it in any way and you upset the balance, bring in an attacking midfielder to provide some creativity in the way a player like Silva does and you end up with two attacking wingers, two strikers, an attacking midfielder and one man to take on defensive duties.
Bring in a defensive midfielder and you concede the central area just outside of your oppositions area which is generally regarded as the most important area on the field, tactically speaking. In doing this you isolate a striker as one has to drop deep which then sees you playing in something that is closer to a five man midfield and sees a man isolated up top.
So where do we go from here? Well let's just say I'll be surprised if Ferguson buys anything other than Wingers, Strikers or Defenders this year and we're left frustrated again. The key is going to be getting perennial sick notes Cleverley and Anderson fit. As we saw at the start of the season, two players who play with a quickness and mobility and careless abandon at times, not afraid to carry the ball but liable to the odd mistake. I think the secret will be getting an effective 4-5-1 again and using Valencia as a cautious approach with Young as an inside forward or Young in a more withdrawn role and Nani as an inside forward.
I'd settle for Rooney, Welbeck and Hernandez as our three front men and use the extra squad space and free wages of Berbatov to invest in a player like Martinez who is comfortable on the ball and capable of dropping back into the back four if needed, the thought that Ferguson has this as Jones future role terrifies me.
As a club we've always been blessed with great wingers, Meredith, Spence, Best, Coppell are names that spring up from the past and in the Ferguson era and it becomes very obvious how he likes his wingers you have the likes of Sharpe, Kanchelskis, Giggs, Beckham and Ronaldo and more recently Nani, Young and Valencia.
When you have that quality of Winger at your dispense, your tactics are dictated as such, or you are dictating your tactics as such.
United, rightly in my opinion have played 4-4-2 in all but the biggest and European games. Even in those games when at Old Trafford we have sometimes still favoured it.
It allows two strikers to work as a partnership, two midfielders to work as a partnership and two wingers to stretch the play and be the focus of our distribution. The midfielders role is actually very limited in terms of play. It's why Scholes in his latter years and Carrick now excel, it asks for limited mobility, limited creativity and limited defensive play. Their role is to distribute and contain which is something both are up there with the best in the world at doing. I'd argue that Scholes was the best in the world at it around 06-08 and he isn't far off now.
So what is the problem with this? Well we've seen it against any team that looks to press our midfield, it's like having a tap attached to a lawn full of sprinklers. Some teams run around madly trying to stop one sprinkler and in doing so it just makes another sprinkler spray out more water, they run to that sprinkler and the other one becomes more effective again. Some teams walk up to the tap and turn it down, or sometimes off. The sprinklers aren't getting much water out now. In simple terms, strangle our midfield and it doesn't matter how talented Rooney, Welbeck, Hernandez, Nani, Valencia or Young are on the ball if they aren't seeing the ball.
Newcastle did it, Ajax did it to an extent, Bilbao did it brilliantly, Wigan did too and City did it brilliantly on Monday night.
What worries me is that Ferguson isn't looking for a remedy to this, he's just looking to make us better at it. If reports are to be believed rather than looking for natural centre midfielders who are comfortable on the ball and comfortable creating or defending we are looking at the likes of Hazard and Guitan, players who will again rely on the source of that Tap in order to play their game.
Ferguson knows that with our 4-4-2 being played in the majority of our 60 game season, say 50 and 10 with a 3 man midfield that leaves just 130 starts to be spread out between:
Carrick, Scholes, Cleverley, Anderson, Giggs, possibly Fletcher and possibly Pogba next season.
Spread evenly that would be 18 starts each. When Carrick is going to start 40 of them, you can start to see why he thinks £30m and wages on a top Midfielder isn't "Value".
It's a conundrum though as not only is 4-4-2 and wingers ingrained in this clubs blood it also makes it very difficult to change your midfield supply.
Change it in any way and you upset the balance, bring in an attacking midfielder to provide some creativity in the way a player like Silva does and you end up with two attacking wingers, two strikers, an attacking midfielder and one man to take on defensive duties.
Bring in a defensive midfielder and you concede the central area just outside of your oppositions area which is generally regarded as the most important area on the field, tactically speaking. In doing this you isolate a striker as one has to drop deep which then sees you playing in something that is closer to a five man midfield and sees a man isolated up top.
So where do we go from here? Well let's just say I'll be surprised if Ferguson buys anything other than Wingers, Strikers or Defenders this year and we're left frustrated again. The key is going to be getting perennial sick notes Cleverley and Anderson fit. As we saw at the start of the season, two players who play with a quickness and mobility and careless abandon at times, not afraid to carry the ball but liable to the odd mistake. I think the secret will be getting an effective 4-5-1 again and using Valencia as a cautious approach with Young as an inside forward or Young in a more withdrawn role and Nani as an inside forward.
I'd settle for Rooney, Welbeck and Hernandez as our three front men and use the extra squad space and free wages of Berbatov to invest in a player like Martinez who is comfortable on the ball and capable of dropping back into the back four if needed, the thought that Ferguson has this as Jones future role terrifies me.
