[DSG]

Why on earth would we be starting with anything else? That's been our clear first XI midfield since GW3, and the formation we have always played against City. And that is actually a 3 man midfield against a 3 man midfield.

Not really. We actually were in a classic 4-2-3-1, Bruno was pretty high up the pitch, Eriksen and Scott were in the middle of passing triangles, a bit naive by Ten Hag IMHO. It’s not a 3 man midfield. Your best bet against City is to play a back 3, 3-5-2. This puts an extra body in the box (Foden goal no. 1), and Haaland’s first. Nobody could have stopped their 3rd.

you could play Scotty, Casemiro and Eriksen with Antony and Bruno or Rashford/Sancho up top.

‘I understand ETH wants to play a certain way, and he wants players to have confidence… but we are only 9-10 games into this.The only way Man City loses these days is if you set up to frustrate and defend, utilize all manner of shithousery, and when they pull their fullbacks in, hit them on the break with speed and precision in the channels. Seriously.

 

[FreakyJim]

Scholes is a dinosaur.

Wingers don’t help full backs anymore. Centre halves cover space and midfielders move across, more often than not.

Everyone helps defensively. Wingers do help full backs, I don't know what you're watching.

 

[croadyman]

Yep.

Until we address this simple problem, we won't be going anywhere. You can't be having attitude like Rashford and Sancho's if you actually want to compete for trophies in the PL or CL.
Every top team plays like a football team with everyone helping in both ends of the pitch. You attack as one and defend as one. The centre forward is the first defender.

I don't understand why we can't do that. Are our players so fecking stupid and lazy?

Our forward players aren't willing to defend

 

[Dominos]

Not really. We actually were in a classic 4-2-3-1, Bruno was pretty high up the pitch, Eriksen and Scott were in the middle of passing triangles, a bit naive by Ten Hag IMHO. It’s not a 3 man midfield. Your best bet against City is to play a back 3, 3-5-2. This puts an extra body in the box (Foden goal no. 1), and Haaland’s first. Nobody could have stopped their 3rd.

you could play Scotty, Casemiro and Eriksen with Antony and Bruno or Rashford/Sancho up top.

‘I understand ETH wants to play a certain way, and he wants players to have confidence… but we are only 9-10 games into this.The only way Man City loses these days is if you set up to frustrate and defend, utilize all manner of shithousery, and when they pull their fullbacks in, hit them on the break with speed and precision in the channels. Seriously.

Ole tried a 352 against City last season and it was a disaster. The City wide players pin the wingbacks back and it meant City's full backs have all the time in the world on the ball as our midfield couldn't cover enough ground to guard the centre of the pitch and get out to the full backs. Cancelo destroyed us the amount of space he was getting.

Our last 2 league wins at the Etihad we were really good and we deserved to win, both playing 4231.

Realistically I don't think there's any team selection we could have put out yesterday that would have got a result, City were on it and are too good for us when they're on it. It reminded me a bit of Barca 5-0 Madrid where Madrid were just helpless to how good Barca were that day (and that Madrid team were much better than we are).

If Martial was fit and on form he would have started, and in hindsight we needed to play Casemiro alongside Mctominay for greater protection. Those changes probably would have made us more competitive but probably wouldn't be enough.

If you look at the first half Eriksen's lack of physicality and defensive nouse really played a part in 2 or 3 goals where he didn't track runners, didn't get goal side of De Bruyne and didn't make a tactical foul when he could have. With a better team selection we'd probably still have been horribly outplayed but had enough nous to keep them from creating as many chances, and Martial would have held the ball up better but he can't do it on his own when the rest of the attack and midfield are giving the ball away cheaply.

 

[tjb]

Nothing to overreact over.
The deficiencies have been there for a while and when added with lack of intensity, it really got exposed.
The issues we have are issues City are so well suited to punishing.

We all knew it would take

Our forward players aren't willing to defend

I would take a step further than this.

Discounting Antony due to his recent arrival, outside of Bruno, they don't really support the team in anyway outside the final third. Watching other teams, they move into spaces to support the midfield's possession play. Yet, not just this season, but for many years now, one feature of our player that has been poor has been the support from the attack.

This wasn't the case under Fergie, but has been a strong feature since Moyes. Part of me feels that a 4231 sometimes hurts us. Not because of the formation, but because of the lack of partcipation in both the build up and the defence from our attack. In a classic 442, outside of the two strikers ( where one sometimes drop deep too), everyone else on the pitch contributes to getting the ball up to the final third and defending compactly. Our teams were so strong at the time because both Giggs and Beckham were willing to both come into the midfield and provide defensive support for their full backs consistently. Therefore scoring less, but also ensuring chance creation and ball movement. Even in the team with the 2008 team; Nani, Giggs, Tevez, Rooney and Ji Sung Park were all very effective at these two elements, and even though Ronaldo wasn't so keen on defending, he also supported the team in the build up play.

