There was a stat before the Arsenal game that we created the most changes and had the highest XG of any side in the league. Even yesterday we cut through Arsenal 3/4 times
ETH: "We want to be the best transition team in the world"
- Thread starter sullydnl
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Such a bad take. The team were instructed to draw out arsenal's press to expose space behind the press for our creative players to feed Rashford, it worked for our first goal (with a lucky interception in front of our penalty box). You might notice in the second half Arsenal stopped pressing so high and invited our defenders forward, Neville with another hot take was urging them to press higher which would have been daft, they were picking their moments to press. Our tactics in the first half earned us the right to play higher up the pitch but injuries to our back line and some poor defending meant we dropped all three points.
I think valid criticisms of Eth could be:
- Crap at set pieces (offensively and defensively)
- Sometimes not compact enough off the ball when a game is in the balance
- Players so keen to attack transitions they play the kiler forward pass when we need to slow the game down
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The only way is up!
And why it took a year for everyone at the club to realize it? It seemed like every club in EPL knew they could just press De Gea and whole United team shitted itself, one way or another.
Now that United's "fixed" first step, second step is a De Jong or two, but club opted in for Anthony/Casemiro instead, who have average ball progression skill. That's cluelessness not progression.
Transition is just another hipster way to say counter attack and we stuck with this "Ole's ball" for another year, maybe more because of this cluelessness, plus little bit of manager's arrogance. Every EPL club probably has figured us out by now, even faster than people at the club do.
Pep was facing same problems at City but he could fix it rather than quick because his vision was aligned with the football people from the top. Money isn't a big issue, United's spent as much as everyone else, we just wasted most of it.
The famous german humor on full show
The one time Arsenal were caught out of their defensive shape.
Love this post
At times yesterday(especially the first half), i think we looked a bit like De Zerbi's Brighton stylistically. We actually had more possession than Arsenal in the first half, at the Emirates, which was pretty surprising to me. The concept of "artificial transition", you can look it up. I'm not a football expert, but I've learned that from Tifo(JJ Bull, John Mackenzie...) - they explained De Zerbi's tactics in detail.
We tried to be very patient and slow in the build up, bait Arsenal to press heavily, and then open up the space to counter by beating the press - that's the artificial transition. That's what De Zerbi's Brighton does, and does it very effectively. I think Guardiola even praised De Zerbi for it and said he loves how Brighton plays and that they're very tricky to play against, but I don't think he explained it in detail what he meant by that.
One thing I wanted to add and almost forgot. I don't know how Ten Hag wants us to be the best transition team in the world and have Antony in the team at the same time. That is a heavy contradiction. Antony kills counter attacking opportunities like no other, he's very slow with the ball at his feet, indecisive and not nearly direct enough.
We also lack a player(midfielder) who can carry the ball and is an excellent dribbler(actually comfortable with the ball at his feet and can evade pressure/tackles - Frenkie de Jong archetype), but I'm going to complain about that until I eventually get banned from this forum because of spamming it, (hope mods tolerate me
), or until my death.
We tried to be very patient and slow in the build up, bait Arsenal to press heavily, and then open up the space to counter by beating the press - that's the artificial transition. That's what De Zerbi's Brighton does, and does it very effectively. I think Guardiola even praised De Zerbi for it and said he loves how Brighton plays and that they're very tricky to play against, but I don't think he explained it in detail what he meant by that.
One thing I wanted to add and almost forgot. I don't know how Ten Hag wants us to be the best transition team in the world and have Antony in the team at the same time. That is a heavy contradiction. Antony kills counter attacking opportunities like no other, he's very slow with the ball at his feet, indecisive and not nearly direct enough.
We also lack a player(midfielder) who can carry the ball and is an excellent dribbler(actually comfortable with the ball at his feet and can evade pressure/tackles - Frenkie de Jong archetype), but I'm going to complain about that until I eventually get banned from this forum because of spamming it, (hope mods tolerate me
), or until my death.Our previous managers used to do this too, complain about player not doing what they want. There's only so long that will wash though.
