Are we a high pressing team?

Nope. We try to press high at times but it's disoriented and not one player is on the same wavelength. Teams find it relatively easy to pass it from the back against us.

Right now, we seem to cycle between sitting back, targeted press and high press based on the momentum during the game. The goal seems to be high press, but we aren't yet organized enough in those terms to do it consistently over the 90 minutes like Liverpool or City of a year or two ago.

It's actually something that Jesse Lingard is good at

Not post the restart. We are being more picky when to press but again, it doesn't work since the forward line is on different wavelengths. I think it should improve after some rejuvenation.

I think if you failed to detect the pressing phase of our plays recently, than I think we have a problem here.

We're not the Gegen Pressing type of Liverpool in earlier days of Klopp's tenure, but we're certainly a much better pressing team than we were under Mourinho or LVG.

There are many goals this season when we forced some errors at the back of the opposition back line, and that's some hard work put in by our forwards.

EDIT:
Even Liverpool have toned down their pressing, no team can press for 90 minutes.

Skills said:

Read this from Ole's press conference :



I'm a bit surprised he thinks we're a high pressing team - I never get the impression when watching us. We work hard and run around a lot, but actually pressing high and keeping the CBs pushed up high (like what the actual high pressing teams do) is not what we do.

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You didn't bold the relevant part

We decided we’re going to be a high-pressing team, when we can

Not systematically, no. We press individually at times (like Lingard did against Leicester) but not really as a team or throughout the game. I doubt we have the lungs for that either

We are. It's something we have implemented it since November 2019, high press counter attack been saying this since November. However, we are not the best one doing it and something we are still working on to improve it so we can do it in consistent basis.

We do high pressing up-front four (Bruno, Rashford, Martial, James/Greenwood), and on fullbacks side. But with Pogba and Matic in midfield, it's kinda impossible to do it in midfield.

Edit: concur to @harms post above.

Only our front 4 are good at it. Matic and Pogba are sluggish players who can't press effectively and especially Pogba who is just pretty shit at it and does it half heartedly.

Only Shaw in the back 5 is good at it. AWB has poor positioning and always leaves alot of space ahead when Mason presses.

The two glacial brothers though are the biggest problem with this as they are physically not up to it. There pace would be exposed with a ball over the top and going forward they will always hold this team behind because there lack of pace.

With the freedom we give to our attackers, we'll never become a good high pressing team. The two instructions are just contradictory and we'll never press successfully with plenty of our players out of position after each attack. Those swaps/overloadings create a hole in our pressing and oppositions can easily manipulate this weakness to break our press, and we see it pretty often this season.

United have the 10th most pressures in the attacking third so I'd say no. Liverpool, Southampton and City have the most.

Skills said:

Read this from Ole's press conference :



I'm a bit surprised he thinks we're a high pressing team - I never get the impression when watching us. We work hard and run around a lot, but actually pressing high and keeping the CBs pushed up high (like what the actual high pressing teams do) is not what we do.

Click to expand...

Ole played a very aggresive high press in his time at Molde and I've touched upon this for several months now.

Our issue is at the back rather than with the front players here. To enforce a high press you need both your CBs to play in a high-line and contest/challenge for the ball. Only one of our starting CBs does that with the other player back peddalling and jockeying which gives the opponent a easy out-ball.

We don't have a DM good enough to enforce a high press. If you watch teams who are good at pressing high, they have DMs who are quick, tenacious and mobile. We have Matic who is anything but those things and is completely unsuited to playing in a team that wants to press high. But unfortunately Ole doesn't have a alternative at his disposal.

Then you have De Gea who is also not good enough to play the sweeper keeper role which compounds things further.

I think we have excellent forwards in this regard but could do with a CB and DM with the correct attributes to make it a well oiled machine.

Skills said:

I thought the numbers would show this - where have you got these stats from btw?. So it seems like our manager is either a liar or more worryingly actually doesn't actually know what his team is doing.

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Or maybe you are the one?

Cutting part of his interview to give complete meaning, pathetic

Skills said:

I thought the numbers would show this - where have you got these stats from btw?. So it seems like our manager is either a liar or more worryingly doesn't know what his team is doing.

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So, wait, are you suggesting a professional football manager is incapable of identifying whether his players are pressing high up the pitch or not?

we do it sometimes but not all the time, i dont think its a secret

which is basically exactly how Ole represents it in that interview

Adnan said:

Ole played a very aggresive high press in his time at Molde and I've touched upon this for several months now.

Our issue is at the back rather than with the front players here. To enforce a high press you need both your CBs to play in a high-line and contest/challenge for the ball. Only one of our starting CBs does that with the other player back peddalling and jockeying which gives the opponent a easy out-ball.

We don't have a DM good enough to enforce a high press. If you watch teams who are good at pressing high, they have DMs who are quick, tenacious and mobile. We have Matic who is anything but those things and is completely unsuited to playing in a team that wants to press high. But unfortunately Ole doesn't have a alternative at his disposal.

