How to Fix Our Heavy Left Wing

Borys

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I've been analyzing yesterday game vs WBA, one thing that is quite obvious is how heavy is our left wing compared to right wing. It's common knowledge but just take a look at the heatmaps:
Bruno, Rashford, Martial separately


Bruno, Rashford, Martial combined - they are all occupying similar space. Even if they take positions on the right, it's very deep and with little attacking intent.


Wide attackers and fullbacks combined, you see our right wing is not even getting close to the box


Last pic - All front 4 combined. Wan Bissaka and midfield adds nothing to the right side while attacking. On the left Telles should be included but that would blur an image.


Now I see a lot of people criticizing midfield for not being offensive enough. However, I believe what we should focus on how to bring balance back between left and right wing. It's very easy for opposition to congest center and left side while defending, because there is no threat coming from the right, and if we want to improve, we need to address this issue first and at least try to stretch opponent defense formation.

Possible solutions:
  • start Cavani at CF, and shift one of Martial/Rashford to the RW. It's not ideal as neither of them seems comfortable playing there, but it might be beneficial for the team. Both of them are struggling to put the ball into the net, so not a big loss.
  • wait for Greenwood (whatever is happening), and play him from the right. He likes to roam around, and is left footed but he seems like a threat wherever he plays. His defensive contribution is weak so it's 1to1 Mata replacement.
  • switch to back 3 with McTominay as RCB, play Fred and van de Beek in front of the 3 defenders. Donny seems quite comfortable on the right, unlike Bruno & Pogba he doesn't have natural inclination to move to the left. Makes no sense to play him in midfield two as it'd limit his license to push forward. This would be my preferred approach as we have one too many attacking midfielder.
  • survive until winter transfer window and splash the cash for a proper right winger. This is not happening considering the way we do business. Lets pretend we're not considering that option, otherwise we'll end up with another muppet thread
Thoughts?

EDIT:
To all those wise asses, buying a proper right winger IS NOT AN EASY FIX. I remind you we're in November 2020 and we've failed to get one in the summer, so if anything it's the most difficult solution.
 
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Rampant Red Rodriguez

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Buy a right winger, and bring back Dalot for the RW. They can attack and defend in motion like a pair of synchronised swimmers . Problem solved, £20m advisory fee please
 
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Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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Employ Farage as a DOF. That’ll balance it out. He’ll definitely get us Grealish, he might get us Sancho, but you can forget about Upamecano.
 

MikeKing

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It's hilariously weird that some blame Ole for this conundrum when we all know we still have the same problem we had when we first bought Mata and had him compete with Rooney, Kagawa, Fellaini etc. Honestly we probably haven't had a real right winger since Ronaldo left us, except for Valencia who had a couple of good seasons.
 

R77

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Good post, it's the major issue. It's actually even worse than you mention though. Looks to me we have barely any players that are remotely natural in the right half at all. McT and AWB? I'm also starting to think the heavy dependance on overloading down the left is consciously supposed to be a way of distracting from it as much as focusing on the strengths of the left sided options.

Not addressing it in the last window was a poor, destructive gamble, and as good as they may or may not turn out to be, there's no way Pellistri or Diallo are a solution in the short term.

We've tried Rashford there a couple of times recently, which kinda worked the once, but the end result is little different. There's no proper solution with the players we have as far as I can see. Need one, maybe two players for the right flank, and whoever ends up replacing Pogba/Matic needs to be quite firmly comfortable and orientated to the right half too. Otherwise it's going to continue for some time.

UnrelatedPsuedo said:
No problem. Play the best player in their position?....
Click to expand...
Who?
 

Web of Bissaka

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Good thread OP.