When you watch us currently, you see our front 3 staying high up the pitch, both in and out of possession. Not really showing much energy, and not willing to come deep enough to support attacks when needed. The current versions of Ronaldo Rashford and Sancho are the biggest offenders. Which is why its not a surprise that we have had major problems in this regard when all of them have been in the team together. People always seem to blame Ronaldo alone for this, but both Sancho and Rashford have also been massive contributors to our lack of pressing; both being in the team has also exposed Ronaldo imo and I suspect this is why Elanga has featured so much over the last year despite his shortcomings.

I would seriously consider playing a christmas tree formation, with Bruno and Antony supporting the striker. It's something Arsenal struggled with in the past when they had Ozil and Sanchez and something we may now be dealing with

 

[croadyman]

Nothing to overreact over.
The deficiencies have been there for a while and when added with lack of intensity, it really got exposed.
The issues we have are issues City are so well suited to punishing.

We all knew it would take


I would take a step further than this.

Discounting Antony due to his recent arrival, outside of Bruno, they don't really support the team in anyway outside the final third. Watching other teams, they move into spaces to support the midfield's possession play. Yet, not just this season, but for many years now, one feature of our player that has been poor has been the support from the attack.

This wasn't the case under Fergie, but has been a strong feature since Moyes. Part of me feels that a 4231 sometimes hurts us. Not because of the formation, but because of the lack of partcipation in both the build up and the defence from our attack. In a classic 442, outside of the two strikers ( where one sometimes drop deep too), everyone else on the pitch contributes to getting the ball up to the final third and defending compactly. Our teams were so strong at the time because both Giggs and Beckham were willing to both come into the midfield and provide defensive support for their full backs consistently. Therefore scoring less, but also ensuring chance creation and ball movement. Even in the team with the 2008 team; Nani, Giggs, Tevez, Rooney and Ji Sung Park were all very effective at these two elements, and even though Ronaldo wasn't so keen on defending, he also supported the team in the build up play.

When you watch us currently, you see our front 3 staying high up the pitch, both in and out of possession. Not really showing much energy, and not willing to come deep enough to support attacks when needed. The current versions of Ronaldo Rashford and Sancho are the biggest offenders. Which is why its not a surprise that we have had major problems in this regard when all of them have been in the team together. People always seem to blame Ronaldo alone for this, but both Sancho and Rashford have also been massive contributors to our lack of pressing; both being in the team has also exposed Ronaldo imo and I suspect this is why Elanga has featured so much over the last year despite his shortcomings.

I would seriously consider playing a christmas tree formation, with Bruno and Antony supporting the striker. It's something Arsenal struggled with in the past when they had Ozil and Sanchez and something we may now be dealing with

Yeah our pressing has only really been noticeably good in that first half against Palace under Rangnick which is frankly shocking

 

[OrcaFat]

Not really. We actually were in a classic 4-2-3-1, Bruno was pretty high up the pitch, Eriksen and Scott were in the middle of passing triangles, a bit naive by Ten Hag IMHO. It’s not a 3 man midfield. Your best bet against City is to play a back 3, 3-5-2. This puts an extra body in the box (Foden goal no. 1), and Haaland’s first. Nobody could have stopped their 3rd.

you could play Scotty, Casemiro and Eriksen with Antony and Bruno or Rashford/Sancho up top.

‘I understand ETH wants to play a certain way, and he wants players to have confidence… but we are only 9-10 games into this.The only way Man City loses these days is if you set up to frustrate and defend, utilize all manner of shithousery, and when they pull their fullbacks in, hit them on the break with speed and precision in the channels. Seriously.

That, especially the last paragraph, is the truth.

We didn’t set up to give us the best possible chance of a positive result. ETH must have been fully aware and I think he wanted to test the players. He was obviously very annoyed but I think he also will get some value out of the experience (more so than if he abandoned “the process” and scraped a draw).

 

[Woodzy]

I feel like how poor our defending was for City’s 6th goal is overshadowed by the fact we were battered and there were two hat tricks. Every time I see that goal I can’t believe my eyes.

