My thoughts exactly. I'm curious as to how these fans would react if the wins had been spread out more evenly. I remember that at one point during the great run, there was a table saying we were top of the league on points since Ole took over. Not sure if there's still a similar table around but i sure would like to find out in which position we are in right now. Ole's record since he took over stands at 16-4-9. Out of the 9 losses, 2 were from Barca, 1 each from PSG, Arsenal and City. Thats a win rate of about 55%. Ain't too bad actually. Things only started to derail after the PSG game and injuries crept up with us. I have this feeling where it seems the players thought the season was over after the PSG game. The comeback at PSG probably made us look better than we have been and we let that success got into our heads. Suddenly we are world beaters with this squad? And now when things have gone south again, its the manager's fault?
Anti Ole brigade man? Where the feck did I say I wan't him out or I'm anti Ole?
Our reserves play under Sbragia, and they're a unit. I never said we should let the whole team play. I'm not going to judge Gomes for example based on what Bernard does or how Tanner does.
This. In the first years of Pep and Klopp, City and Liverpool defenses were leaking really badly, because it's incredibly demanding compared to just packing your own box. Moyes wanted us to play low, LvG just wanted us to keep the ball, while Jose again wanted us to lay low and compact. Almost none of our defenders are used to playing high press, high line which only leaves us with two choices: Either coach them into the new system or get new players who are comfortable playing that way. Until Liverpool got Van Dijk, they were incredibly shaky at the back and we look the same
I watch the reserves. Greenwood is ready. Gomes is not a million miles away. The rest arent ready imo. I'm certainly not going to throw a fit over O'Connor v Young at this moment in time.
Maybe even Moyes, 11 years with Everton, season with West Ham, managed in La Liga. Great experienced manager with pedigree!
So we put the fitness and lack of players excuse till he get the sack due to poor results? When will people realize that most of the time it's the manager that is the driving force behind the results, and good tactics can hide the deficiencies of bad players. You can put the blind faith in of course, each to his own.
It's not really something unpopular though mate. We know our defence is shit, we know we leave an awful amount of space between the lines. You can check the highlights and not only the stills. Our off the ball positioning is shocking and has been during that bad patch. Closing our eyes to it won't change that.
A lot of people are happily forgetting that they reached Europa league final that year, beating us and Dortmund on the way to the finals.
Enough of this already we just have to agree to disagree. I can't sit here trying to convince someone the likes of those I mentioned are not good enough and should have been shown the door years ago. We were 12 points away from a 4th spot, we literally had nothing to lose giving some of the younger ones a chance. We now finished outside top 4 anyway and giving the young ones some experience in the process would not hurt us in any way.
aye will do next time mate. Reckon it's a good analysis for some who want to look at it.
This. It's a myth that has been propagated by idiot top reds, you think Guardiola or Klopp will revert to park the bus football if their senior players go off injured? It's just like how it was with Mourinho, there were lot of people saying that if we had gotten him Wilian and Maguire we'd have been competing this year. It's absolutely silly.
You asked why they aren't pressing as much as before. I said fitness.
This is getting silly now, there would have been a lot more work before we signed OGS as a player.
Do you watch the resrves and youths? Maybe do that first.
My response is that it isn't fitness to not have a plan B when things aren't going your way.You asked why they aren't pressing as much as before. I said fitness.
And that was your response
Not sure I get your point here. He was given the job for 3 years. Not just for this season. This season was ruined by December.
Good analysis. Just goes to show its nothing to do with fitness or the players, it's TACTICAL. That last image, 3 players going to the ball, that is taught on the training pitch. Or players not following instructions.@SteveW @shamans
what is your take on these, would love to hear your opinion on our shape in those examples. Again blamed on fitness or?
Spaces between the lines
Anyone who has ever coached or played football knows that you need to protect the space between your defensive and midfield lines. This is especially true against teams like Barcelona. In the image below, I’ve highlighted United’s defensive setup just before Coutinho made it 3-0. Lionel Messi is on the ball in midfield and plays a sweeping pass out to Jordi Alba. He could, though, just as easily have threaded it into Coutinho or Luis Suárez who are positioned between United’s defence and midfield. The central midfield duo of Fred and McTominay both push towards the ball while the defence drops, creating that huge space between the lines.
