Static, slow motion zombie passing

[Pogue Mahone]

It was the first game that starting XI have played together since the end of last season. The first game at all for Rooney, Nani, Welbeck and Young in over a month. Up against a compact, well-organised team that's half way through their season. Bit daft to try and draw any kind of conclusions from a game like that.

I thought Kagawa looked class again, Rooney looked unusually trim for this time of year and Keane is no left back. Great to see Vidic back too. No point reading much more into it.

 

[devilish]

It was the first game that starting XI have played together since the end of last season. The first game at all for Rooney, Nani, Welbeck and Young in over a month. Up against a compact, well-organised team that's half way through their season. Bit daft to try and draw any kind of conclusions from a game like that.

I thought Kagawa looked class again, Rooney looked unusually trim for this time of year and Keane is no left back. Great to see Vidic back too. No point reading much more into it.

that's true.

However we've been playing against the 6th top team in Norway. They are hardly top opposition.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Nobody said they were.

You don't need to be "top opposition" to put 10 men behind the ball and make it dificult for the opposition to score though. Add in the difference in match fitness between the two teams and the lack of any kind of football for half our team in over a month and it's not a great surprise we found them hard to break down.

 

[anver]

Need more loose motions.

Trionz will provide those.

 

[devilish]

Nobody said they were.

You don't need to be "top opposition" to put 10 men behind the ball and make it dificult for the opposition to score though. Add in the difference in match fitness between the two teams and the lack of any kind of football for half our team in over a month and it's not a great surprise we found them hard to break down.

The funny thing is that they were closer of scoring a goal then we did.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Well yeah but we were clearly in control and made a lot of decent chances. Their keeper was arguably their MOTM. I don't think Lindegaard made a save.

 

[marjen]

Well yeah but we were clearly in control and made a lot of decent chances. Their keeper was arguably their MOTM. I don't think Lindegaard made a save.

Well, Noodles point is that this has been going on for a while, and I sort of agree.

Basically - Plech covers it all in his post. Carrick/Scholes as a midfield partnership works a treat against shite to average opposition, but it becomes too static at times, due to neither of them offering any movement up and down the field.

 

[kps88]

It's not as simple as telling the players to run around a bit more. Reaching the level Noodle seems to demand from us is incredibly hard and happens every 3-4 seasons or so. We don't play attractive, movement filled football every season and never will. This team is currently still a work in progress.

 

[marjen]

It's not as simple as telling the players to run around a bit more. Reaching the level Noodle seems to demand from us is incredibly hard and happens every 3-4 seasons or so. We don't play attractive, movement filled football every season and never will. This team is currently still a work in progress.

But when we had two midfielders who moved around a bit at the start of last season, coupled with Welbeck and Rooney taking turns dropping deep, at the start of the season, we looked fecking awesome going forward. Movement breeds movement, enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm.

Okay, so we were about as tight at the back as a 60 year old prostitute having spent the christmas holidays at the Rooney residence, but we played attractive football and scored a lot of goals.

It's all linked to Scholes as Plech says. That's why we really shouldn't be in a position where we have to play him, due to us not really having any other midfielders near the same class bar Carrick, who's almost as static in terms of movement up and down the field.

 

[Crustanoid]

Is it just me, or is anyone else not really a big fan of this new, ultra depressing method of football we seem to have invented since around the time of the Liverpool game at OT last season, and have worryingly carried into the pre-season with us?

Basically, all of our players stand perfectly still, except for the one who actually has the ball (and Danny Welbeck). Then the one with the ball just passes it sideways to the person next to him, who maybe moves a little bit, and then passes it sideways to the person next to him again, really slowly.

This then carries on for a bit until Scholes picks it up and spanks a diagonal pass to the person standing perfectly still on the wing, despite the fact they're marked, due to being stood completely still the whole time...then they either put an unthreatening ball into the box or just pass it back to the person inside them again.

At no point is this done at any kind of threatening pace or involving any form of off the ball movement at all.

What's the thinking behind it? Do we think it makes us look like Spain? Only, Spain constantly have three or four people moving and running off and around the ball. We just have Danny Welbeck or Kagawa, trying to create space for themselves, by themselves.

Just wait until our away matches against medium-poor opposition....when we're begging for some urgency in the middle.......in the League....when it actually matters. We'll have the zombie midfield tactic finely honed by that point, guaranteed.

 

[kps88]

But when we had two midfielders who moved around a bit at the start of last season, coupled with Welbeck and Rooney taking turns dropping deep, at the start of the season, we looked fecking awesome going forward. Movement breeds movement, enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm.

Okay, so we were about as tight at the back as a 60 year old prostitute having spent the christmas holidays at the Rooney residence, but we played attractive football and scored a lot of goals.

