3 things to improve on the field of play

[OleTheGreat]

1) CB with a good passing range. (find midfielders, long range passes to forwards and more)
2) Wing backs and Wingers need to cross the ball into the box more.
3) Stretch the play throughout the pitch in order to find time and space.

What are your thoughts?

 

[roonster09]

1. FBs making overlapping runs and wide players making good use of that.
2. Midfielder with good passing range and also defensively very good
3. attackers making near post runs.

 

[RedSky]

1. Attacking intent down the right side
2. Attacking intent down the right side
3. Attacking intent down the right side

 

[KennyBurner]

1. FBs making overlapping runs and wide players making good use of that.
2. Midfielder with good passing range and also defensively very good
3. attackers making near post runs.

I agree with 1 and 3 the most with 1 being the biggest offender. Our fullbacks are not attacking often enough. Luke Shaw receives the ball and suddenly pauses. In his defense he ha started moving more with the ball but he needs to do it consistently. I don’t expect anything from AWB so I won’t even bother. He just needs to keep defending well and watch out for his back post from a cross.

 

[OleTheGreat]

I agree with 1 and 3 the most with 1 being the biggest offender. Our fullbacks are not attacking often enough. Luke Shaw receives the ball and suddenly pauses. In his defense he ha started moving more with the ball but he needs to do it consistently. I don’t expect anything from AWB so I won’t even bother. He just needs to keep defending well and watch out for his back post from a cross.

We must expect more from AWB. He sometimes rattles himself but I think he will learn the art of attacking as his career progresses. These guys must just sit together and watch Beckham's crossing on video before the game.

 

[R77]

1) CB with a good passing range. (find midfielders, long range passes to forwards and more)

Think that's one of the reasons we bought Maguire. It's in his locker but we've not seen much of it. Saw a nice pass or two between the lines from Lindelof recently too. Neither are world class at it, but it's there. As the whole idea comes from CBs having time and space, I think we may see more of it as we grow in form/confidence and control games more.

2) Wing backs and Wingers need to cross the ball into the box more.

Shaw looks to have been practicing. Have seen much more attempts at delivery from him in a couple of games, that haven't exactly been poor quality. Telles... Yeah. AWB is def. relatively poor here. There's a not unreasonable argument that he isn't actually as bad as you may think once he's in the attacking third, it's just getting there that's the problem. Article here about the Newcastle game with a section on how we solved that. We're obv. lacking a little in quality in this department, but seems it's being worked intently, and Telles adds a great deal.

What wingers? James? Heh.

3) Stretch the play throughout the pitch in order to find time and space.

Problematic in the lateral sense with the wide player situation. A positive develompment that will likely be helpful is that we're getting good at different set ups and formations within individual games. It's certainly not Bielsa levels of adaptability, but a promising development.

Something I would add is variety from the attacking players, but this is partially caused by some of the above. Sevilla game is a decent example. Ball on the floor, interplay in the middle of the area, has been 90% of our attacking play for a while. Teams wise to it, and well drilled toward that cause us problems. It's looking like the players and mechanisms are in place to solve this to a degree. Will just take a little time to see.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

1) Goals
2) Defence
3) Profit?

 

[Okey]

Frankly, if you cut out the so many passes we misplace to opponents in the middle of the park, we'd be nigh on unplayable. And they're not usually difficult passes, just a function of the limitations of some of our players (looking at you otherwise beauties McFred). They can keep improving this on the training pitch - decision making and passing accuracy.

 

[Borys]

1) Overlapping fullbacks. We can do it, I think Ole is getting more brave with recent resluts. We were ultra conservative against Chelsea, clearly Shaw and AWB were instructed to stay back.
2) Different attackers taking turns at running at goal for crosses. It's very difficult to mark 2/3 players doing that.
3) Maguire needs to make decisions quickly, he has a tendency to dwell on the ball and once he makes a pass (even if a good one), all players are already marked by opposition.

