I'll post this one here as well
For me, there's clearly something wrong with the training and tactics, i don't see any other decent alternatives that would explain the overall lack of movement around the player that has the ball. There's no obvious system in place, which is the normal occurance and not just a result of who plays. Given what we see in matches and what Hazard has said earlier about Mourinho and trainings, it's not exactly unfair to suggest that we're not focusing on movement around the player with the ball.
There were a few decent debates about it in the studio after the match, with clips of what happens when a United midfielder get the ball, how the distance to a teammate increases because we need the player on the ball to create something on his own. It's easily visible when a player is moving down either flank with the ball, how the teammates line up at the edge of the box, waiting for the player to cross the ball so they can go into the box, there's very rarely any passing options.
Alternatively look at the screengrabs below:
There's absolutely no movement as a team. In the first picture, Lingard should be much closer to Ashley Young, Mata should be looking at getting in behind.
In the second picture, Young has passed the ball backwards to Lingard who rolls it to Mata, what are the passing options afterwards. What should happen is that Pereira should move towards Mata to make himself available for the pass, Lingard should continue his run in central to be a passing option for Pereira while Pogba should run into space in front of their box to make himself available to receive a pass from Lingard.
What happens ? Oh, we roll it sideways to Pogba
What passing options does Pogba have ? None, so he lets the ball run sideways to Valencia
Who has no passing options. Pereira should bust a gut to be the forward passing option for Valencia, but it never happens. The only time a player passes the ball and goes on a run to receive it, is when Valencia passes it back to Pogba, Pogba passes it to Valencia again and runs into space but never gets the ball.
Same with the situation i commented on earlier when Pogba had a go with his left foot, there's no passing options:
It's absolutely insane how we fail to take advantage of that situation due to poor movement. :
- Rashford correctly plays the ball to Pereira who makes a bit of a stupid choice when he passes it to Lingard instead of Pogba
-Lingard makes an even worse choice when he slows the tempo further with his pass to Pogba
-to make matters worse, Lingard goes in central instead of staying wide
- end result is that Pogba is closed down by 4 valencia players, while there are two United players ahead of him in Lingard and Rashford who are both operating in the same narrow space, with Pereira as a useless passing option
For me, it's pretty damn obvious that we aren't moving as a team, there should always be a bare minimum of two available players that can receive the pass, which should again create two new options, you constantly move the ball around the pitch creating passing options and you move the ball forward.
We're not doing that at all, and considering it's been the case for quite some time it's difficult to suggest that it's not due to current management.