It's all linked to Scholes as Plech says. That's why we really shouldn't be in a position where we have to play him, due to us not really having any other midfielders near the same class bar Carrick, who's almost as static in terms of movement up and down the field.

Fair point. I'm not sure which SAF prefers though. I assume he'd rather have Scholes and Carrick controlling games and keeping it tight rather than getting into a scoring contest with every team.

A lot of those games games at the start of last season could have gone either way really and weren't as clear cut as the results suggest (West Brom, Chelsea, Spurs). If we continued down that road I reckon we would have lost a lot more games.

 

[marjen]

Fair point. I'm not sure which SAF prefers though. I assume he'd rather have Scholes and Carrick controlling games and keeping it tight rather than getting into a scoring contest with every team.

A lot of those games games at the start of last season could have gone either way really and weren't as clear cut as the results suggest (West Brom, Chelsea, Spurs). If we continued down that road I reckon we would have lost a lot more games.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. If only we had one, reliable, not injury-prone midfielder with a fair degree of mobility and maturity to partner Carrick with...

I guess we have to bank on Scholes/Cleverley staying fit/Anderson not becoming shit.

 

[togg]

Was it something to do with the start of last season that we became a bit more static, which has continued since then? I seem to remember that there was loads of movement for the first few games where we did indeed score a host of goals, but conversely also lets loads in. I'm presuming that had to be addressed and Fergie resorted to strict postional play to refocus on defending a bit more. Or perhaps I'm talking crap...

 

[Galactic]

Like Fergie said, we have a 'new' way of playing now. The one without the 'slow' Berbatov.

I'm sure Fergie and co will address it if there is any problem with the way we play. Dont kid ourselves into thinking we know more than them.

Having said that, I am not too happy too. I prefer the early season playing style of us from last season.

 

[Trigg]

Can't we wait and see for the season to start proper before we start rubbishing our play? I thought we played alright at times in the game (only game I watched this preseason). Had some good passing and interchange in the final third and created some decent chances. Not bad for a preseason friendly I don't think.

Plus, I thought several players played decent enough.

 

[marjen]

Can't we wait and see for the season to start proper before we start rubbishing our play? I thought we played alright at times in the game (only game I watched this preseason). Had some good passing and interchange in the final third and created some decent chances. Not bad for a preseason friendly I don't think.

Plus, I thought several players played decent enough.

Sigh..

It's not about the game vs an average Norwegian side.

It's about a trend that was quite clear to see last season, and at times cost us dearly.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Slow, "zombie passing" cost us last season?

Eh?

Must have been watching a different team. The team I watched suffered most due to poor defending from inexperienced defenders. Can't think of a single game where we dropped points that followed the pattern of yesterday's game (i.e. > 60% possession, struggling to break the opposition down)

 

[marjen]

Slow, "zombie passing" cost us last season?

Eh?

Must have been watching a different team. The team I watched suffered most due to poor defending from inexperienced defenders.

God you're tiresome at times, Pogue.

Instead of trying to strawman the feck out of every single point someone tries to argue that might claim United not to be the greatest thing ever, why don't you look past noodles unique way of putting it, and look at his wider point?

Yes - I do think the fact that we had to rely on Carrick and Scholes as our central midfield duo cost us at times last season. And I do think our attacking AND defensive capabilities are somewhat reduced whenever we play those two together as a duo.

They are perfectly capable of controlling a game at OT against most opposition in the league, but they struggle when teams get in their faces, and they can't simultaneously support the attack with runs and defend well, because as a partnership they don't got the mobility(mainly due to Scholes being, well, 38 years old).

 

[Bloxy]

for the first few games last season we saw some very good football from our team and the key difference is that we had 2 midfielders that had good passing and movement, but this approach meant we couldn't protect the back four as effectively as we should.

the options are get one of them to sit deep and protect or going for a 3 man midfield and with that we lose out on out very effective penetrating football.

4-3-3 or 4-1-2-3 then we have a chance of getting "pass and go" with good protection for the backs. it means one striker only though.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

A bit of what both of you are saying is correct IMO. At times (eg. Everton) our defending cost us and at other times (Bilbao, Wigan) out lack of quality in central midfield cost us. Also, when you aren't controlling games you tend to expose your defence a lot more which is why Barcelona's defence doesn't get exposed much.

 

[marjen]

for the first few games last season we saw some very good football from our team and the key difference is that we had 2 midfielders that had good passing and movement, but this approach meant we couldn't protect the back four as effectively as we should.

the options are get one of them to sit deep and protect or going for a 3 man midfield and with that we lose out on out very effective penetrating football.