 

[SadlerMUFC]

One of the biggest things that I see all the time and it drives me crazy is that we need to get more players in the box. I see it all the time. We pass the ball around the outside of the 18 with everyone showing for the ball to accept the pass to feet and when we get the ball into a good area for a cross we only have one player inside the 18. No wonder our FB's rarely put in crosses...

 

[Valuedrug]

There are a number of things still to be honest, but just any kind of consistent wing play is something we desperately need in the tool kit. Especially for those games, where we're allowed to have the ball, and the opponent successfully funnels us out wide. I just really want to see us consistently getting in behind defenses through smart overlaps and proper wide players beating a man with both the actual intent and credible threat of going to the byline for a cross.

I think it does rely quite a bit on being able to establish dominance in midfield though, so the other team gets pushed back properly. Currently that also seems to be an issue for the team to some extent, given the lack of players in the squad who combine reliable passing ability with energetic and intelligent movement. So in the end a lot of these desired elements are very intertwined.

 

[noodlehair]

- I don't think we need the centrebacks to be amazing or better at passing the ball. We need them to just be quicker at it. Both Lindelof and Maguire still have a habbit of aimlessly wandering along with the ball before passing it. By that point it doesn't matter how good your passing is as there'll be no one in space to pick out. It's infuriating to watch. The only reason for a centreback to carrying the ball is if they are moving forwards into space to commit opposition players. Even when Maguire or Lindelof do actually do this it's done almost at half pace.

- I still think we need to figure out what we're doing with the midfield. Matic is someone who you just can't play against a pressing side unless your tactics are to sit on the edge of your own area all game...but we keep picking him for these types of games and then trying to sit him in the middle third of the pitch. It has to be McTominay or Fred doing that. Pogba shows consistently that he can't play in that role either, but he looked a lot better the other night when he wasn't one of the sitting players. I have no idea what VDB's position is but you could see an instant difference when Fernandes came on the other night.

- We need to get back to having all our match winners on the pitch. It's no good having three/four attacking players who are good enough to win you games on their own, if you go into a game against Chelsea with Daniel James and Juan Mata playing instead of two of them. I think James and Mata both have a place in our squad but it isn't starting games against teams at a similar level to us where we actually need our best forwards. Obviously there was no choice in Martial's case but it's more a point of how much difference an extra couple of 20 goal a season players on the pitch will make.

- Match fitness. I think we need to give it a few more weeks to see what happens as some of the more recent performances have been very good, and to be deservedly top of the CL group with 6 points after the two games we've had is quite impressive by any team's standards. It could be that in a month's time if you wipe the first few league games off our season we suddenly look like a very good team. Or it could be that we go back to defending like we're coached by David Luiz and lose every other game.

- I'm not sure why people moan about our attacking play as it's been pretty good since we signed Fernandes and started using Greenwood as a starter.

- I can't count to 3

 

[Web of Bissaka]

Sounds so simple... so why couldn't we do it?

 

[Sandikan]

Genuinely thought this was going to be a...

defending, midfielding and attacking

 

[Dominos]

When it comes to attacking play it feels like our players are not on the same wavelength in the slightest. Most of our attacks end up breaking down because one player runs in behind and the pass gets played short, or the player comes short and the ball is played over the top. It's actually ridiculous, you wonder what they do in training all week because it looks like a bunch of strangers out there.

Our use of the wings and crossing is also poor, we should be working 2 v 1 out wide more often and getting better balls into the box with better movement from those in the box. City with their team of midgets have been much more effective at creating from wide positions by getting to the byline consistently and either using cut backs or balls played across the 6 yard box for a tap in at the back post etc.

 

[Gabagoo]

More shots.

We are so shot-shy. We get into good positions 25 yards out and just end up passing it around like a hot potato.

City do it right, they have so many attempts at goal. Basically I wish we had balls like City. I don't think it's an Old thing either, I think our players are quite gutless in that regard (outside of Rashford and Greenwood).

 

[Santoryo]

I agree with 1 and 3 the most with 1 being the biggest offender. Our fullbacks are not attacking often enough. Luke Shaw receives the ball and suddenly pauses. In his defense he ha started moving more with the ball but he needs to do it consistently. I don’t expect anything from AWB so I won’t even bother. He just needs to keep defending well and watch out for his back post from a cross.