Borys said:
Possible solutions:
  • start Cavani at CF, and shift one of Martial/Rashford to the RW. It's not ideal as neither of them seems comfortable playing there, but it might be beneficial for the team. Both of them are struggling to put the ball into the net, so not a big loss.
  • wait for Greenwood (whatever is happening), and play him from the right. He likes to roam around, and is left footed but he seems like a threat wherever he plays. His defensive contribution is weak so it's 1to1 Mata replacement.
  • switch to back 3 with McTominay as RCB, play Fred and van de Beek in front of the 3 defenders. Donny seems quite comfortable on the right, unlike Bruno & Pogba he doesn't have natural inclination to move to the left. Makes no sense to play him in midfield two as it'd limit his license to push forward. This would be my preferred approach as we have one too many attacking midfielder.
  • survive until winter transfer window and splash the cash for a proper right winger. This is not happening considering the way we do business.
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
  • Rashford to RW. It's ideal he's there. We have right width for once when he play there, even if the quality is lacking - it'll do.
  • Greenwood like to drift to the centre mainly, and even as far as left wing. He won't provide the right width. But I do agree with you, at least he offers us something we're missing - clinical finishing and goals.
  • Donny is NOT comfortable on the right at all. He also like to drifted to the left wing, his natural inclination is similar. Wonder why people miss this. Oh wait, Ole rarely gave him many minutes per game. Easy to miss, but his performances on the right wing is trash.
  • Who is this "proper right winger" is the question, and is it worth it to splash too much money like 120m+ on it or not? We're not willing to do it, and instead we got in two younger promising (sort-of) right wingers. Hopefully they mature and impress quickly. The path to right wing is wide open and should be easy to grab. The only thing left is if Ole brave enough to try.

Difficult isn't it.
Dilemma.

How come we've been neglecting this position for oh so many years again?
Probably only once when Mourinho wanted to bring in Willian (not that I agree with it) is the only closest attempts to bring solution to this problem. Then again I doubt Willian is interested in transferring away far from London.

Has it been 7 years?! when both Valencia and Nani declined then quickly turned into RB and shafted out respectively, and we have been ignoring it all this time. Embarrassing. It's like there is no someone at the club's top hiearchy that understand football is overseeing this oh wait- The managers who manage also doesn't seem to be interested in getting right wingers either so you have to ask the actual questions - just what the heck is happening in our club?
 

Green_Red

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You needed to analyse our performance to see that? :lol: :lol: :lol: Easy way to fix it. Get a right winger.
 

Web of Bissaka

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MikeKing said:
It's hilariously weird that some blame Ole for this conundrum when we all know we still have the same problem we had when we first bought Mata and had him compete with Rooney, Kagawa, Fellaini etc. Honestly we probably haven't had a real right winger since Ronaldo left us, except for Valencia who had a couple of good seasons.
Click to expand...
Nani.

I always felt he's much better on the right than the left. Far more natural on the right than left. After Ronaldo left, I'm a bit disappointed when we move Nani to the LW, but then Valencia is new and too good in that season so it's deserving. We also don't really have a left winger at that time, with Giggs then is more of a CM so I get it. Nonetheless, Nani played well on the LW, but never seen him play naturally there. It's far too static and too predictable. Yes good but not compare to his potential on the right. Once we get Young in and Valencia's form gets worse, I was hoping Nani would be our main RW but no, his performances are back to usual = inconsistent.

On the left, he's far too predictable, more likely to cut in and either shoot or cross. Basically what Rashford is doing now. But on the right, he dribbles past players more and deliver deep crosses along with shooting, 1-2 passes, etc. His technical skills on the ball is so good. Could whip in delicious crossings now and again repeatedly with his good natural right foot. Overall he is far difficult to stop on the RW and basically he play like a playmaker. But I understand why SAF basically drop him in favor of Valencia and Young. He's too far hot and cold - a problem which our Rashford and Martial are still having - inconsistency. Nani's workrate and definitely decisions makings are always questionable. And my gahd, Nani is an absolute ball-hogging machine. A lot of the time, opposing teams managed to regroup and fall back quickly with him stalling our counters. Many fans will choose to remember the opposite of this of course, despite the constant call of frustrations from the fans in those days.
 

davidmichael

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I saw how long the OP was and decided to skip it, not because of any lack of effort as I can see by how long it is that serious effort was put in. I didn’t read it because the answer is obvious and I think everyone can see it, we NEED a genuine quality right sided attacker and have done since 2009 when Ronaldo went to Real.
 

