Agreed it does go hand in hand but on many occasions in the game, I saw Lindelof hold the ball and drift Left and kept coming got pressed and passed to Maguire who had no option. In that situation, if he played it 5 seconds earlier to Maguire, he would have more time to look up, if you get me?
I agree our midfield need to give options, if there is 4/5 players around Fred, surely there has to be an outlet ball somewhere?
That's exactly what we need, a simple pass, if you watch Donny, he will receive the ball from the Cb, pass it back to them and move, which means its harder to press because then you are chasing a player rather than jockey and press.
IMO there are two options of beating a press, go long or play past the press with one twos.
Exchanging one player for Donny won't help the whole issue though. If the coaching teams sees, that we struggle with built up, I would expect them to
a) fix that issue by asking one of the front players to support midfield by creating more passing options through movement and positioning
or b) go for a reliable way to stop the press hurting you (go deep for yourself and go for a counter-oriented way).
That is the main issue - we just often don't do anything. Just adding one different player or two won't change much, the whole team has to act together!
Pressing means congesting certain spaces on the pitch - but because of the limited number of players pressing one area means other areas open up. It ain't more complex than that and we have shown to be quite good at countering, is it really a case of us not being able to sit deep and defend against f***ing Southhampton (as most recent example)?
Like others have said its nothing new just from watching us. These just back up that the biggest weaknesses in this squad are centre midfield and goalkeeper.
Centre midfield should have been the priority this summer over anything else.
As if the person of Fred or De Gea would stop Rashford, Martial, Greenwood, Pogba and Bruno to go to midfield to provide some passing options. Thats madness. This is, where the whole workrate discussion joins that topic, without off the ball movement, the requirements on every player get doubled and of course as higher as the requirements get, the sooner there is a point where players like McT, Fred, Lindelof and AWB crumble. But smaller teams than us have no equal to worse options like that and quite a few seem to bring the builtup to work.
Maybe, maybe not. Players aren't robots with every moved being controlled by the coaches, they should be able to think for themselves as well.
Certainly, I would expect at least smart players like Bruno to come to certain conclusions for themselves but we shouldn't just sit and hope they do as long as we have some folks standing right next to the pitch who are equipped and able to influence and adjust stuff in-game.
I am really struggling to understand why he is so insisted on this double pivot bs. His best performances came when he lined us up in a 433 with Matic as the DM, Herrera and Pogba. That was when he started off as the interim coach!
Just switching a formation or going from double- to single pivot won't cure the issue as long as it isn't connected to improving team play (acting as a group) and better use of space.
There is no secret formula we have to find to start winning all games, our opponents will always adapt. We have to face the fact, that we are wasting opportunities as long as we don't use adjustments in-game when things go sour. Heck I am not even expecting the manager to get it right most of the time. But please, try something.
This has been an issue since the LVG era. Remember how Rooney use to play in midfield to link the defense with our attack? Jose used De Gea to just kick it long! I appreciate Ole trying to at least play through the midfield. It is hard because he doesn't have quality players. I know we all think training and teaching them patterns of play should change things but Fred, Mctominay are not players who think quickly on their feet. Matic is definitely a better defensive midfielder/ midfielder than them but age is the only worry now because he's a lot slower now. If you actually watched how he bossed the game against Everton, you'd understand how good he was in his prime (chelsea). He has those piercing passes which neither Fred or Mctominay possess. We need a quality player in the defensive position for sure. I thought Ole would go out and get a defensive midfielder in this window for sure but I simply cannot understand why he isn't yet.
That is a great example of a standpoint where a problem is accepted but it is crystal clear, that the manager in no way seems to be connected to the problem. This doesn't seem pretty fair in my eyes because the management team has at least just as much chances to influence the thing:
Ask either one of the wingers or Bruno to drop deeper into midfield in built-up to provide more passing options.
Ask your striker and the other wingers to do more off the ball movement.
Ask the whole team to drop deeper to suck up the pressure and hit teams that dare to press with counters.
There are so many things, the manager can do to make things easier for his players. A good preparation for the match is important but it is just as important to adjust when you see that some assumptions from an original plan turn out to be wrong.
You will always have bad days and lose. Lose in disappointing style. But waiting to have the perfect team is the stupidest thing we can do, we have some issues in the team, lets find ways to mitigate that instead of just tossing out parts.
How about we stop overcomplicating things and take a look at our biggest problem, that is CDM. How can one talk about DDG, when you have players like Matic (way past their playing days) and Fred who is nowhere near good enough, in the engine room.
How about we stop shying away that football on the highest level is somewhat complicated these days. There are opponents and managers that are able to make use of people like the ones on twitter. They know, how their opponents play, which tendencies some players have and they are able to apply strategies to exploit it.
Just have a look at zonal marking and read a few articles and you will see, that on the highest level, methods and tools are used that might benefit us big time and we are just wasting chances by ignoring them because "in the old days we just tried harder". Have a look at the videos on twitter, showing how multiple players going for the same space (Matic, Fred), have a look how this happens a lot in attack, especially last year when Pogba, Bruno, Martial and Rashford all went for the exact same space in the left channel because they feel most comfortable there.
I have a feeling, that is what you get when you don't instruct your players. If you ask them to come up with own solutions. Of course that is great freedom and its very satisfying when it works but more often than not, you need all your best players in top form to keep such a system running (exemplary last year where we looked lost as soon as a few first teamers were rested).
I get the notion that we should just go for the best players in all positions and then let them have a good time. Quite a good chance that it might will work out at some point. But until then, we are not maximizing our potential and that is a very discouraging feeling in my eyes.
