Is the high press the only way to go?

harms

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Yes, without a doubt. High pressing and proactive football is the way to go.

Liverpool's way is a bit easier than Guardiola's though. In Liverpool, pressing is their best playmaker (think about it... their most creative players are their fullbacks, who are great but they're not Dani Alves), which, I think, will suit our side. Pogba is the only one who stands out but I think that he actually prefers pressing to tracking back.
 

redIndianDevil

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There’s no point pressing the ball if you instantly lose possession.
The only reason we constantly lose possession is not because our players cannot pass, it's because there is no movement the teammates. Klopp or Guardiola is not all about high press and mad running, there is an analysis of Guardiola's style where one of the most important things he expects from his team is that a player should have at least three passing options when he has the ball, his teammates will move and open passing avenues. Our players will always stand still and wait for the ball to come to them. You think Martial wants to always run into traffic or Matic likes faffing around with the ball for the sake of it, he expects our players to move and creating a passing avenue. Again this is completely basic at the level that we compete and none of our coaches/managers have fixed this problem so far. This is again something you work in practise, you don't need extraordinary amount of fitness to do this basic fecking thing.
 

Hughie77

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Liverpool have mastered it, there 3 cm, just run and run, press press tackle in 2s , City are a bit more subtle in the way they do it, tactical fouls they give away, but there press is just as good as pools but there cms have better quality on ball.

Can't see why we cannot adopt a simlar way of playing, but players need to be fit.
 

AshRK

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Lingard may be useful against a team that will look to attack us but against a deep defence he is pretty much useless as his passing will constantly let him down. He cannot be our number 10, he is too inconsistent.
Cannot disagree with that either. Lingard at best should be a squad player. I hope Ole is not planning to have him as a regular starters for next season.
 

Theonas

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I think Conte managed to win a PL playing a different style. Defending deep could still be a good tactic to win the title, but we have to be good enough to open up the all the other teams, for that we have to attack aggressively and if we do that we have to incorporate some amount of pressing.
Winning the league is not the sole barometer though. You can win the league playing any style providing there are 19 teams that are not as good. It's all about the ceiling of a system. A perfectly executed possession and high pressing system has a higher ceiling than the way Leicester or Chelsea won the league. So, yes, we can win the league playing that way but we will need the rest to be below par just like they were between 2010 and 2017.
 

Greck

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Ha ha. I don't know why this myth is so prevalent. It's like people are clinging to any bare hope that Ole will come good and become the next Guardiola or Zidane.
When it's all said and done this "fitness" thing will go down as a meme to jab Ole's tenure.
 

redIndianDevil

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Winning the league is not the sole barometer though. You can win the league playing any style providing there are 19 teams that are not as good. It's all about the ceiling of a system. A perfectly executed possession and high pressing system has a higher ceiling than the way Leicester or Chelsea won the league. So, yes, we can win the league playing that way but we will need the rest to be below par just like they were between 2010 and 2017.
Unfortunately for us there arent any other managers who are as good as those two right now, at best there are some poor to average imitations like Sarri or Tuchel or ten Hag who is the new thing now. The best we can hope for is a balanced approach like Nuno Santo has done at Wolves, they are capable of dominating weaker teams and can defend and counter quite well against better teams. But yes I agree that the combination of high pressing and pass and move has the higher ceiling.
 

redIndianDevil

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Liverpool have mastered it, there 3 cm, just run and run, press press tackle in 2s , City are a bit more subtle in the way they do it, tactical fouls they give away, but there press is just as good as pools but there cms have better quality on ball.

Can't see why we cannot adopt a simlar way of playing, but players need to be fit.
This line of idiotic thinking is what has led us to this moment. If fitness was all it took to play like City or Liverpool, then every team in the world would play that way. It takes a lot of managerial skill and work in the training ground to make a team play that way.
 