Agree very much on the FB point. I've been very easy on Shaw and I've always given him a pass because he's more solid than AWB on the ball but when you watch games like Wolves last night and the way they used their FBs was something of a beauty.

Their FBs were always pushing so high when the ball is with the CBs or midfield which made the switch much easier. Couple that with their actually attacking intent and use of the ball when the ball switched to then made me further realise we really are lacking in FBs department when have Shaw and especially AWB.

Too bad Telles got covid, hopefully he recovers soon and just as quickly displaces Shaw. Having even 1 FB who would be taking advantage of the space left on the wings by our forwards tucked in will actually help us and give us another genuine attacking dimension.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

The one thing that needs to improve is intensity. The speed at which we move the ball. All this overlapping fullbacks blah blah is all just white noise because it’s pointless if the ball cant get to them in space to effect play. Same goes for the forwards.

Its been a problem since Moyes was in charge and LVG talked about it all the time. The intensity or tempo to our play just wasn’t there and still isn’t there. Fix that and we’ll be dandy.

just need to move the ball a lot quicker.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

1. Defenders becoming more press resistant, or finding ones who are.
2. DM that provides both ability on the ball and without it with good mobility as well. Needs to be a “first name on the team sheet” type that we can build around.
3.We need to find a right sided attacker that excels 1v1 the same way Martial does when isolated on the left and can create chances from that.

The first two are much more important because our biggest vulnerability is playing out of the back, both under pressure and without it.Too many losses of possession coming in the wrong areas of the pitch.

 

[Jean claude van hire]

Number one; just cut out those basic errors in terms of simple pass completion (the 5 yard passes that go astray). I don’t know any other top team that misplaced as many passes as we do.
Number two; outrun the opposition! No excuses just do it.
Number three; Get an established captain that all the players buy into (could be Harry btw)

 

[Bwuk]

Full backs need to play higher up the park.

More energy in the side, out work the opposition.

Someone who can pass the ball from deep.

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

When we play Ole's favoured 4231 it’s painfully obvious that we're lacking a proper threat on the right hand side. Secondly, we need a younger version of Matic - I’ve previously suggested Yves Bissouma of Brighton but there may be better, I’m not that au fait with non PL options.

 

[Dominos]

When it comes to attacking play it feels like our players are not on the same wavelength in the slightest. Most of our attacks end up breaking down because one player runs in behind and the pass gets played short, or the player comes short and the ball is played over the top. It's actually ridiculous, you wonder what they do in training all week because it looks like a bunch of strangers out there.

Our use of the wings and crossing is also poor, we should be working 2 v 1 out wide more often and getting better balls into the box with better movement from those in the box. City with their team of midgets have been much more effective at creating from wide positions by getting to the byline consistently and either using cut backs or balls played across the 6 yard box for a tap in at the back post etc.

Another game whereby the players were not on the same wavelength in the slightest. One player runs in behind and the pass is played to feet. One player comes short and the ball is played over the top. One player receives the ball and lays it off for a 1-2 when there was no run made for the 1-2 in the first place.

I will add to that, when the likes of Pep, Klopp and even Poch take over a team you can at least see the difference in the way they want their team to play, and the improvement in certain aspects of their game is obvious from the work done on the training pitch. I don't think we ever look like a well coached team in terms of our pressing and passing. Our passing is hopeless, our pressing is poor, and there's just no cohesion in the attacking play.

 

[The Irish Connection]

Cut out the sloppy passing in attacking movements and in the final third.

Today we started with an inherently sloppy on the ball midfield. Pogba has always been sloppy, Fred is, Bruno is and Mctominay is more ‘basic’. It was a game for van de Beek in midfield, who is very efficient with his passing, to balance it a bit.

 

[The Brown Bull]

No. 1 Drop Pogba.
Nó. 2 Drop Pogba.
Nó. 3 Drop Pogba.