Alba has just played the ball back to Coutinho (yellow). Lindelöf, Smalling and Jones have all dropped while left-back Ashley Young has been to slow to retreat. The same goes for Fred in midfield. This means Barca are actually 3 vs 3 against United’s remaining defenders just outside the penalty area after just two passes from their own half. Young’s positional weakness is highlighted here as he should have dropped alongside his fellow defenders and been somewhere around where I’ve put the empty white circle. Then United would have been 4 vs 3 and could have let Smalling step out to Coutinho. Now they can’t and Coutinho has enough time to score beautifully.
This is just one example but United consistently give up space between the lines and allow teams time on the ball just outside their own penalty area. This is due to the poorly synchronised collective movements out of possession, and the individual mistakes in terms of basic positioning made by so many of their defenders and central midfielders.
Horrible positioning around the box
However, what perhaps is most startling for a team at United’s level is the horrible positioning around their penalty area. What I’ll look at now is truly amateur stuff. It seems laughable when you remember this team defended so well positionally as a collective at home against Liverpool and away to Chelsea and PSG.
Let’s start with a situation from the Manchester derby last week. Raheem Sterling has the ball and is up against Young. You can see United’s back-five in pretty good positions at this point.
In the image below, Sterling has now started to drive infield. Young (white) should just pass him onto Pereira (yellow) at this point. United are still in good positions to defend at this point with seven players behind the ball.
As you see below, Pereira has been easily beaten. Young has continued to follow Sterling’s run inside and now looks to put pressure on the winger. Please have a look at United’s back-five. It’s possible that you’ve never seen a back-five in these positions. Look at Smalling in particular who has dropped four yards deeper than his fellow centre-backs and plays Agüero and Silva onside.
As Sterling plays the ball to Gündogan, the German has a great chance to play a one-touch pass to David Silva who is onside all alone just in front of goal due to Smalling’s ridiculous positioning. United were lucky that he didn’t see this pass. If he had, Silva and Agüero would be 2 vs 1 against Smalling just outside the six-yard box. United have nine players here in the central area of the pitch but are poorly positioned as a collective.
United’s defensive players are consistently guilty of chasing the ball rather than keeping their positions around the box. The game against Watford provided plenty of examples of this. The image below highlights Roberto Pereyra as he has just received the ball. Young (white) is immediately attracted to the Argentinian. Smalling (blue) decides to pick up the run from Deulofeu into space behind Young.
Preferably, Young would have stayed in position, allowed Smalling to step up and picked up the run of Deulofeu. As it was, they changed positions. As the image below shows, this is still no issue. Smalling (yellow) provides pressure on the ball while Young (white) covers in as a centre-back.
This is where the ridiculousness kicks in again. The ball is played inside to Pereyra (blue) again. Smalling is still wide right having pressed Deulofeu. Young steps up to Pereyra. Nemanja Matić (black), United’s defensive midfielder, has now decided to leave his position and move very deep alongside Jones. When Will Hughes makes a run into this vacated space centrally, United’s left-back Luke Shaw (yellow) makes an unexplainable decision. He leaves his position (empty yellow circle) to mark Hughes. As Abdoulaye Doucouré makes a run into this space, Paul Pogba (white) is forced to go with him. So, rather than Shaw staying in his position and Pogba in his, United now have Shaw in central midfield and Pogba at left-back.
The ball is transferred to Deulofeu who cuts inside. As you see below, United have now a situational back-six. It reads, from right to left, Smalling-Young-Matić-Shaw-Jones-Pogba. With Herrera pressing Deulofeu, United have NO ONE defending the space outside the box. This is spectacularly unorganised at a level I’ve rarely seen at any level.
Luke Shaw has impressed with his individual defending in many games. His positional sense, however, leaves a lot to be desired. The image below highlights this perfectly well. For some reason, he has decided to mark Hughes four yards behind the rest of his teammates. As Jones, Young and Smalling have all changed positions in this situation, United are already disorganised. Shaw’s position means United have no cover on their left. Shaw should be somewhere around where I’ve put the black circle. Now, United have no player defending the left half of their penalty area and Watford create a chance from which Janmaat should have done better.