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Ha ha. I don't know why this myth is so prevalent. It's like people are clinging to any bare hope that Ole will come good and become the next Guardiola or Zidane.
Are you high? What does that have to do with what I said? Moreover how is what I said 'myth'?


you think the Barca side Pep dominated football with for 5 seasons with using the high press was blessed with physical beasts and dynamic players? Rather than relying on peak fitness and excellent tactics?
 

izec

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Really? He wants the players to better their fitness so they can sit deep? I've heard it all now.
You didnt understand his post. He is not saying that he wants the players to have better fitness to sit deep, but he wants his players to have better fitness because he expects the forwards and midfielders to press while the defenders sit deep, which doesnt work. You have to have a high line to reduce the playing field and the players to be close to each other. If the defenders sit too deep, once the teams go through midfield, they have a free run at our defense with the space left behind from the players pressing. For good teams that is easy and we look all over the place. Modern pressing requires 10 players all in sync and relatively close to each other, otherwise it is useless.
 

flappyjay

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This line of idiotic thinking is what has led us to this moment. If fitness was all it took to play like City or Liverpool, then every team in the world would play that way. It takes a lot of managerial skill and work in the training ground to make a team play that way.
:lol::lol::lol:.This is what concerns me, we should have already seen some of Ole's tactics in how the team plays, all I was seeing was Jose Ball though. But from what I am reading things will fall in place once everyone starts running a lot.
 

Champ

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There’s no point pressing the ball if you instantly lose possession.
We are talking about a high press, not possession football here, the two don't always have to go hand in hand!
Leicester when they won the league were a prime example of this. Rarely outpassed their opponents, yet won the ball back high and quick and countered at pace.
Liverpool are also a good example, I wouldn't call their midfield particularly outstanding at ball retention, but they press high as a collective and use the wings extremely effectively and generally get the ball wide and forward at pace.
 

UpWithRivers

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We only about 3 players who might play well in this system...lingard but his passing and goalscoring is rubbish, Rashford and lindelof. Who else?
 

RooneyLegend

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It's the biggest tactical advancement of the past decade. If you are going around hiring coaches that don't specialise in it you might as well pack it in. There's a modern intensity brought about by coaches like Pep and Klopp that if you don't compete with it matches against them can go really badly. We should know cause that's where we've been and what we're doing.

Get quality and get the intensity you'll be close to achieving the level needed to compete at the top.
 

dogwithabone

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Isn’t this high pressing just a fashionable name for defending from the front ? So you hunt the ball down, often in pairs, sounds one of the most basic of requirements for a team to be successful.
 

Josh 76

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We've done it before under SAF (notably UCL SF 1st leg v Arsenal) when we had Anderson, Park, Hargreaves, Fletcher real high energy guys keeping the opposition penned in. not possible with our current players and we'd have to sacrifice creativity to be able to do it. Pogba would have to be replaced by someone like Milner. We tried to in bursts against Barca and also 1st 1/2 v Spurs at home. Everything in team sports is a trade-off and Klopp clearly thinks three energy guys in the centre and up front is the way to go. It didn't work at OT in Feb - in fact the only game I've seen at OT where the opposition didn't create a single chance. The bottom line is all players have to 100% fit and play at a maximum whatever the tactics - whether you press in the other half or wait for players to come to you. That's something we need to improve.
That's why Park was so a effective for Utd. You only notice them, when they don't play.
 

Josh 76

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Liverpool have mastered it, there 3 cm, just run and run, press press tackle in 2s , City are a bit more subtle in the way they do it, tactical fouls they give away, but there press is just as good as pools but there cms have better quality on ball.

Can't see why we cannot adopt a simlar way of playing, but players need to be fit.
Klopp has mastered it. With his 2 fullbacks and front 3 creating their goals and VVD mastering the defensive side, his 3 CM players could be Lingard, Herrera and Mctomminy and it wouldn't make any difference to their performances.
 

noodlehair

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There's always more than one way to play.

I think people are fooled into thinking we're not playing in the correct way by the fact We just aren't very good at playing in any particular way.

You can hit teams on the break but this still requires being organised, sharp, aggressive, composed and having good enough players.
 

Eddy_JukeZ

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Real Madrid weren't really a high pressing team when they won 3 straight Champions Leagues(albeit they were very competent at playing in various styles).

Meanwhile we are rather incompetent in various styles.
 

Revaulx

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There’s no point pressing the ball if you instantly lose possession.
True. But you’re less likely to lose possession if you’ve got players available to be passed to.

