High Press | Does it work?

RDCR07

Not a bad guy (Whale Killer)
Joined
Aug 14, 2009
Messages
33,477
Location
Transfer Forum
This high pressing of ours - does it really work? I don’t think we have the personnel for it. I understand pressing higher up the pitch but why do we push our three forwards inside their box/to their sideline to press their defenders? One small pass and it takes 3 of our players out the game. Not to mention it stretches us so much and leaves so much space for the opposition to run into.

This makes our defenders move way too high up and again leaves so much space and so many balls get played in behind our defense. Why don’t we sit back a little and let them have the ball at their goal line? They can’t hurt us from that position. Once it gets played into their midfield or defense outside their box then we press and we can stay more compact that way.
 
What high pressing of ours? I must be watching something else.
 
Think our wide players could do worse than watch Cavani for that spell he had. Never gave the defenders a second and made several chances by hounding them.
 
In the beginning and towards the end of the match we caught them dangerously in their own third. We just shit ourselves a bit when we have superior numbers.

That said, other times the press just allows them to dangerously counter. Needs to be more measured in its implementation.
 
It works but the way we do it is very poor.
 
It should but we are doing it wrong. One or 2 players do, 3 tops others are staying in their positions.
 
I would guess one of the major reasons tonight was we are at home against a smaller club in a close to must win fixture. That calls for more risky pressing to try and win the ball closer to their goal, especially as we went behind. I don't think we approach every game in exactly the same manner. I also don't think the fans are going to stand for people standing around while Villarreal punt it around and get comfort at Old Trafford. Things like this have to influence the manager's thinking because you don't play these matches in a vacuum.

We're not great at it, never have been. Our forwards have never had the work-rate to do it like other teams no matter what combination we put out. Only people like James and Lingard are convincing with their energy and commitment to press.
 
We only high press in the 5-10 minutes after opposition teams scored. But even then it’s not a coached high press and just our players reacting and after 10 or so minutes it runs out of steam.
 
When Cavani came on it was good, before that it was bypassed far too easily. One or two passes and they were easily getting past. If the whole team doesn’t commit to the press there’s no point doing it, and when Cavani came on and there was a bit more urgency it worked fairly well.
 
High pressing is when the whole team presses high up the pitch. It is not when players take it in turns to press, which is what we do.

Sometimes Bruno does it, sometimes Sancho, sometimes Greenwood, sometimes Ronaldo. Never all at once, and never anybody else involved. Get it past them and you've got a free run at our defence.
 
We don’t press as a team, it’s always been the issue. For some reason we played almost a flat four at the back. You can’t play a functioning high press without full backs (or with Ronaldo). Villarreal almost always had someone free out wide.
 
Agreed Cavani is very good at it but the likes of Sancho and Greenwood aren’t good. They are just running towards the ball without purpose. Wingers are a huge part of the high press and they aren’t doing their part.
 
We pressed properly about 3 times today and it changed the entire dynamic of the game.

I do not say this as a dig but whether Ole can coach players to do it regularly and effectively I have no idea.
 
With that team, no. Telles and Dalot aren't quicker enough or strong enough to cover the ground we need. Put Shaw and AWB in there and it would probably have been far more effective.
 
I think a big problem this season is when the attack breaks down our midfielders go steaming in to pick up the second or loose ball, miss it by some way then the apposition break on us. I think if they could learn when to hold and when to go for it we would stop getting ran right through
 
OverratedOpinion said:
We pressed properly about 3 times today and it changed the entire dynamic of the game.

I do not say this as a dig but whether Ole can coach players to do it regularly and effectively I have no idea.
Click to expand...
He has had 3 years to do it and we haven’t done it well. Do you think it’s going to change?
 
It works if you know how to do it as a team. Our coaching doesn't know how to implement it though.
 
I’d love us to press high as a team but we are useless at it, Ole used to say we’d be the fittest team in the league and out run everyone, haven’t seen it yet. We can’t press well and can’t sit back well, just get passed around or run through every time.

Best option is to go full Keegan Newcastle but to be honest I don’t think our lot would run hard enough to do that week in week out.
 
RDCR07 said:
This high pressing of ours - does it really work? I don’t think we have the personnel for it. I understand pressing higher up the pitch but why do we push our three forwards inside their box/to their sideline to press their defenders? One small pass and it takes 3 of our players out the game. Not to mention it stretches us so much and leaves so much space for the opposition to run into.

This makes our defenders move way too high up and again leaves so much space and so many balls get played in behind our defense. Why don’t we sit back a little and let them have the ball at their goal line? They can’t hurt us from that position. Once it gets played into their midfield or defense outside their box then we press and we can stay more compact that way.
Click to expand...
When we were playing turgid park the bus football under Jose, we were all crying out for high pressing football.
 