Finally, United also showcased these positional issues against West Ham. The image below shows the build-up for West Ham’s goal. At first, United’s defenders are in decent positions. Smalling (white) provides pressure on the ball while the other three provide cover behind him. Preferably, I’d have liked Jones a bit deeper, in the black circle, but it’s still a decent setup.
What then happens is symptomatic for United’s structural positional issues around their own box. As you see below, Smalling (white) now provides cover for Dalot as Lanzini has received the ball on West Ham’s left. This job should be done by Fred or Mata. Smalling, as the ball-near centre-back, should move back into the position highlighted to defend the first-post area. This would allow Jones to defend the middle of the goal and Rojo the back-post area. Mata and Pogba are too lazy to get back into the correct positions. This leaves United defending the cross 2 vs 2 when they should always have a numerical advantage in their own box. As it happens, Rojo’s individual defending is perhaps even worse than the collective as he allows Anderson to get to the cross first despite spending eight seconds looking straight at the Brazilian.
Man-orientated defending causing issues
When United enjoyed a good run and defended really well, they did so with an organised positional approach where each player kept their position rather than marking the closest opponent. Recently, however, the old Mourinho habits of chasing the ball and opponents have crept back into the players with plenty of them now making consistently poor decisions when defending. Let’s have a look at Manchester City’s second goal in the derby as an example.
In the image below we can see how Sterling skips past Fred with the Brazilian needlessly diving in rather than looking to delay Sterling’s run. Even worse, though, is the action of Lingard. He happens to be in a defensive midfield position and could easily have stopped or at least delayed Sterling by moving into the highlighted direction. What he does, however, is to stop and allow Sterling to run past him.
As Sterling now drives towards United’s back-three (as highlighted below), United’s three centre-backs are in really good positions. Despite City attacking 4 vs 3, this doesn’t look all that dangerous at this point. Amazingly, one run (Agüero’s) causes havoc for United. It’s not even a tough run to defend against, Darmian should pass Agüero on to Smalling who can just drop and block the potential pass.
In the image below we see the scene that has been doing the rounds on social media with United’s defenders in a straight vertical line. Instead of Darmian passing Agüero on to Smalling, the Italian followed the run as a man-orientated defender should. This leads to the open passing lane from Sterling to Sané. Had Darmian passed Agüero on, he could have prevented that pass from ever being made by standing in the highlighted space (yellow circle). Now, Sané is allowed a free run at goal.
On other occasions, United have struggled not because of their players following runners, but by opting not too. The below image highlights a situation against Watford. You would think United have this situation under control. There are four United players up against four Watford players. Let’s see what happens in the next image.
Three seconds later, Watford have exchanged a few passes and Hughes has made the highlighted run. Look at the three United players! Pogba, who marks Hughes in the image above, is pointing to Hughes, probably urging someone to mark him when in fact that’s his job. Kiko plays the pass into Hughes and Watford easily get into the penalty area.
Probably the same amount of people that backed Leicester to win the PL.
Wonder how many of you backed this banner at the time?
He really wasn't mate. He was given a caretaker job till the end of the season. Woodie jumped on the gun when we had a honeymoon period of 2 months.
Yea right, fecking boll*cks!
How would him achieving this show he can compete against City and Liverpool? Our football is abysmal. Our ability to beat the likes of Huddersfield or Cardiff shouldn't rely on any of the above. Truth is anyone of us could get rid of the deadwood and promote youth, doesn't mean we should be in the hot seat.
You asked why we gave him the job considering he didn't have the right players to play his style for the rest of this season.
That banner did the rounds enough on here when we hired Moyes and is very tedious. We shouldn’t compare every single thing this club does with Fergie’s reign.