 

[justsomebloke]

Not really. We actually were in a classic 4-2-3-1, Bruno was pretty high up the pitch, Eriksen and Scott were in the middle of passing triangles, a bit naive by Ten Hag IMHO. It’s not a 3 man midfield. Your best bet against City is to play a back 3, 3-5-2. This puts an extra body in the box (Foden goal no. 1), and Haaland’s first. Nobody could have stopped their 3rd.

you could play Scotty, Casemiro and Eriksen with Antony and Bruno or Rashford/Sancho up top.

‘I understand ETH wants to play a certain way, and he wants players to have confidence… but we are only 9-10 games into this.The only way Man City loses these days is if you set up to frustrate and defend, utilize all manner of shithousery, and when they pull their fullbacks in, hit them on the break with speed and precision in the channels. Seriously.

Uh, why would a 352 necessarily have worked any better? As has been pointed out by others, we tried that last year and got trounced, and our last wins at Etihad have been playing 4231. OK, you can prefer that option, but to argue it was somehow naive or in the least bit surprising that ETH went with 4231 seems strange to me.

 

[adexkola]

Not really. We actually were in a classic 4-2-3-1, Bruno was pretty high up the pitch, Eriksen and Scott were in the middle of passing triangles, a bit naive by Ten Hag IMHO. It’s not a 3 man midfield. Your best bet against City is to play a back 3, 3-5-2. This puts an extra body in the box (Foden goal no. 1), and Haaland’s first. Nobody could have stopped their 3rd.

you could play Scotty, Casemiro and Eriksen with Antony and Bruno or Rashford/Sancho up top.

‘I understand ETH wants to play a certain way, and he wants players to have confidence… but we are only 9-10 games into this.The only way Man City loses these days is if you set up to frustrate and defend, utilize all manner of shithousery, and when they pull their fullbacks in, hit them on the break with speed and precision in the channels. Seriously.

I am sure we played like this against them last season and still got piped. One of the most pathetic 2-0 losses I've seen

 

[NicolaSacco]

People on RAWK think Haaland was considering Liverpool too, when he never was going anywhere in England besides Man City. Fact is, he was never coming here, never going to Liverpool, and never turning up in anything but the ugly sky blue of City.

I think there was a bit more to it than that. Utd had a plethora of forwards. City had a Haaland shaped hole in their team. He’s always gone somewhere where he was as confident as one can be, that he’d be a regular starter.

If Utd and City had swapped league positions last season then I think Haaland the City fan would have been overtaken by Haaland with his career head on.

 

[justsomebloke]

I think there was a bit more to it than that. Utd had a plethora of forwards. City had a Haaland shaped hole in their team. He’s always gone somewhere where he was as confident as one can be, that he’d be a regular starter.

If Utd and City had swapped league positions last season then I think Haaland the City fan would have been overtaken by Haaland with his career head on.

There's actually a documentary out on Viaplay about this, called "The choice", which is entirely devoted to Haaland's thought processes in choosing his next destination from Dortmund. There's a clip where he's asked how many options he's considering and he answers "six or seven, but if I'm being really honest, it comes down to three". The three being City, Real Madrid and Bayern. Liverpool was one of the seven, but United wasn't.

There's also talk about a "points system", based on a clear need for a no 9, the quality of the team, the size of the club, club finances, league quality, fans and stadium and anticipated squad development. Alfie is on record saying City tops the list, with Bayern second, Real third, PSG fourth. And then Liverpool, Chelsea and Barcelona in an "also good" batch.

 

[NicolaSacco]

There's actually a documentary out on Viaplay about this, called "The choice", which is entirely devoted to Haaland's thought processes in choosing his next destination from Dortmund. There's a clip where he's asked how many options he's considering and he answers "six or seven, but if I'm being really honest, it comes down to three". The three being City, Real Madrid and Bayern. Liverpool was one of the seven, but United wasn't.

There's also talk about a "points system", based on a clear need for a no 9, the quality of the team, the size of the club, club finances, league quality, fans and stadium and anticipated squad development. Alfie is on record saying City tops the list, with Bayern second, Real third, PSG fourth. And then Liverpool, Chelsea and Barcelona in an "also good" batch.

Interesting, I didn’t know that at all. I’m a little surprised at Bayern being above Barcelona although if this list was made when they had Messi & Suarez who knows.

 

[NLunited]

My thoughts during the passages of play leading up to the first goal were that we weren‘t aggressive enough on the ball except maybe for Martinez and McTominay.

In possession, we gave away the ball too easily, which you cannot afford in a game like this.

Combine that with high quality finishes and assists, and we did not have a chance of getting anything.

The only way for us at this point to neutralize their quality is to give them a fight, which we did not do. I think Ten Hag‘s expressions were telling. Disbelief, anger, disgust.