When Cavani came on it worked, I don’t think Ronnie liked to use up the energy and it showed where he gave up on a over hit pass and Cavani won it back running right across the pitch. It works but has to be calculated otherwise like the OP said one pass and it takes 3 players out the game!
 
It works if you setup properly and press as a team
 
Ollie Derbyshire said:
I’d love us to press high as a team but we are useless at it, Ole used to say we’d be the fittest team in the league and out run everyone, haven’t seen it yet. We can’t press well and can’t sit back well, just get passed around or run through every time.

Best option is to go full Keegan Newcastle but to be honest I don’t think our lot would run hard enough to do that week in week out.
Click to expand...
It’s not even about being fit. I actually think we are fit as a team but there is no point when we run around like headless chickens all over the pitch. We don’t press as a team. We press as individuals.
 
We can’t play the high press because of Ronaldo, Greenwood and Sancho don’t know when to go as Ronaldo just runs when he wants to.

I think we could still play some functioning press but it would mean dropping Pogba and I’m very happy to do that.

Ive said it time and time again, 90 percent of the cafe forgot what Pogba is like in the first game of the season, hope it’s clearer now, he needs to be replaced for a functioning midfielder.

Sancho is looking better and better, he needs a goal and a bit more confidence and he will thrive, especially when Rashford comes back.
 
It doesn't work.

Because they press as individuals up top.

The midfield doesn't follow up properly and pushes into a half press situation.

The defence are more often than not too deep.

So individual pressing, plus a half pressing midfield and a deep defence does not work when combined in the same team.
 
bosnian_red said:
It works if you know how to do it as a team. Our coaching doesn't know how to implement it though.
Click to expand...
This. The way we try to do it is really is amateurish/sunday league level as our tactics and "style of play".
 
Chief123 said:
When we were playing turgid park the bus football under Jose, we were all crying out for high pressing football.
Click to expand...
I’m not against high press. I would love for us to implement it the way Pool and Barca did it and gain possession back quickly. But we don’t have the staff talented enough to teach our players a system to do it the right away.
 
Relevated said:
When we did high press, after cavani came on, we looked good.
Click to expand...
Yes. Cavani had an understated performance attacking wise, but for me close to a 10/10 defensive performance from the final third, as weird as that sounds. He was absolutely huge in the goal, and made some big chances through effort alone.
 
RDCR07 said:
It’s not even about being fit. I actually think we are fit as a team but there is no point when we run around like headless chickens all over the pitch. We don’t press as a team. We press as individuals.
Click to expand...
It’s obviously not something Ole wants us to do or we’d be doing it by now surely, can’t be hard to train them to do it well, ever other team out there seem to be able to do it to us ok.

I think he prefers them to do as little as possibly so they have the energy bursts for when we get to counter, that’s fine when you can control games easily, not when you’ve been chasing shadows most the game being cut apart at will.
 
Ollie Derbyshire said:
It’s obviously not something Ole wants us to do or we’d be doing it by now surely, can’t be hard to train them to do it well, ever other team out there seem to be able to do it to us ok.

I think he prefers them to do as little as possibly so they have the energy bursts for when we get to counter, that’s fine when you can control games easily, not when you’ve been chasing shadows most the game being cut apart at will.
Click to expand...
If he doesn’t want us to then why do we do it every game? We try to play in the oppositions half a lot but we keep giving the ball away and don’t control the game enough to do that.
 
11101 said:
High pressing is when the whole team presses high up the pitch. It is not when players take it in turns to press, which is what we do.

Sometimes Bruno does it, sometimes Sancho, sometimes Greenwood, sometimes Ronaldo. Never all at once, and never anybody else involved. Get it past them and you've got a free run at our defence.
Click to expand...
Nail on the head.

Fed up of people saying we don't have the players to press. The coaching of the ream is absolute horrendous, 3 years in and they're still not a cohesive unit.
 
RDCR07 said:
If he doesn’t want us to then why do we do it every game? We try to play in the oppositions half a lot but we keep giving the ball away and don’t control the game enough to do that.
Click to expand...
Do what press high? I wouldn’t say we do that at all. We have a lot of possession in the oppositions half as they sit back a lot and soak up our poor play waiting to counter on us.
 
It does work, and if we actually did it well it would be nowhere near as taxing on the legs as it currently is for our forwards. Pleasing to see us pressing them high up in their third tonight, but our entire backline being 40 yards deeper than our forwards and sometimes midfield meant Villareal had an easy outball so often.

Dalot in particular was caught way too deep far too often during our press today, meaning we ended up getting bypassed numerous times with us having to chase Villareal all the way back to our third. Good to see us try to evolve our gameplan slightly in this game though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.