Wonder how many of you backed this banner at the time?
against PSG was it? also Barca 1st leg? Also his tactical decisions and player selections are so active and well thought out from the very first game, and he drilled it into his players head and they follow eg. I don't mind you lose the ball, as long as you get it back, or the changes to close the game, letting only the players on form start while the other to make impacts from subs and rotation games, if they want to start, make strong impression eg. Lukaku eventually crawled back to the first 11 once his game improves. Also he only gave Valencia one chance then we never see him again until the final farewell game recently. Even Sanchez at this time were put away from the first 11, only had few chances to prove his worth which failed.
I don't mind a rookie manager if he showed (1) good signs of improving/learning in the job. Also need to have (2) good visions which must be (3) translated onto the players and (4) the players performed it on the pitch. None of those three things happened. It's only when he's the caretaker, and later on as permanent manager -- all only in his speech, nice cheap words anyway in interviews/conference.He was the wrong appointment at the first place. Something what you would expect from Woodward.
We were crap that year, Dortmund led 3-1 and completly collapsed and they lost to a mediocare Sevilla side in the final. I'd take our PSG moment in the CL ahead of their run in the EL any day of the week
Don't you know? A pre-season will fix this.@SteveW @shamans
what is your take on these, would love to hear your opinion on our shape in those examples. Again blamed on fitness or?
Spaces between the lines
Anyone who has ever coached or played football knows that you need to protect the space between your defensive and midfield lines. This is especially true against teams like Barcelona. In the image below, I’ve highlighted United’s defensive setup just before Coutinho made it 3-0. Lionel Messi is on the ball in midfield and plays a sweeping pass out to Jordi Alba. He could, though, just as easily have threaded it into Coutinho or Luis Suárez who are positioned between United’s defence and midfield. The central midfield duo of Fred and McTominay both push towards the ball while the defence drops, creating that huge space between the lines.
Alba has just played the ball back to Coutinho (yellow). Lindelöf, Smalling and Jones have all dropped while left-back Ashley Young has been to slow to retreat. The same goes for Fred in midfield. This means Barca are actually 3 vs 3 against United’s remaining defenders just outside the penalty area after just two passes from their own half. Young’s positional weakness is highlighted here as he should have dropped alongside his fellow defenders and been somewhere around where I’ve put the empty white circle. Then United would have been 4 vs 3 and could have let Smalling step out to Coutinho. Now they can’t and Coutinho has enough time to score beautifully.
This is just one example but United consistently give up space between the lines and allow teams time on the ball just outside their own penalty area. This is due to the poorly synchronised collective movements out of possession, and the individual mistakes in terms of basic positioning made by so many of their defenders and central midfielders.
Horrible positioning around the box
However, what perhaps is most startling for a team at United’s level is the horrible positioning around their penalty area. What I’ll look at now is truly amateur stuff. It seems laughable when you remember this team defended so well positionally as a collective at home against Liverpool and away to Chelsea and PSG.
Let’s start with a situation from the Manchester derby last week. Raheem Sterling has the ball and is up against Young. You can see United’s back-five in pretty good positions at this point.
In the image below, Sterling has now started to drive infield. Young (white) should just pass him onto Pereira (yellow) at this point. United are still in good positions to defend at this point with seven players behind the ball.
As you see below, Pereira has been easily beaten. Young has continued to follow Sterling’s run inside and now looks to put pressure on the winger. Please have a look at United’s back-five. It’s possible that you’ve never seen a back-five in these positions. Look at Smalling in particular who has dropped four yards deeper than his fellow centre-backs and plays Agüero and Silva onside.
As Sterling plays the ball to Gündogan, the German has a great chance to play a one-touch pass to David Silva who is onside all alone just in front of goal due to Smalling’s ridiculous positioning. United were lucky that he didn’t see this pass. If he had, Silva and Agüero would be 2 vs 1 against Smalling just outside the six-yard box. United have nine players here in the central area of the pitch but are poorly positioned as a collective.
United’s defensive players are consistently guilty of chasing the ball rather than keeping their positions around the box. The game against Watford provided plenty of examples of this. The image below highlights Roberto Pereyra as he has just received the ball. Young (white) is immediately attracted to the Argentinian. Smalling (blue) decides to pick up the run from Deulofeu into space behind Young.
