OGS Attacking Football Myth

[Tarrou]

I don't think we have been particularly attacking under Ole yet either, but there are some small signs that he wants to play more attacking that Jose (which isn't saying much).

We're just not good enough yet. We don't have the midfielders to control a game and we don't have a cohesive attacking unit that creates a lot of chances.

It was a mistake to not purchase another midfielder and attacker in the window, for sure. Ole has to take some responsibility for this as well as Ed, but then Rome wasn't built in a day.

 

[RedSky]

who the feck cares how LVG played? Thats irrelevant to him comparing Jose and Ole's style.

It's really not. We've got a man who's always been pretty bitter about getting sacked from United (for playing boring, sleep inducing football) trying to persuade the fans that Jose/Ole play defensive football. Thereby implying that his style was better.

 

[Alexit]

What I wanna know is why have we gone back to a 4231? It didn't work under Jose so why is Ole persisting with it. We need to go back to a 433 with Pogba playing further forward.

Yes, yes, and YES!

Will someone please explain why Ole is persisting with this formation when we don't have the personnel for it to work!

As another poster said, now that the honeymoon is well and truly over, and for all the talk about being faithful to United's attacking philosophy, perhaps Ole now sees why Jose couldn't adopt that philosophy with this lot. He knew what he had at his disposal.

And yes, Matic slate him all you want, call him slow if you must, but he has to start now. He should be the next name on the team sheet after Paul, AWB, and DDG for the LEI game. Unlike France, Juventus, or his next possible destination Real Madrid, we do not have an embarrassment of riches in midfield. It's something the Matic moaners have to deal with.

 

[Denis' cuff]

I agree that it's hard to discern much in way of attacking football bar counter attacks. Pre-season gave us a brief glimpse into the high pressing, and it actually looked good, but, alas, it was only pre-season. The pre-season game OP refers to is a great point, and in hindsight we should have lined up more games of that ilk (maybe better opposition) where counter attack is not really the main weapon, requiring us to break teams down.

Anyhow, we haven't played like that and we haven't recruited like that, so it's hard to understand if that really is the plan. We have looked fairly comfortable at times this season in games, stemming from having competency in possession at the back first and foremost.

The pros and cons have mostly been individual feats. The goals scored by James and the defensive mistakes by some of the back 5.



I think Mourinho had a plan, it was defensive no doubt, to stay solid and compact and attack at speed. He also wanted height and physicality giving us an edge defending and attacking set pieces. And of course, he wants experienced players. All this translates to on field too. Of course the same low level of quality in the squad as a whole means that both scenarios sees us struggling to play a higher level technical game. Jose is somewhat to blame for that, Ole a little, but mainly that's years of gross negligence.

It's hard to discern Ole's planning, what we are supposed to do in possession and what type of player he wants. One day Pereira is mentioned as a midfield player, the next as a #10 and now before Southampton as a winger. Mourinho was much more pro-active with changes in-game, personnel or formation, whereas Ole seems to dither longer (or have more patience, whichever you prefer).

Mourinho would have been absolutely slaughtered for this start to the season. No question. By everyone on here and all the pundits (especially the old United boys). Now we are talking about Ole inheriting Mourinho's mess and it's still Jose's fault that Ole isn't managing to get better performances. Pretty crazy IMV. At no point in time would people have even dared suggesting Mourinho would need 4-5 windows to compete. But that was the reality then and it's the reality now, problem being that again, different type of managers with different types of ideas (though we've yet to really see what ideas Ole wants to implement other than energy and counter attack).

The main problem, by far, is the ownership of the club and the way they run the club. Everything else is a consequence of that. But they seem to have found a new scapegoat who so far has been nothing but willing to put a positive spin on everything.

Absolute truth

The rest is waffle

 

[MikeKing]

Cracking insight just lovely

If you win the ball further up the pitch, your not pressing for a counter your pressing for mistakes to gain possession. The opposition need to sit deeper to recover their spaces positionally along with defensive shape. That's already 40% of the available space retracted. Its tactically inept to play counter attacking football with a high press, when you consider how bad we are in possession it makes it even worse. The goals we scored against Chelsea in transition of defence to attack came from inside our own half.

The thing is, in those positions we don't aim to recycle the ball. After the press, If we won the ball high up the pitch from a mistake we aim to attack quickly and directly with pace before they recover their spaces. You could call it a counter attack due to its nature of not having much of a build up, but realistically we're just a very attacking team in those positions with that directness. We also defend deeper at times, and have a more traditional counter attacking view when sitting deeper. A game goes through different phases, and I do think we're being built tactically to handle different situations.

You can use high press and also counter attack, but its very difficult. It is certainly ambitious but it makes sense, though.

To dominate possession and be creative is also extremely difficult to do successfully. Think about it, you need to take big risks of losing the ball to create so naturally you'd lose more possession. It is hard to do one with the other. But the best teams makes it work through patterns of play and intense training. It is not something that happens overnight, and you also need all your players to specifically fit into to the system. Same has to be said for our ambitious tactics.