How the Turntables - defending counter attacks

[VP89]

What was a clear strength of ours when attacking the opposition looks like it's become a weakness to defend against. Wolves, Newcastle and a bit of Southampton tells me that most teams in the league are going to try and sit deep and hit us on the break. We often pen teams in until a missed placed pass or dispossession leaves us biting our teeth as the opposition floods forward with intent in about 4-5 seconds.

What's the best fix for this? Vs Wolves Fred was caught out, I think Maguire bombed in too early for the goal today and there are probably other examples.

I'm asking the forum because perhaps I'm being overly critical, I heard on the train back today that Mendy made a range of saves for Chelsea so no defence is without their flaws. Perhaps there is something to be wary of from our side though. I still feel like we are not completely in control of defending attacks, unless it's around Varane's channel of course . Does anyone else share that sentiment?

 

[arnie_ni]

We were too afraid to give away a fk in their half.

Need to watch a few games of City and Liverpool who have mastered it.

 

[choccy77]

Fred is our saviour

 

[Blood Mage]

We just need a top class DM

 

[The United]

As I have been saying in a few threads, we have to try to foul more early when we lose the ball further ahead. After awhile, we might master the art of getting away with it too. Ander used to do that a lot. And, of course City and Pool DM/CM.

There is no other way to defend perfectly when you are pouring numbers forward.

 

[Brightonian]

I hate to say it but watch Liverpool, they're brilliant at this. You've got to be cynical, and you've got to be really well drilled so that players instinctively know who's going to step out and who's going to chase.

Obviously Fred or McTominay are the two who you would expect to make the tackle-or-foul intervention so Pogba-Matic made us more vulnerable to this today.

 

[FreakyJim]

Having someone who can move in midfield would be a start.

For this particular goal - Shaw just half arsed it and Maguire was slow as feck. Matic might as well have not been there, stood like a pole.

If we want to play so far up we have to have more people like Varane and less people like Matic and Maguire, imo.

 

[Pexbo]

I don’t think it’s necessarily a weakness as such, it just so happens to be the one way our opponents can attack us dur to the fact we intentionally play a high line which on balance is beneficial to us.

 

[Vidyoyo]

Two words:

Lindelof

 

[Adnan]

I think the issue is clearly the midfield players. Pogba and Matic are good on the ball but as we saw again earlier, they can get bypassed easily which is a big problem if the plan is to successfully implement a expansive way of playing the game. So if you look at Liverpool during their league/UCL campaigns, their midfielders were strong off the ball and strong on the ball in relation to the team dynamic. Their fullbacks are also strong in the build up phase and provide a option in midfield which really helps their transition at a high level. And last but not least, their CBs have shown they can defend the channel without midfield and fullback assistance, especially Van Dijk who has shown to be extremely good in such scenarios against the quickest of attackers. I'm hopeful Varane will do similar for us.


And to answer the question posed in the OP, I'd say we need one midfielder in the first 11 who is defensively strong and has the ability/potential to defend large spaces on the counter attack against the quickest of attackers. And in conjunction with the two CBs, that would provide a defensive balance in a set up which sacrifices defensive stability for goals.

But what you can't afford is to see your midfielders get easily bypassed via a dribble which happened against Newcastle on several occassions to both Pogba and Matic. And that's quite frankly not good enough defensively and it'll be interesting to see what Solskjaer tries to balance it out. Maybe he can try McTominay as a destroyer against the supposed weaker teams with Pogba ahead of him?

And people want Neves as a DM or want us to try Lindelof there, which would mean they'd also get bypassed easily in such a setup. In such a setup you need a DM who can defend large spaces in conjunction with two CBs. And if this DM can pass like Pirlo, then that's a bonus but it's not a necessity IMO because a midfield has to be balanced and the most defensive minded midfielder doesn't have to be the one controlling the game from deeper.

I think if you put Casemiro next to either Fred or McTominay, then IMO I wouldn't expect us to control games via possession play. But Casemiro next to Modric and Kroos, becomes a well constructed midfield which has both art and industry which has shown to be highly effective at the highest level. Casemiro is strong at defending large spaces (approach dependant) with Kroos and Modric controlling the game and also providing defensive balance if and when required.

 

[Dominos]

Firstly, the opposition can't counter if you don't give the ball away. Now obviously you're going to lose the ball, but the amount of times we turnover the ball in "easy possession" is too high. Poor touches, sloppy passes, dawdling on the ball too long, trying to dribble in areas they shouldn't be dribbling, losing duels that we should be favourites to win - the frequency of these needs to reduce massively. I don't know if losing the ball playing out from the back counts as counter-attack, but we're conceding a lot of dangerous opposition attacks in transition by being shite at playing out from the back. It's 3 years in under current regime and we still can't do it so I don't have much faith in this improving much.