Preferably, Young would have stayed in position, allowed Smalling to step up and picked up the run of Deulofeu. As it was, they changed positions. As the image below shows, this is still no issue. Smalling (yellow) provides pressure on the ball while Young (white) covers in as a centre-back.
This is where the ridiculousness kicks in again. The ball is played inside to Pereyra (blue) again. Smalling is still wide right having pressed Deulofeu. Young steps up to Pereyra. Nemanja Matić (black), United’s defensive midfielder, has now decided to leave his position and move very deep alongside Jones. When Will Hughes makes a run into this vacated space centrally, United’s left-back Luke Shaw (yellow) makes an unexplainable decision. He leaves his position (empty yellow circle) to mark Hughes. As Abdoulaye Doucouré makes a run into this space, Paul Pogba (white) is forced to go with him. So, rather than Shaw staying in his position and Pogba in his, United now have Shaw in central midfield and Pogba at left-back.
The ball is transferred to Deulofeu who cuts inside. As you see below, United have now a situational back-six. It reads, from right to left, Smalling-Young-Matić-Shaw-Jones-Pogba. With Herrera pressing Deulofeu, United have NO ONE defending the space outside the box. This is spectacularly unorganised at a level I’ve rarely seen at any level.
Luke Shaw has impressed with his individual defending in many games. His positional sense, however, leaves a lot to be desired. The image below highlights this perfectly well. For some reason, he has decided to mark Hughes four yards behind the rest of his teammates. As Jones, Young and Smalling have all changed positions in this situation, United are already disorganised. Shaw’s position means United have no cover on their left. Shaw should be somewhere around where I’ve put the black circle. Now, United have no player defending the left half of their penalty area and Watford create a chance from which Janmaat should have done better.
Finally, United also showcased these positional issues against West Ham. The image below shows the build-up for West Ham’s goal. At first, United’s defenders are in decent positions. Smalling (white) provides pressure on the ball while the other three provide cover behind him. Preferably, I’d have liked Jones a bit deeper, in the black circle, but it’s still a decent setup.
What then happens is symptomatic for United’s structural positional issues around their own box. As you see below, Smalling (white) now provides cover for Dalot as Lanzini has received the ball on West Ham’s left. This job should be done by Fred or Mata. Smalling, as the ball-near centre-back, should move back into the position highlighted to defend the first-post area. This would allow Jones to defend the middle of the goal and Rojo the back-post area. Mata and Pogba are too lazy to get back into the correct positions. This leaves United defending the cross 2 vs 2 when they should always have a numerical advantage in their own box. As it happens, Rojo’s individual defending is perhaps even worse than the collective as he allows Anderson to get to the cross first despite spending eight seconds looking straight at the Brazilian.
Man-orientated defending causing issues
When United enjoyed a good run and defended really well, they did so with an organised positional approach where each player kept their position rather than marking the closest opponent. Recently, however, the old Mourinho habits of chasing the ball and opponents have crept back into the players with plenty of them now making consistently poor decisions when defending. Let’s have a look at Manchester City’s second goal in the derby as an example.
In the image below we can see how Sterling skips past Fred with the Brazilian needlessly diving in rather than looking to delay Sterling’s run. Even worse, though, is the action of Lingard. He happens to be in a defensive midfield position and could easily have stopped or at least delayed Sterling by moving into the highlighted direction. What he does, however, is to stop and allow Sterling to run past him.
As Sterling now drives towards United’s back-three (as highlighted below), United’s three centre-backs are in really good positions. Despite City attacking 4 vs 3, this doesn’t look all that dangerous at this point. Amazingly, one run (Agüero’s) causes havoc for United. It’s not even a tough run to defend against, Darmian should pass Agüero on to Smalling who can just drop and block the potential pass.
In the image below we see the scene that has been doing the rounds on social media with United’s defenders in a straight vertical line. Instead of Darmian passing Agüero on to Smalling, the Italian followed the run as a man-orientated defender should. This leads to the open passing lane from Sterling to Sané. Had Darmian passed Agüero on, he could have prevented that pass from ever being made by standing in the highlighted space (yellow circle). Now, Sané is allowed a free run at goal.