I don't know if we wanted to suck Arsenal in, more that Arsenal defended deeper than normal and we were ultimately left with the ball at the back and no ideas. If we did want to suck Arsenal in, then that is on the manager. You should see, as we all did, that Arsenal weren't going to be drawn into our game and that something else was needed. I am still awaiting this famous pressing football that ETH was supposedly going to deliver, but perhaps having a more aggressive approach up our sleeve would help, or even any plan B. Arsenal looked vulnerable to me yesterday, they were making loose passes regularly, didn't look settled at the back and had no rhythm to their play. We should have been braver and tried to exploit it, rather than waiting for a mistake and hoping they didn't score.
It's gone from bemoaned to complained - I interpreted it as an observation, we struggled to find the forward pass which isn't a complaint about our players not doing what the manager wants but trying and failing, ETH actually praised the players' performances.
We definitely wanted to encourage arsenal forward, hence the passing triangles outside our own area and it worked but for a brainfart from Eriksen 35 seconds later we would be content with that gameplan. Further, even though we conceded we forced Arsenal to drop back in the second half as they recognised the threat of pressing too high!
What are you expecting to see from the "famous pressing football"? In the stats I have seen we are third behind City and Brighton with 49 turnovers in the opposition third this season, our problem has been converting those turnovers into chances and goals.
When we have at least one of our first choice CB's on the pitch, along with Amrabat and Hojlund I think people around here will start to cheer up.
We there yet?
Honestly it's a good strategy if you can score the first goal. Otherwise, you are forced to play possession football what has not been our strength at all. Actually, I think we've not been that bad when asked to play possession game. It's just we rely too much on "moments" which used to come from players that are badly out of form.
Honestly it's a good strategy if you can score the first goal. Otherwise, you are forced to play possession football what has not been our strength at all. Actually, I think we've not been that bad when asked to play possession game. It's just we rely too much on "moments" which used to come from players that are badly out of form.
we still do well until final third where everyone just do whatever
the only thing we're transitioning into is mid table mediocrity
I always thought this quote was taken too literal. LVG said he wanted our players to be horny ffs. The language barrier is real.
Yeah people have clung to this comment way too much. It's been over analysed to death.
Our work in winning the ball high up the pitch is actually excellent. But once you do that and you have players like Rashford running aimlessly and selfishly intro traffic then you can’t make use of it.
We are definitely transitioning well to midtable
To an extent. But the stats do tell you that United keep turning the ball over in dangerous area. Sadly they also tell you that we are useless at actually creating clear cut chances / scoring goals.
Turnover specialists we are indeed. Our captain fantastic is leading by example in that regard
This is true. Its like dogs chasing cars.
Yeah I guess that's true. We won it high up in good areas quite a few times yesterday and then conspired to slow down and mess it up every time.
There's nothing wrong with being brilliant in transition. All the top teams are. When pressing high to win the ball back, you are defending. When you overturn possession, you attack with purpose and intensity. This is transition. What is not to like about that?
It's like when Ole was shut down and ridiculed over his 'trophies for egos' trope. He was absolutely correct. It's about consistently winning football matches that take you to the heights of competing for and winning multiple trophies, rather than a string of poor performances masquerading as being a successful season because you've pulled a league cup out of your arse.
It wasn't difficult to understand then and it isn't difficult to understand now.
It's like when Ole was shut down and ridiculed over his 'trophies for egos' trope. He was absolutely correct. It's about consistently winning football matches that take you to the heights of competing for and winning multiple trophies, rather than a string of poor performances masquerading as being a successful season because you've pulled a league cup out of your arse.
It wasn't difficult to understand then and it isn't difficult to understand now.
Aye, I started the thread because I thought the comments were interesting in a "this means our pressing will be a priority area of improvement we should look out for" sort of way.
But people have just used the comments as a stick to beat the manager with, partly because they incorrectly think being the best transition team is synonymous with not being as good as they want in possession.
Same against Spurs. We should have been 2-0 in the first half but we don’t really have an attack - just a bunch of individuals making ad hoc decisions in the moment (usually the wrong ones). We were all over Brighton early on too but to be fair we disintegrated pretty fast in that one.