Higher levels of ball skills are always going to come in handy, but the main thing we lack as a team (and have done for ages) is decent movement and positioning. These things need to be coached.
 

glazed

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Isn’t this high pressing just a fashionable name for defending from the front ? So you hunt the ball down, often in pairs, sounds one of the most basic of requirements for a team to be successful.
Too many people think this way of playing is simple. It isn't.
 

AngryCroat

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You can't just decide to play high press just like that. This team we have is more competent to play like Jose did than suddenly tell them to press high and play attacking football. All in all Jose was right about many things, but the bad thing is that he was moaning about the team and he brought many players. We also don't buy players to fit any playing style since we are changing it and it's hopeless. We are either changing players or managers. Even people here in RC are one day for Ander and the other no one likes him (it happened many times with Shaw and many others). I don't understand why can't we buy energetic players and young UK players. Like what's wrong with Tierney, why we never tried to buy Vardy or how can't we get player like Luka Jovic for 60m €? Also we didn't sign De Ligt because someone was afraid that he could get fat in the future FFS
And that's why we can't play attacking, high press football
 

glazed

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Real Madrid weren't really a high pressing team when they won 3 straight Champions Leagues(albeit they were very competent at playing in various styles).

Meanwhile we are rather incompetent in various styles.
True enough. But it seems to me that the Messi/Ronaldo model of star player surrounded by technical prowess is a bit of a busted model now. It's kind of what we tried with Pogba, and for my money it wouldn't work even if we had the players, and even if Pogba was consistently good.
 

George The Best

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We only about 3 players who might play well in this system...lingard but his passing and goalscoring is rubbish, Rashford and lindelof. Who else?
And Lingard and Rashford aren’t going to win too many balls on the press imo. Need players who are going to put their foot in.
 

arnie_ni

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Didn't we score a lot of goals during the Caretaker Ole months because of high press?

Also low number of goals conceded.
Those high press helps defensive side of midfield and our defense, with opposing team loses composure and deliver poor services to the front = easier to defend.

Thankfully our players during those time want to do it and we reap the benefits albeit short term.

Once they decided to stop doing high press, our goals quickly spiraled down to zero and goals conceded plummeting up!
Our two best players at it got injured. Jesse and herrera. They may not be superstars but they made the tactics ole implemented work. When they got injured he didn't know what to do, and anything he seemed to ask, our players couldn't do.

If he wants a high press tea., he needs to get the right players.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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Too many people think this way of playing is simple. It isn't.
There is a risk that you give away more space behind your defense and if they break your lines you will be in danger.
Being compact when pressing is the key and also doing it fully as a team. If some players do not do the job then space and time will open up with great risk of being hurt as a result.

How high and intense you should press could depend on lots of factors. A good press also tries to direct the ball to weaker players in the other teams and then force them to give the ball away.

I don't think it is that hard to teach a good press. Although you need great work rate and fitness and need to practice it together in games and training so that you can keep a good shape and adapt to each other.
Players that can read the game very fast also helps a lot so it is not all about fitness. You need to think about how you move and how you should use your energy.
 

George The Best

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Hate to say this but I actually think Klopp has perfected the press better than Pep. Both of them try to limit the options the opposition has when they’ve got the ball, and try to force them into a mistake. I think what Klopp has done is taught everybody how to tackle as well, including the forwards. Salah and Mane don’t just try and close the defenders down, they will also try and win the ball if they get a chance. City are not so good at this imo. The likes of Sterling, Mahrez, even Aguero are not so adept. Takes an awful lot of coaching and practice to perfect this.

Trying to think who we’ve got to emulate this.







Still thinking .......
 

glazed

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I don't think it is that hard to teach a good press. Although you need great work rate and fitness and need to practice it together in games and training so that you can keep a good shape and adapt to each other.
There's a wonderful moment in the 'All or Nothing' City documentary where they come in losing at half time (to us, ironically.) Fabian Delph is kicking the walls and shouting and screaming about getting first to the tackles and running faster and he says something like 'Football is really simple..we just have to do the basic things well.'

Pep barely raises his voice and just says to him 'No. Football is really complicated.'

It kind of summed up how much harder this kind of thing is than it looks. Even some of the players don't always get it. Ed Woodward doesn't get it, that's for damn sure.
 

Walters_19_MuFc

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It's not the only way, but you'll find the top teams in Europe do it very well.

