Empire
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- Oct 30, 2013
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I was going to reply to @Di Maria's angel in his thread but I figured this would be worth a thread of its own so i've put the reply here.How on earth does a team that is so focused on possession churn out those lacklustre performances whenever in the lead?
Leicester last year, Chelsea and Liverpool this season.
What has van Gaal been teaching the players?
We're not so focused on possession football, as Louis van Gaal has said many times his philosophy is defending and attacking space on the pitch.
He rates both possession and counter attacking football, he wants us to be lethal at both, this is one of the reasons for his struggles because it would probably be more sensible to perform one well and then move on to the other however he is a very optimistic guy and believes the players can learn both (even when the evidence suggests we can't!).
On Liverpool
In two legged games he likes to play counter in the away leg because he knows the opponents must attack to take advantage of the home leg.
We were awful against Liverpool, it's a learning experience for the players and I'm sure they will be better in two legged games in the future.
In the return leg for some weird reason he tried to make it into two 45 minute games, we scored and so he expected Liverpool to then attack us therefore he was happy for us to drop off in the expectation we get counter chances.
Obviously it backfired in the end.
Killing teams off on the counter
We haven't done this much but we have trained it and the players will show it next season I think hopefully under a new and more sensible manager who can build on this work.
Louis loves killing teams off by getting the second goal on the counter so today against City that was his plan, it's part of his philosophy and it's also why Heynckes' Bayern were effective at counter attacking football in addition to possession because they trained both simultaneously from when he started therefore by 2013 those players were well drilled (not crediting LvG with Heynckes' success, just saying Bayern had started work on becoming effective at both under him also).
I wouldn't say he is possession obsessed, I'd say he uses possession to get the first goal but when he has the lead he plays on the counter with the intention of developing a team that is lethal at killing games off as opposed to protecting the lead by keeping the ball.
Stats
Our possession stats for every premier league game in which we've taken the lead in descending order (you can check this on whoscored):
Noisy Neighbours 0 - 1 Manchester
Before the lead - 54.9%
After the lead - 47.1%
Manchester 1 - 0 Watford
Before the lead - 57.8%
After the lead - 48.9%
Manchester 3 - 2 Arsenal
Before the lead - 50.2%
After the lead - 35.5%
Chelsea 1 - 1 Manchester
Before the lead - 57.8%
From the lead to their equaliser - 29.6%
Manchester 3 - 0 Stoke
Before the lead - 52.2%
After the lead - 44.4%
Liverpool 0 - 1 Manchester
Before the lead - 48.4%
After the lead - 38.5%
Newcastle 3 - 3 Manchester
Before the lead - 42.3%
After the lead but until the equaliser - 46.2%
From the equaliser until we took the lead again - 55.7%
From the lead until the second equaliser - 55.9%
Manchester 2 - 1 Swansea
Before the lead - 56.4%
After the lead until the equaliser - 62.2%
From the equaliser to the lead again - 65.4%
After the lead - 30.7%
Watford 1 - 2 Manchester
Before the lead - 54.4%
After the lead until the equaliser - 51.6%
After the equaliser until our lead again - 96.0%
After the lead - 47.6%
Manchester 2 - 0 WBA
Before the lead - 70.9%
After the lead - 53.0%
Everton 0 - 3 Manchester
Before the lead - 55.0%
After the lead - 46.8%
Manchester 3 - 0 Sunderland
Before the lead - 61.6%
After the lead - 66.1%
Southampton 2 - 3 Manchester
Before the lead - 57.4%
After the lead - 43.9%
Manchester 3 - 1 Liverpool
Before the lead - 62.1%
After the lead - 42.4%
Swansea 2 - 1 Manchester
Before the lead - 60.7%
After the lead until the equaliser - 57.9%
From the equaliser until the end - 70.8%
Villa 0 - 1 Manchester
Before the lead - 59.1%
After the lead - 52.9%
Manchester 1 - 0 Spurs
Before the lead - 43.7%
After the lead - 47.6%
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Obviously not every game will fit the pattern, for example Newcastle was just bizarre, perhaps the fact we scored so early in that game and we were so heavily criticised for lack of goals contributed to those stats, another example in the sunderland match we scored our second goal soon after the first therefore it's possible 2 - 0 down sunderland had no fight or belief left.
But most of the games do fit the pattern, I'd say we don't suddenly become poor in possession after scoring, we simply move toward counter attacking football.
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Louis van Gaal has tried to train the team to be effective at possession football to get that first goal but also effective at counter attacking football so when we invite pressure as we drop deep, the intention is to kill the game off, that's the quality he is trying to develop in us even if in the short term it means a lot of dropped points.
He also looks to buy players that can play both counter and possession for this reason.