 

[lex talionis]

What could Erik have done differently to give us a chance to at least holding the score down to something like 2-0? Not much, but maybe starting Casemiro and McTominay and dropping Rashford to push Bruno up on the front line might have done the trick. But we were overrun by the vastly better side and even if we had played at our peak, whatever that may be, we were not going to come out of this fixture with even a draw.

 

[justsomebloke]

Interesting, I didn’t know that at all. I’m a little surprised at Bayern being above Barcelona although if this list was made when they had Messi & Suarez who knows.

All of this is from winter/spring this year.

 

[Isotope]

What could Erik have done differently to give us a chance to at least holding the score down to something like 2-0? Not much, but maybe starting Casemiro and McTominay and dropping Rashford to push Bruno up on the front line might have done the trick. But we were overrun by the vastly better side and even if we had played at our peak, whatever that may be, we were not going to come out of this fixture with even a draw.

I'd keep Rashford and have Fred for Sancho as a loop-sided LCM/LW. His pressing and energy would help midfield and defense.

Then Elanga for Anthony.

Keep it tight for the first 60 minutes, then see how it goes.

But then EtH making any change from those starting XI wouldn't seem fair, when those starting XI have given him big results in previous 4 games, though.

 

[Maticmaker]

Exactly how long is a country mile?

its meaning is a bit like... "around the houses..."; "a long way around;" Not the shortest distance between two points: "winning/bettering something etc. by a long distance"... take your pick

In length, it's the same as any imperial mile (UK or US)

 

[DSG]

Ole tried a 352 against City last season and it was a disaster. The City wide players pin the wingbacks back and it meant City's full backs have all the time in the world on the ball as our midfield couldn't cover enough ground to guard the centre of the pitch and get out to the full backs. Cancelo destroyed us the amount of space he was getting.

Our last 2 league wins at the Etihad we were really good and we deserved to win, both playing 4231.

Realistically I don't think there's any team selection we could have put out yesterday that would have got a result, City were on it and are too good for us when they're on it. It reminded me a bit of Barca 5-0 Madrid where Madrid were just helpless to how good Barca were that day (and that Madrid team were much better than we are).

If Martial was fit and on form he would have started, and in hindsight we needed to play Casemiro alongside Mctominay for greater protection. Those changes probably would have made us more competitive but probably wouldn't be enough.

If you look at the first half Eriksen's lack of physicality and defensive nouse really played a part in 2 or 3 goals where he didn't track runners, didn't get goal side of De Bruyne and didn't make a tactical foul when he could have. With a better team selection we'd probably still have been horribly outplayed but had enough nous to keep them from creating as many chances, and Martial would have held the ball up better but he can't do it on his own when the rest of the attack and midfield are giving the ball away cheaply.

Uh, why would a 352 necessarily have worked any better? As has been pointed out by others, we tried that last year and got trounced, and our last wins at Etihad have been playing 4231. OK, you can prefer that option, but to argue it was somehow naive or in the least bit surprising that ETH went with 4231 seems strange to me.

I am sure we played like this against them last season and still got piped. One of the most pathetic 2-0 losses I've seen

A couple of things here… the way City is playing now and with Haaland, there is no guarantee any setup would work. I will say that the only way to beat them now is defend, defend, defend and hit them on the break through the channels.

Regarding the times we won in a 4-2-3-1, well, that was a totally different squad. Ole still defended deep and used balls down the channels into space. Rashford and martial were in peak form. Maguire had confidence.

‘We played a 3-5-2 in one of Ole’s last games in charge. We lost 2-0, one was an own goal from Bailly and the other was that Shaw/DeGea feck up that never should have been a goal. The other match last season was a 4-2-3-1 under Ralf. KdB waltzed through our penalty area and scored in the 8th minute, Sancho pulled one back, but after that point, it was all City and we lost 4-1….

‘The reason 3 at the back works v City is the sheer number of defenders you have in the box and also the extra CB that can step out between the lines and challenge when Pep uses a false 9. Chelsea had a back 3 when they won the CL final v City…

 

[OrcaFat]

What could Erik have done differently to give us a chance to at least holding the score down to something like 2-0? Not much, but maybe starting Casemiro and McTominay and dropping Rashford to push Bruno up on the front line might have done the trick. But we were overrun by the vastly better side and even if we had played at our peak, whatever that may be, we were not going to come out of this fixture with even a draw.

I know it looks like that but City have drawn games this season and if we played our best and fought them as if our lives depended on it, we could have stopped them, why not? Other teams have managed it. It sure does seem a remote possibility though.