Think it was one thing we did very well under Van Gaal.

Going forward, we need to start targeting energetic players. Not only when out of possession, but in possession. The likes of Martial, Pogba, Matic are all talented players, but lack intensity.

I expect (hope) Ole to change this and we start to see that intensity back at United, where we have the energy and intensity to grind teams down until the last minute.
 

beergod

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No. Our issue is that we can't press as a team even if we wanted to and that lack of fitness and cohesion greatly affects other aspects of our play. The likes of Mata, Matic, Lukaku, and Martial are completely unsuitable for a side desiring to press as a collective.

For me, the way forward is having a defensively flexible team that can sit off or press depending on what is necessary.
 

Andersonson

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Last 3 winners of CL didnt and still dont play high press game ( real Madrid ). It looks easy on the eye though so people give it more credit. If spurs win this year a ' high press team ' havn't won in decades
 

glazed

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For me, the way forward is having a defensively flexible team that can sit off or press depending on what is necessary.
It's possible that only a few coaches in the world actually understand how it works and how you train it. You'll find them in the top three places in the Premier League and the Champions League final. You won't find them in the Caf, or, unfortunately, at Old Trafford.
 

bonothom

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I think it's high time a team went full on long ball. Rep of Ireland in their prime type of thing. Hit the channels, big guy up front and midfielders to mop up them second balls. Trouble is we sold old big hair.
 

redIndianDevil

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Are you high? What does that have to do with what I said? Moreover how is what I said 'myth'?


you think the Barca side Pep dominated football with for 5 seasons with using the high press was blessed with physical beasts and dynamic players? Rather than relying on peak fitness and excellent tactics?
I'm sorry I thought your post was sarcastic.

I don't understand the bolded bit here, Guardiola's side dominated with high press not because they were all all just physically fit "beasts". While the pressing was all about recovering the ball back, their passing, movement was on a complete different level, you don't need fitness to pass and move at this level, and pressing is not just a physical task, there is a way to press in an organized manner, that is worked upon in the training ground, setting this style of play in a team is extremely difficult, that's why most managers do not do that at all, you can see it especially in the PL where teams are just happy to sit back and play long balls or counters. All I've heard from OGS and the fans who think he is going to do well, is that we just need fitness, our passing is woeful, movement is atrocious, there is huge tactical errors not being fixed during games, these things can easily be worked out by a manager in a few months.
 

In Rainbows

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Isn’t this high pressing just a fashionable name for defending from the front ? So you hunt the ball down, often in pairs, sounds one of the most basic of requirements for a team to be successful.
No. It has to be coordinated. If only the first 2 press, they'll just tire themselves out because it won't be that effective.
 
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I'm sorry I thought your post was sarcastic.
Fair enough
I don't understand the bolded bit here, Guardiola's side dominated with high press not because they were all all just physically fit "beasts"....
Then you DID understand it. For that was my point. They used tactics and fitness. In convert with their own natural on the ball skill and intelligence . You basically agree with my stance...


. All I've heard from OGS and the fans who think he is going to do well, is that we just need fitness, our passing is woeful, movement is atrocious, there is huge tactical errors not being fixed during games, these things can easily be worked out by a manager in a few months.
Indeed

There are 2 things United must to improve to ever play pressing football

1. Fitness: with out peak fitness. You cannot play pass and move football. Neither can you ever sustain tactical pressing. For you need high level stamina and endurance to sustain it without losing concentration due to accumulated in game fatigue due to l

2. Tactics: our tactics have to improve We have to train blocking passing lanes, Planning to win second balls, hunting in packs (2s or triangles of 3) to win the ball rather than having one guy lead a press as others follow. We have to play more compact. We even have to train giving the man on the ball at less 4 passing options all the time. Above all we need to really improve our off the ball movement.

In Ole's honey moon period there were signs we could do these things. But our poor fitness and years of never doing these things simply caught up with us. I'm hoping in pre season Ole and team can lay down those things as a blue print in pre season
Then we spend the whole of next season working our butts off to ingrain it as a playing culture going forward. It will be hard. But I believe its possible.
 

haram

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No. Sheep thinking and social media narratives.
 
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mojo

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High press, eh. Is that like high blood pressure?