Second, we need to make more tactical fouls before the counters even get started. If they've already got us running back towards our own goal and they're in our half then it's too late. Make the foul as soon as you lose the ball and you're pressing them - City are good at this. Maybe we should bring in Fernandinho as our tactical foul coach when he retires.

Thirdly, we need better midfielders.

 

[Foxbatt]

In my opinion tactically Maguire went to the space he is supposed to go. What he got wrong was going in sliding and get beaten.
The other issue is AWB rarely sprint back. This leaves the two CBs alone and in today's case Varane alone.

 

[Mr Smith]

Two words:

Lindelof

That old chestnut

As others have already pointed out, the key is cynical, rotational fouls when the opposition counters. Theoretically Fred could be made to become good at this; he's quick and energetic enough to step in early, but I'm not sure he reads danger too well. Matic was actually very good at this in his prime, but he's lost a yard or so now.

 

[Red00012]

Matic left Saint Maximin through at one stage in the 2nd half without even thinking of taking a yellow card. He needs to watch a few clips of Fernandinho

 

[Jericho]

Two words:

Lindelof

What does that mean, three at the back?

 

[MDFC Manager]

Matic left Saint Maximin through at one stage in the 2nd half without even thinking of taking a yellow card. He needs to watch a few clips of Fernandinho

All of our players need to watch that. As well as clips of what Liverpool do, like has been suggested by people in this thread. We won't win much being a nice team.

 

[RUCK4444]

Matic, I have no words for how poor he looked for the majority of the game.

Gave the ball away so many times, was pushing up and letting players waltz by him, then at times (when his legs have totally gone) he’s the deepest player on the pitch, I’m not sure why because if Saint Maximan had gotten the ball on the break in that circumstance then he would have walked past him.

Refuses to bring down players when needed and doesn’t have the legs to get back or track players. Which is obviously relevant to the topic.

Im not sure how people viewed his performance watching on tv/streams but watching live today he looked our worst player. Leaving Pogba with a hell of a shift to maintain a semblance of a midfield whilst trying to create.

 

[Relevated]

Tactical fouls.

 

[Teja]

We were too afraid to give away a fk in their half.

Need to watch a few games of City and Liverpool who have mastered it.

Need to sign someone like Thiago to learn the dark arts of fouling without getting cards.

The Newcastle goal is on Maguire though, after Almiron beat two players, Maguire should've either won the ball or dragged Almiron down and picked up a yellow. He tried to be too clever there.

 

[Adnan]

Tactical fouls are well and good if the circumstances demand it. But the bigger issue is our midfielders got bypassed too easily IMO. And if you can't even a control a defensive zone, off the ball in a 1v1 situation, then those tactical fouls will quickly start resulting in red cards.

 

[The United]

Tactical fouls are well and good if the circumstances demand it. But the bigger issue is our midfielders got bypassed too easily IMO. And if you can't even a control a defensive zone, off the ball in a 1v1 situation, then those tactical fouls will quickly start resulting in red cards.

The likes of City and pool do them and it should tell you that you can't prevent that 100% even with good DMs especially if you want to play with only one. We will have to learn how to do it regardless.

And, you commit them depending on circumstances of course. Not every single time.

 

[RedCurry]

We were too afraid to give away a fk in their half.

Need to watch a few games of City and Liverpool who have mastered it.

This is basically it. We need to get smarter at killing the attacks before they start. It is unsportsmanlike but it is what other teams do sometimes to win games.

 

[Abraxas]

I think saying that all it requires is a DM is a massive oversimplification of the problem. It would help because on days like today there wasn't really a convincing defensive presence. We had Pogba dictating the game and getting high up the pitch to do so, and Matic who didn't seem to have the legs to track runners. This of course leaves holes down the middle and led to Maguire and Varane getting attacked 1 v 1 for which we may pay in other games.

But it wasn't the only source of the issue. They were progressing down the wings with relative ease as well. There is an element of not being able to swim without getting wet - if we are committing bodies to overloads to try and break down a stubborn defence then you do need to have good recovery speed, a will to get back and good decision making. Those situations are inherently more risky.

I think we have to make better choices of when to tackle, when to hold them up, and we have to coordinate our press better. This is related to another thread on here, our forwards aren't that great in attempting to win the ball back and I think this can be worked on to make it harder for them to get out so convincingly. Then I think when it does happen we need to coordinate our reaction a lot better. This can be worked on in training, particularly now we have Varane as it creates a different dynamic.