 

[croadyman]

There's actually a documentary out on Viaplay about this, called "The choice", which is entirely devoted to Haaland's thought processes in choosing his next destination from Dortmund. There's a clip where he's asked how many options he's considering and he answers "six or seven, but if I'm being really honest, it comes down to three". The three being City, Real Madrid and Bayern. Liverpool was one of the seven, but United wasn't.

There's also talk about a "points system", based on a clear need for a no 9, the quality of the team, the size of the club, club finances, league quality, fans and stadium and anticipated squad development. Alfie is on record saying City tops the list, with Bayern second, Real third, PSG fourth. And then Liverpool, Chelsea and Barcelona in an "also good" batch.

Yeah if only he knew where their finances come from he might think twice about putting them above Bayern or Real. Safe to say that confirms Madrid are next on his world tour

 

[lex talionis]

I know it looks like that but City have drawn games this season and if we played our best and fought them as if our lives depended on it, we could have stopped them, why not? Other teams have managed it. It sure does seem a remote possibility though.

Unlike other opponents City expected to walk all over, they were quite serious about ensuring that they did not drop points to us.

They were the wolf; we were the sheep.

 

[Zetrio2002]

City has an old midfield of KDB, Bernardo Silva and Gundogan. Kyle walker is also old. Nathan Ake relegated with his club before. Akangi just joined. Well done, City!

 

[OrcaFat]

Unlike other opponents City expected to walk all over, they were quite serious about ensuring that they did not drop points to us.

They were the wolf; we were the sheep.

True but if we were serious about making sure they did drop points to us it could have been different. But we were pathetic so it’s a moot point.

Part of it is ETH’s approach. He has his process and he doesn’t want a 10-men back, park-the-bus exception to interrupt the development of his ideal. He would have taken a 1-0 defeat rather than compromise his process but was rightly furious about the drubbing.

 

[lex talionis]

True but if we were serious about making sure they did drop points to us it could have been different. But we were pathetic so it’s a moot point.

Part of it is ETH’s approach. He has his process and he doesn’t want a 10-men back, park-the-bus exception to interrupt the development of his ideal. He would have taken a 1-0 defeat rather than compromise his process but was rightly furious about the drubbing.

Even though we're Manchester United, it's not that hard to imagine that the players were psychologically defeated before the first whistle. When you're Newcastle or whoever you're expected to lose to City, so you have nothing to lose if you play like men to win and end up losing. But for us on that day, it was clearly impossible to summon a proper WTF, come-what-may attitude that is the only way to beat a club like City these days. We were beaten before the whistle was blown because, in my humble opinion, the players knew that they could not beat this City side.

I'm in no position to give even David Moyes tips on how to manage a football club, but for what little my advice is worth I would have started Casemiro along with McTominay (and actually wrote this in the pre-match thread) and dropped Rashford to have Bruno play up front where he do whatever he wished. I still seriously doubt we could have salvaged a draw going with two CDM but maybe we could have kept it 0-0 through the first 30 and maybe we would have grown in confidence and nicked a draw. Maybe. But how we set up was sure to fail and fail we did.

 

[OrcaFat]

Even though we're Manchester United, it's not that hard to imagine that the players were psychologically defeated before the first whistle. When you're Newcastle or whoever you're expected to lose to City, so you have nothing to lose if you play like men to win and end up losing. But for us on that day, it was clearly impossible to summon a proper WTF, come-what-may attitude that is the only way to beat a club like City these days. We were beaten before the whistle was blown because, in my humble opinion, the players knew that they could not beat this City side.

I'm in no position to give even David Moyes tips on how to manage a football club, but for what little my advice is worth I would have started Casemiro along with McTominay (and actually wrote this in the pre-match thread) and dropped Rashford to have Bruno play up front where he do whatever he wished. I still seriously doubt we could have salvaged a draw going with two CDM but maybe we could have kept it 0-0 through the first 30 and maybe we would have grown in confidence and nicked a draw. Maybe. But how we set up was sure to fail and fail we did.

Yeah I would have started Casemiro both tactically and to get him integrated and up to speed. We need him in form and in the team. Probably we still lose but guys like him at least expect to win.

 

[jackal&hyde]

I watched the first 5 mins and then switched to the F1 race. Checked the score on the app though.

Was always going to be bad but I was not bothered by it. We need to get consistency over the other 18 teams. Could have maybe gotten a bit more had we did an Ole and played pure defensive counter with Casemiro and Mctom in the centre protecting a low block but it is what it is.