Unless you have a handful of elite passers and off the ball runners, it's very difficult to be great in transition when nearly none of your players can reliably beat someone with the ball at their feet or beat their man in tight spaces. Also our playmakers are often not useful in our own half.
That's why we see a difference with Garnacho on the field, even though he is quite obviously not ready for a big role, he makes a big difference in transition, he not only wants to receive the ball under pressure but he often beats his man and create imbalances in the opposition.
That's why we see a difference with Garnacho on the field, even though he is quite obviously not ready for a big role, he makes a big difference in transition, he not only wants to receive the ball under pressure but he often beats his man and create imbalances in the opposition.
As other noted above, we have won the ball back high up the pitch more than anyone else. We just haven't made anything of those turnovers.
Think he’s finding out it’s a lot easier to speak than to put it into action.
Winning the ball back high up can create its own problems if you don't have the variety, skill and movement required to get through. We've hemmed teams in under Ole and Jose and LVG and found it very difficult.
“We can do things in the transfer market that other clubs can only dream of” - Ed Woodward
"We want to be the best transitional team in the world" - Eric Ten Hag
Pick your favourite.
"We want to be the best transitional team in the world" - Eric Ten Hag
Pick your favourite.
So even if we scored that would give us an extra 3 goals. We have 7 now so 10. That's still 7-9 off the top scorers. Winning the ball back high up the pitch doesn't seem to be the golden goose everyone is chasing
As other noted above, we have won the ball back high up the pitch more than anyone else. We just haven't made anything of those turnovers.
What is wrong with the second statement? Want # are
Also United is top of the league "turnover on opponent's half". The pattern is there, it's just not working effectively.
Doesn't matter how quickly you end up with the ball and from which part of the field...
... if the ball then goes to Rashford who then pauses for two seconds to wait for the defence to properly reset, then doesn‘t look for a player but tries to beat two men before the third dispossesses him or his slot is blocked or massively off target.
Oh absolutely.
If you look at our underlying stats we're a) midtable for both xG and xG conceded and b) have underperformed our xG by the third most of any team in the league so far this season.
So we have to get better at all of creating chances, preventing chances and taking chances. There's no one silver bullet to fix that, the team has been mediocre across the board and needs to improve across the board. Just converting some of those high turnovers alone doesn't fix the problem.
"Debt is the road to ruin" is mine followed by "Success on the field must be underpinned by sold foundations off it. Manchester United has a rich heritage and we recognize our responsibility to live up to its great traditions and values."
Yeah, not sure how the stats changed to now but a couple of game weeks past I saw the stat that we had the highest number of turnovers in the opposition third (our attacking third) in the league but were dead last from goals scored (it was either chances created or goals scored!) based on turnovers!
Yesterday looked very much to follow that pattern. We often won the ball deep into their half and we didn’t make enough out of it. The form (ability?!) of our front three is costing us.
Yeah absolutely they are. They could also win you matches with some individual brilliance but that’s just it - if it doesn’t come off, it could be very costly.
This is actually a bit of a suprise to see (suprise not being the right word, I think, we are relatively high up in this particular stat since the 2nd or 3rd matchday). It would be interesting to see a stat about what happened shortly after those high turnovers. If we lost the ball again after 2 or 3 seconds or if we "just punted it forwards". Because, as you say, we haven't really made anything of note from those situation. To a point, that I seemingly didn't even notice that we win those relatively often which also means, we are paying the price for the tactic without reaping the rewards...
As other noted above, we have won the ball back high up the pitch more than anyone else. We just haven't made anything of those turnovers.
On the other hand, who knows, maybe this number is also a possible reason for some of the issues we are seeing. Namely the often mentioned void in between our front players and back players. If the front players engage in trying to win the ball high up the field but the defenders aren't really pushing up, then counter pressing can be very effective AGAINST us. Which would explain some of the "ball carriers really hurt us" stuff we have seen in the first few matches. Yes they hurt us but because they often had an easy game due to us leaving acres of space... Our opponents might have just done to us what we often did to Leeds and which fueled some myths about McTominays carrying qualities...
So, at all meaningful aspects of football then? No biggie.