Then you have De Gea who is also not good enough to play the sweeper keeper role which compounds things further.

I think we have excellent forwards in this regard but could do with a CB and DM with the correct attributes to make it a well oiled machine.

Click to expand...

From what I've seen in this thread, basically half of our team isn't suited to high pressing. Makes me wonder, why do we have to play high pressing at all? Is it easier to change the system instead of replacing half of the team?

We are not.

Skills said:

I thought the numbers would show this - where have you got these stats from btw?. So it seems like our manager is either a liar or more worryingly actually doesn't actually know what his team is doing.

Click to expand...

It's PR. Ole knows our fans love high pressing so he talks a lot about it and buys himself time, just like how he always talks about being an attacking side.

We are in most games, just that we're not really that good at doing that systematically nor consistently.

Some games, we don't try to press high and instead opt to drop deep, invite pressure so we can counter better with more spaces.

We press higher at times than we did under previous managers, but like someone pointed out before no team can press for 90 minutes every match like that.
City "cheats" and fouls when they loose the ball high up on the pitch and liverpool has even falled back more than earlier in Klopps tenure.

The thing about pressing high is that to press high you cant always press high. If that makes sence.
Two reasons for that imo. One is fatigue, you will run yourself to the ground if you do.

Other reason is more tactical. When people see City or other teams pressing high its usually because they have moved so many players high up that they have no choice but to directly try and win the ball back (or foul) or else they would get countered to pieces. When they have forced the other team to play a backpass or slowed down the play they almost always falls back a little, with the whole team. We also do this i think, but with a little less agression.
To press high from goalkicks against most teams in the PL is just not smart imo, as "smaller" teams are usually good at finding spaces from a longer ball when teams do this against them. So you want to fall back and "lure" them into playing short before setting the trap.
And the "bigger" teams all have defenders and midfielders who are really good on the ball to play out of a high press.

I think Martial is the biggest proof that we press higher now than before, but that is only a feeling from watching games and not from heatsmaps and other stats.

So i dont think we are a "high pressing team", but i think no team is (except maybe Leeds or any team that Bielsa coaches). A better description i think is that some team focus on directly recapture the ball and some teams focus on falling back to positions. I guess the former is what they talk about when saying a high pressing team.

hmchan said:

From what I've seen in this thread, basically half of our team isn't suited to high pressing. Makes me wonder, why do we have to play high pressing at all? Is it easier to change the system instead of replacing half of the team?

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We don't play and Ole didn't even say we are high pressing team, he said we press high when we can, that's completely different from OP's twisted post.

hmchan said:

From what I've seen in this thread, basically half of our team isn't suited to high pressing. Makes me wonder, why do we have to play high pressing at all? Is it easier to change the system instead of replacing half of the team?

Click to expand...

It's gonna take Solskjaer abit of time to complete the transformation. Because things like these don't happen overnight. But the likes of Rashford and Fernandes have the attributes to be excellent players to enforce high pressure. Even Martial looks a player who is showing potential in that regard now. So our forwards are good in that regard.

We need a CB and DM with the correct attributes to provide the foundation for the forwards to trigger the press. Those two players in their respective roles would make a big difference IMO. I don't believe we're that far.

I'd say we attempt to be, but not so good righ now.

BootsyCollins said:

We press higher at times than we did under previous managers, but like someone pointed out before no team can press for 90 minutes every match like that.
City "cheats" and fouls when they loose the ball high up on the pitch and liverpool has even falled back more than earlier in Klopps tenure.

The thing about pressing high is that to press high you cant always press high. If that makes sence.
Two reasons for that imo. One is fatigue, you will run yourself to the ground if you do.

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I agree with this. Pressing takes alot out of the players. Post lockdown we started to press and then 3/4 games in fatigue kicked in and we sat back alot more, we could see by the Leicester game, Bruno was knackered, Matic was gone and even Maguire.

I think we need to find a balance, we saw it with Liverpool, this season they don't press high all the time, its selected pressing.

I would like us to start games with a high press, first 10-15 mins, if we can get an early goal then that's good but if not then we need to control the ball and play with it, take a breather and tire the opponents out.

The good thing now, we can play different styles, we can also sit deeper, draw the opponents out for a false sense of security and counter attack.We saw this with Villa game.

Many teams tend to let us keep the ball though per 90 mins.

Less times for us to high press.
Plenty of times of us being high pressed instead.

I may get some stick for it but I think we only press high when Lingard plays. He chases a lot of lost causes - Martial and co press but for moments. Bruno presses a fair bit as well to be fair

Our high block is very poor, and we end up wasting energy chasing around as opposed to taking the right positions to intercept and prevent opponents' passes.

Also as @Adnan alluded to, Lindelof's backpedaling goes against a high press. Matic presses very well IMO, definitely the best in our team at instantly taking up the right position after a turnover to regain possession or stop a counter, as well as simply standing in the right position to prevent passes into midfield. Pogba does as well but he often gives away fouls.