On other occasions, United have struggled not because of their players following runners, but by opting not too. The below image highlights a situation against Watford. You would think United have this situation under control. There are four United players up against four Watford players. Let’s see what happens in the next image.
Three seconds later, Watford have exchanged a few passes and Hughes has made the highlighted run. Look at the three United players! Pogba, who marks Hughes in the image above, is pointing to Hughes, probably urging someone to mark him when in fact that’s his job. Kiko plays the pass into Hughes and Watford easily get into the penalty area.
@SteveW @shamans
what is your take on these, would love to hear your opinion on our shape in those examples. Again blamed on fitness or?
Spaces between the lines
Anyone who has ever coached or played football knows that you need to protect the space between your defensive and midfield lines. This is especially true against teams like Barcelona. In the image below, I’ve highlighted United’s defensive setup just before Coutinho made it 3-0. Lionel Messi is on the ball in midfield and plays a sweeping pass out to Jordi Alba. He could, though, just as easily have threaded it into Coutinho or Luis Suárez who are positioned between United’s defence and midfield. The central midfield duo of Fred and McTominay both push towards the ball while the defence drops, creating that huge space between the lines.
Alba has just played the ball back to Coutinho (yellow). Lindelöf, Smalling and Jones have all dropped while left-back Ashley Young has been to slow to retreat. The same goes for Fred in midfield. This means Barca are actually 3 vs 3 against United’s remaining defenders just outside the penalty area after just two passes from their own half. Young’s positional weakness is highlighted here as he should have dropped alongside his fellow defenders and been somewhere around where I’ve put the empty white circle. Then United would have been 4 vs 3 and could have let Smalling step out to Coutinho. Now they can’t and Coutinho has enough time to score beautifully.
This is just one example but United consistently give up space between the lines and allow teams time on the ball just outside their own penalty area. This is due to the poorly synchronised collective movements out of possession, and the individual mistakes in terms of basic positioning made by so many of their defenders and central midfielders.
Horrible positioning around the box
However, what perhaps is most startling for a team at United’s level is the horrible positioning around their penalty area. What I’ll look at now is truly amateur stuff. It seems laughable when you remember this team defended so well positionally as a collective at home against Liverpool and away to Chelsea and PSG.
Let’s start with a situation from the Manchester derby last week. Raheem Sterling has the ball and is up against Young. You can see United’s back-five in pretty good positions at this point.
In the image below, Sterling has now started to drive infield. Young (white) should just pass him onto Pereira (yellow) at this point. United are still in good positions to defend at this point with seven players behind the ball.
As you see below, Pereira has been easily beaten. Young has continued to follow Sterling’s run inside and now looks to put pressure on the winger. Please have a look at United’s back-five. It’s possible that you’ve never seen a back-five in these positions. Look at Smalling in particular who has dropped four yards deeper than his fellow centre-backs and plays Agüero and Silva onside.
As Sterling plays the ball to Gündogan, the German has a great chance to play a one-touch pass to David Silva who is onside all alone just in front of goal due to Smalling’s ridiculous positioning. United were lucky that he didn’t see this pass. If he had, Silva and Agüero would be 2 vs 1 against Smalling just outside the six-yard box. United have nine players here in the central area of the pitch but are poorly positioned as a collective.
United’s defensive players are consistently guilty of chasing the ball rather than keeping their positions around the box. The game against Watford provided plenty of examples of this. The image below highlights Roberto Pereyra as he has just received the ball. Young (white) is immediately attracted to the Argentinian. Smalling (blue) decides to pick up the run from Deulofeu into space behind Young.
Preferably, Young would have stayed in position, allowed Smalling to step up and picked up the run of Deulofeu. As it was, they changed positions. As the image below shows, this is still no issue. Smalling (yellow) provides pressure on the ball while Young (white) covers in as a centre-back.