Green_Red

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Borys said:
Give me one available in the winter. You said easy right?

I want to discuss solutions, not turn this into another muppet thread.
Click to expand...
How many premier league teams starting XI have a right winger that we'd be able to get? You'll probably say they aren't good enough but given the start to the season some teams have had down the right versus us I think there's a few players we could get if it was to provide some balance in the final third.

If your question is how many £100mil players are available thats a different story. But that's why they cost £100mil, because teams don't want to let them go.

There's literally at least 50 right wingers in Europe that are better than our current options on the right.
 

Adam-Utd

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Stop playing Mata on the right wing for a start.
 

Rampant Red Rodriguez

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Pelustri is getting better and I hope will get minutes before Xmas. And Traore too will be worth looking at come January as he already has had first team football in Italy.

Slowly and surely the problem will be resolved. Or in 1 big hit of the Sancho fee
 

cyril C

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Green_Red said:
How many premier league teams starting XI have a right winger that we'd be able to get? You'll probably say they aren't good enough but given the start to the season some teams have had down the right versus us I think there's a few players we could get if it was to provide some balance in the final third.

If your question is how many £100mil players are available thats a different story. But that's why they cost £100mil, because teams don't want to let them go.

There's literally at least 50 right wingers in Europe that are better than our current options on the right.
Click to expand...
We thought we got a right winger in Sanchez, apparently not. We thought we have James as RW, not good. Someone tried to sell us Bale and Grealish as RW, as least we are smarter this time. Fans thought VDB should be a RW, even Ole used him as RW, really? You are right, there are at least a dozen or so natural right winger in Europe at affordable price.
 

FrankDrebin

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We obviously need a effective right sided attacker and we also obviously need a out-and-out centre forward who will predominately stay central, though Cavani could be that guy short term.

So it's a coin toss between Martial and Rashford for the left side.
Neither one can be relied upon to remain as the main centre forward as they both naturally always drift wide.
 

lee82gx

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It is painfully obvious that our entire right wing is light. OP presents it nice graphical appearance but any fan with some experience watching football can see, we are not providing any width, depth or thrust or even threat from the right side. At most, Mata just stays at the right side and brings it back to the center or backwards. That's because AWB does not provide the trickery or crossing whip, when he is given the chance. I wince everytime he gets down the byline, cuts a little deeper and puts a cross or pass that every one can anticipate and block. Greenwood is a much better option even though he just cuts inside and shoots. If he can get over whatever he needs to get over.

To say there is no right winger in the market is an insult to the profession : Diogo Jota, Ferran Torres? Both not requiring the worldly sums requested by Dortmund. I found these two with 10 clicks of the mouse ffs. I'd say we missed out on those two, big time by chasing a wild goose in Dortmund with no money in our pockets. Right now? I'm not so sure but I'd bet there is one or two you can get for under 60M. Whether we can pay that is another matter of course. But I'd say with Jota and Torres, the market has been priced that way now.

Diallo looking good? Well we'll see won't we (in the sense that I've literally not seen him play). Pellestri absolutely looks like a U23 player to me, not yet a full senior pro.
 
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Strelok

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Borys said:
Now please explain to me how is buying a right winger easy on this day in those conditions and who would that be.
Click to expand...
Ivan Perisic. Two footed, good crosser, decent passer, decent dribbler, smart, can defend, run a lot, can shoot, can head the ball, can play well in both wings and even as a striker. Was available for €12m.

I've no idea why we didn't go for that obvious choice. Probably because of the 'resale value'. Don't know how he's faring this season but last time I looked he was pretty good for Bayern in the CL.
 
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