Matic dropping into defence

[Mickson]

Ole was apparently happy with him and Martial, calling Matic's performance 'excellent'.

I'm not Ole's biggest fan, but what should he say instead? That they were shit? I think he knows they weren't very good, but there's no point in saying that to everybody. It doesn't help anyone.

 

[Swedish_Plumber]

I should’ve cherished Michael Carrick more. Feels like we’ve needed a CDM since the dawn of time.

 

[pocco]

Ole's comments mean literally nothing. He's never once talked down a player in public after a match.

I'm not Ole's biggest fan, but what should he say instead? That they were shit? I think he knows they weren't very good, but there's no point in saying that to everybody. It doesn't help anyone.

I believe he was being genuine and do think Ole likes him. He spent £40m on VdB and starts Matic more, constantly allows him to drop into defence, didn't sub him off even though we looked flat and needed to up the tempo again.

If he wasn't happy with Matic then he wouldn't keep letting him play in defence. I and many others complained about this early last season and it has never stopped. He's doing exactly what Ole is asking of him.

 

[Abraxas]

The idea is that someone else has to support in midfield. If you've pushed up both full-backs into high attacking areas you no longer need your wide attackers to provide width, so one or both of them can come into the middle. In this case that would be Pogba and/or Greenwood. Both those players prefer to be in central areas anyway I think. In our case, the FBs didn't push up so Pogba couldn't come fully central and Greenwood stayed wide, meaning we had big gaps in the middle with a lonely Fred there and an overcrowded defence. But that doesn't mean the system is objectively bad, it just means it wasn't done right. After all most teams will leave three players in nominally defensive positions unless they're really chasing a goal. Whether its two CBs and a FB or two CBs and a DM, its the same number of people committed to the role. Its not like we're losing an attacking talent by playing Matic as one of those.

The real question is whether Ole wanted him to do that or not, and if he did, why no one else joined in.

This is reasonable enough but AWB has never pushed particularly high in many situations. He pushes up the pitch in piecemeal fashion.

Another sign that it's a terrible idea to have Matic in those areas is nobody else does that, at least with any regularity. It's not so much a feature of our play and we've never looked good doing it. This may be because Matic is on the pitch and it is hard to look good with him in a PL midfield.

It puts far too much on the other midfielder. In theory Pogba or whoever is supposed to be dropping in to offer an option but we know what he's like, within a tactical framework he doesn't exactly always pull off exactly what we're looking for.

 

[bucky]

Tweet

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For those wondering the first sequence is a visualisation why we do this. It's not something Matic should be criticised for, it's clearly wanted by the coaching staff. The clip shows Brozovic dropping deep between Inter's back three. With their wing-backs Perisic and Darmian pushed high up the pitch. Pay attention to what Dzeko does, he comes deep, further stretching Genoa's positional play. Especially against teams like Southampton that like to press higher up, it is valuable.

 

[Borys]

So what changed yesterday? He was a proper midfielder, stayed in central areas all game and played in close partnership with van de Beek until the last stage of the game when Donny was moved higher.

 

[Foxbatt]

So what changed yesterday? He was a proper midfielder, stayed in central areas all game and played in close partnership with van de Beek until the last stage of the game when Donny was moved higher.

Exactly. And his assist in the league game came from his position as a midfielder and not as the third CB.

 

[MadMike]

So what changed yesterday? He was a proper midfielder, stayed in central areas all game and played in close partnership with van de Beek until the last stage of the game when Donny was moved higher.

Matic drops into CB when we’re being pressed. Weat Ham scored in the 10th minute and sat back for the rest of the game with no intention to attack (well at least until the last 10 mins, when the game became wide open).

There was basically no opportunity for Matic to pull off his signature move yesterday.

EDIT: He actually did do it a couple of times but it wasn’t noticeable over the 90’.