Of course long term a DM is going to be another way to combat this but you can't expect one man to cover a whole teams deficiencies.

 

[meamth]

Yesterday was your answer, they have several counter attacks but only managed to score one goal.

AWB can recover fast, Varane can recover fast, Shaw maybe could improve. But if you replace Matic with McT, we might have seen better protection.

We have a go yesterday, it's expected to face some counter attacks, we dealt it well. See the final result.

 

[Adnan]

The likes of City and pool do them and it should tell you that you can't prevent that 100% even with good DMs especially if you want to play with only one. We will have to learn how to do it regardless.

And, you commit them depending on circumstances of course. Not every single time.

I agree dark arts need to be implemented at certain times. But in a setup where defensive stability is sacrificed, I don't believe we have the players to win 1v1 duels defending large spaces on the counter. Take Almiron as a example in the game yesterday, he knocked the ball past Pogba and just left him for dead with Pogba trailing. Matic is even worse. And we were only playing Newcastle who IMO are gonna battle relegation this season. And if we can't even defend and extinguish such scenarios from developing against weaker teams, then we're gonna struggle to implement such a game style against teams with more quality. A tactical foul is a clever way to regroup, but if we can't even win basic defensive duels centrally and skip straight to tactical fouling, then I don't believe that's a good strategy.

Liverpool and City have players in midfield who are more mobile and tenacious than ours. They don't get easily beaten by a dribble in the opposition's defensive half space like we saw yesterday against us. And its not just DMs but also other players in their teams who are not easily beaten or bypassed which really helps their attackers. Sometimes it does go wrong but both those teams have had recent success so are obviously gonna be used as a reference.

 

[Beachryan]

We were too afraid to give away a fk in their half.

Need to watch a few games of City and Liverpool who have mastered it.

This is actually an excellent point. Depressingly. It's the actual solution to the problem.

The thing that baffles me is how awful we are at dealing with the high long ball. Joelinton absolutely owned everyone he contested aerial duels with, whether Matic, AWB or Varane. He's not actually a reknowned target man, or any bigger than our players. In fact, we're a massive team height wise, but really don't play like it.

 

[eire-red]

We're not going to see line-ups like that against better sides, so I don't see the problem.

We're finally playing attacking football, taking risks and scoring goals. Who cares if we get caught on the counter if we're banging in 4 or 5 goals at home?

Against the top sides, I imagine we'll see McTominay and Fred, maybe Pogba on the left and the shackles on AWB and Shaw a little more.

We usually defend well when we set up in a more measured manner. Against Newcastle at home, why read into how many counter-attacks we were exposed on when we clearly had a very attacking line-up?

I'd rather be watching entertaining, end to end football than the drab affairs we were subjected to under Mourinho and LVG. Back then we were crying out for a team that takes risks on the ball!

 

[Suedesi]

Two words:

Lindelof

Looks like one word to me

 

[meamth]

We're not going to see line-ups like that against better sides, so I don't see the problem.

We're finally playing attacking football, taking risks and scoring goals. Who cares if we get caught on the counter if we're banging in 4 or 5 goals at home?

Against the top sides, I imagine we'll see McTominay and Fred, maybe Pogba on the left and the shackles on AWB and Shaw a little more.

We usually defend well when we set up in a more measured manner. Against Newcastle at home, why read into how many counter-attacks we were exposed on when we clearly had a very attacking line-up?

I'd rather be watching entertaining, end to end football than the drab affairs we were subjected to under Mourinho and LVG. Back then we were crying out for a team that takes risks on the ball!

Yes, can't believe they still pointing out the counter attacks yesterday as a glaring weakness.

We went Gung Ho, counter attacks are expected.

How many they scored? Oh.

 

[tomaldinho1]

I don’t think it’s anything new or even specific to us, against Newcastle at home you’d be very worried if they were bossing possession and we were countering surely?

Better to be countered whilst being proactive, now we need to see it against the bigger rivals.

 

[11101]

The problem is in midfield, and you need two players. One to pressure high up the pitch and one to make the foul or tackle at the other side. Once they're in space and running at you the chance to stop them has gone. If you just have one (Fred last game) he has to sit back and let them run at him, and it's easy to play around him. It doesn't need two midfielders but none of our other players are good at helping.

 

[arnie_ni]

It isn't even midfield. Watch City and look at how many fks sterling etc give away. If your attacking players do it early, close to the opposite box, they are more likely to get away with out a yellow.

Bruno Sancho greenwood needed to just give away a tactical foul when they lost the ball and allow everyone to regroup.