This is where the ridiculousness kicks in again. The ball is played inside to Pereyra (blue) again. Smalling is still wide right having pressed Deulofeu. Young steps up to Pereyra. Nemanja Matić (black), United’s defensive midfielder, has now decided to leave his position and move very deep alongside Jones. When Will Hughes makes a run into this vacated space centrally, United’s left-back Luke Shaw (yellow) makes an unexplainable decision. He leaves his position (empty yellow circle) to mark Hughes. As Abdoulaye Doucouré makes a run into this space, Paul Pogba (white) is forced to go with him. So, rather than Shaw staying in his position and Pogba in his, United now have Shaw in central midfield and Pogba at left-back.
The ball is transferred to Deulofeu who cuts inside. As you see below, United have now a situational back-six. It reads, from right to left, Smalling-Young-Matić-Shaw-Jones-Pogba. With Herrera pressing Deulofeu, United have NO ONE defending the space outside the box. This is spectacularly unorganised at a level I’ve rarely seen at any level.
Luke Shaw has impressed with his individual defending in many games. His positional sense, however, leaves a lot to be desired. The image below highlights this perfectly well. For some reason, he has decided to mark Hughes four yards behind the rest of his teammates. As Jones, Young and Smalling have all changed positions in this situation, United are already disorganised. Shaw’s position means United have no cover on their left. Shaw should be somewhere around where I’ve put the black circle. Now, United have no player defending the left half of their penalty area and Watford create a chance from which Janmaat should have done better.
Finally, United also showcased these positional issues against West Ham. The image below shows the build-up for West Ham’s goal. At first, United’s defenders are in decent positions. Smalling (white) provides pressure on the ball while the other three provide cover behind him. Preferably, I’d have liked Jones a bit deeper, in the black circle, but it’s still a decent setup.
What then happens is symptomatic for United’s structural positional issues around their own box. As you see below, Smalling (white) now provides cover for Dalot as Lanzini has received the ball on West Ham’s left. This job should be done by Fred or Mata. Smalling, as the ball-near centre-back, should move back into the position highlighted to defend the first-post area. This would allow Jones to defend the middle of the goal and Rojo the back-post area. Mata and Pogba are too lazy to get back into the correct positions. This leaves United defending the cross 2 vs 2 when they should always have a numerical advantage in their own box. As it happens, Rojo’s individual defending is perhaps even worse than the collective as he allows Anderson to get to the cross first despite spending eight seconds looking straight at the Brazilian.
Man-orientated defending causing issues
When United enjoyed a good run and defended really well, they did so with an organised positional approach where each player kept their position rather than marking the closest opponent. Recently, however, the old Mourinho habits of chasing the ball and opponents have crept back into the players with plenty of them now making consistently poor decisions when defending. Let’s have a look at Manchester City’s second goal in the derby as an example.
In the image below we can see how Sterling skips past Fred with the Brazilian needlessly diving in rather than looking to delay Sterling’s run. Even worse, though, is the action of Lingard. He happens to be in a defensive midfield position and could easily have stopped or at least delayed Sterling by moving into the highlighted direction. What he does, however, is to stop and allow Sterling to run past him.
As Sterling now drives towards United’s back-three (as highlighted below), United’s three centre-backs are in really good positions. Despite City attacking 4 vs 3, this doesn’t look all that dangerous at this point. Amazingly, one run (Agüero’s) causes havoc for United. It’s not even a tough run to defend against, Darmian should pass Agüero on to Smalling who can just drop and block the potential pass.
In the image below we see the scene that has been doing the rounds on social media with United’s defenders in a straight vertical line. Instead of Darmian passing Agüero on to Smalling, the Italian followed the run as a man-orientated defender should. This leads to the open passing lane from Sterling to Sané. Had Darmian passed Agüero on, he could have prevented that pass from ever being made by standing in the highlighted space (yellow circle). Now, Sané is allowed a free run at goal.
On other occasions, United have struggled not because of their players following runners, but by opting not too. The below image highlights a situation against Watford. You would think United have this situation under control. There are four United players up against four Watford players. Let’s see what happens in the next image.
Three seconds later, Watford have exchanged a few passes and Hughes has made the highlighted run. Look at the three United players! Pogba, who marks Hughes in the image above, is pointing to Hughes, probably urging someone to mark him when in fact that’s his job. Kiko plays the pass into Hughes and Watford easily get into the penalty area.