I'd say the main things we struggle with are the formation, organization, and Lindelof's jockeying and backpedaling. If those are sorted out, then our pressing will become much more effective and less energy-consuming.

It's something that we've certainly improved on under Ole, but by no means are we actually good at it yet.

As others have said, we don't really have the midfield, defence or goalkeeper to do it at a great level. Actually, our second string midfield is pretty good at it with Fred and McTominay, but if the opposition get around their press there is often a fair bit of space available.

Adnan said:

Ole played a very aggresive high press in his time at Molde and I've touched upon this for several months now.

Our issue is at the back rather than with the front players here. To enforce a high press you need both your CBs to play in a high-line and contest/challenge for the ball. Only one of our starting CBs does that with the other player back peddalling and jockeying which gives the opponent a easy out-ball.

We don't have a DM good enough to enforce a high press. If you watch teams who are good at pressing high, they have DMs who are quick, tenacious and mobile. We have Matic who is anything but those things and is completely unsuited to playing in a team that wants to press high. But unfortunately Ole doesn't have a alternative at his disposal.

Then you have De Gea who is also not good enough to play the sweeper keeper role which compounds things further.

I think we have excellent forwards in this regard but could do with a CB and DM with the correct attributes to make it a well oiled machine.

Click to expand...

Adnan said:

It's gonna take Solskjaer abit of time to complete the transformation. Because things like these don't happen overnight. But the likes of Rashford and Fernandes have the attributes to be excellent players to enforce high pressure. Even Martial looks a player who is showing potential in that regard now. So our forwards are good in that regard.

We need a CB and DM with the correct attributes to provide the foundation for the forwards to trigger the press. Those two players in their respective roles would make a big difference IMO. I don't believe we're that far.

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Nice to see you posting in this part of the forum.

Good posts.

To factors I've noticed on this topic.

We aren't super well coached for an organised press - this could be for many reasons and could also be Ole's choice but if you compare us to Liverpool we are nowhere near as dynamic and we don't really ever pin fullbacks in - it's more high energy hustle and bustle but good teams generally resist our press quite easily and it's only in a few agmes I thikn we've focused on it (like City away). Using Liverpool for comparison is problematic becuse they are obviously a better team than us so maybe it's better to see how Southampton function with vastly inferior players. They are much much better tactically then us when it comes to pressing, that said it does take time depending on the coach so maybe we'll see more of this next season.

The second is that Ole definitely wants to see us as a pressing team but we simply don't have the defensive players. Watch Liverpool play - the amount of times VVD or Gomes are caught too high is common the difference is both are rapid and you very rarely see them not be able to recover. In the few instances they are caught and the attacker is too fast, they then have Alisson who practically sits outside the box for the whole game to sweep up any danger. We have two slow CBs and a Keeper who likes to stay close to his goal - it's simply not a trio that can play high pressing football and if the defensive unit isn't doing it, there's going to be a huge gap if the rest of the team is trying to do it (this happened to us loads in the early part of the season). Add in that Matic can't really play high pressing football for a whole game and we have a very slow core in the team.

The PL is the fastest and most direct league so having CBs who can cover themselves when playing high is key in my mind, probably why Koulibally is rated so highly despite most people having only seen him play a few times because the kind of VVD or Varane style CB is so rare.

With Pogba, Matic & arguably McTominay in centre mid we will never be high press for the majority of the time. Or forwards can carry it out, as can Fred/Andreas from midfield. As mentioned above though we lack the keeper & centre backs for a consistent high press. After our forwards we just aren't that fast a side.

At times we press high and pressure, then beyond a certain amount of time / progression in the pitch we drop back to shape.

The pressing is much improved by the way. We used to have a single midfielder stride through our heart because the press hadn’t been coordinated and half the team were high, with too much space between attack midfield and defence. The pressing has also improved in technique, Martial for instance now automatically bends his runs to block a pass sideways and then zero in on the player in possession, forcing a pass to another player who is also being pressed. Coaching of this is definitely starting to reap rewards.

We don’t do it relentlessly though and not should we as it would remove that devastating counter attack possibility from deep which has been a delight since Bruno joined, Mason hit the first team, and Pogba returned to fitness.

Yes.

But it's a work in progress and we threw it out the window since restart, sacrificing work rate for quality and winning points in any way possible. We'll see it return next season no doubt.

Skills said:

Read this from Ole's press conference :



I'm a bit surprised he thinks we're a high pressing team - I never get the impression when watching us. We work hard and run around a lot, but actually pressing high and keeping the CBs pushed up high (like what the actual high pressing teams do) is not what we do.

Click to expand...

I think we have certain players who definitely press. Greenwood for example has had some joy stealing the ball high up the pitch and Fernandes always goes for it. But on the whole I'd say we're maybe half way

This should give an idea that Matic isn't the important player because Matic Pogba pair will only suitable in the game where we are likely having majority the possession. Not in the game when we need to press high.

roonster09 said:

You didn't bold the relevant part

We decided we’re going to be a high-pressing team, when we can

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Pretty much this. Ole didn't say we press high all the time.