4-3-3 or 4-1-2-3 then we have a chance of getting "pass and go" with good protection for the backs. it means one striker only though.

Carrick/Cleverley with Kagawa in front of them linking things up should give us a fair bit of dynamism.

That raises some interesting questions though, like for instance "what about Welbeck(with Rooney up top)", "can Cleverley stay fit?" etc.

(And yes Pogue before you start: I know we won't field the same team in every match this season).

 

[Denis' cuff]

It's a caf refrain these days: 'I know storey's a lamebrain/wanker/bittercunt/WUM/tosseroon, BUT...'

go on Pierre, don't go all modest on us......."I'm actually a genius you just won't admit it"

 

[Bloxy]

Carrick/Cleverley with Kagawa in front of them linking things up should give us a fair bit of dynamism.

That raises some interesting questions though, like for instance "what about Welbeck(with Rooney up top)", "can Cleverley stay fit?" etc.

(And yes Pogue before you start: I know we won't field the same team in every match this season).

I see cleverley and Anderson occupying the same role and Carrick and Scholes and then always with Kagawa in front of them. but we do like to play balls out wide and then cross into the box, so Rooney on his own will be easy pickings. I just hope that Kagawa's playing through the middle will change things up.

 

[Trigg]

Sigh..

It's not about the game vs an average Norwegian side.

It's about a trend that was quite clear to see last season, and at times cost us dearly.

I don't remember this trend. Slow zombie passing didn't really cost us against Wigan and Everton last season. He was shocking defending.

Again, lets wait till the season starts before we complain about the type of football we're playing yeah?

 

[VoetbalWizard]

I don't remember this trend. Slow zombie passing didn't really cost us against Wigan and Everton last season. He was shocking defending.

Again, lets wait till the season starts before we complain about the type of football we're playing yeah?

If we kept the ball for 70% of the match with a dynamic midfield, our defense would not have been exposed to make those 'shockers'.

 

[Denis' cuff]

If we kept the ball for 70% of the match with a dynamic midfield, our defense would not have been exposed to make those 'shockers'.

correct - defenders won't be exposed to making mistakes if the m'f does it's job instead of making sloppy lazy-arsed sideways passes with the vague intention of running the clock down.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

We kept the ball for 70% of the game yesterday and still almost conceded thanks to poor defending. It's ridiculous to imply that your midfield can somehow take away the need to defend.

 

[marjen]

We kept the ball for 70% of the game yesterday and still almost conceded thanks to poor defending. It's ridiculous to imply that your midfield can somehow take away the need to defend.

Strawman again - you always need to defend well. But there are ways to go about it. Defending as a team is one way of doing it, something which is considerably easier if you have a central midfield capable of getting up and down the pitch at pace, or at least being capable of not falling apart if one of the two central players decides they want to break forward.

As Plech pointed out, when Scholes and Carrick plays, they are reluctant to leave their zone and make runs in between lines or into the opposition box to create depth and passing options, due to Scholes not having the legs and Carrick not trusting Scholes to defend a potential break well enough, probably.

The result is that often we're not able to play through the opposition midfield, but instead are forced to rely on our wingers to create our opportunities.

A bit of variety and threat from central areas would help a lot. I imagine that is the reason for signing Kagawa - I hope we continue to evolve as a team by adding even more dynamism to the central midfield.

 

[Bloxy]

We kept the ball for 70% of the game yesterday and still almost conceded thanks to poor defending. It's ridiculous to imply that your midfield can somehow take away the need to defend.

you missing the point. its down to our midfield that often allows opposition to easily run at our defense. Barca is not blessed with great defenders but they keep the ball moving and pulls the opposition team's shape apart so they their opponents often don't know what to do once they get the ball . with static slow its really easy for opposition to start an attack once they get the ball because they have retained a good shape.

 

[noodlehair]

Why is it a start a thread saying "since around the time of the Liverpool game last season" (it's actually been a problem for a lot longer, but turned us into a full on boredem fest at around this time), and then half the responses are about how you can't judge anything from one pre-season game? Do people just see what they want to rather than reading the post?

 

[Randall Flagg]

Why is it a start a thread saying "since around the time of the Liverpool game last season" (it's actually been a problem for a lot longer, but turned us into a full on boredem fest at around this time), and then half the responses are about how you can't judge anything from one pre-season game? Do people just see what they want to rather than reading the post?

Are you on about since the home game against liverpool? There was some good performances in these games. But yeah some were a bit slow in fairness. Apart from the obvious losses to City and Wigan, which are we talking about?

A couple were typical nervy end of season games. QPR was annoying because we could/should have scored more. But this run of games wasnt that bad

Norwich a w 2 1
Tottenham a w 3 1
West Brom h w 2 0
Wolves a w 5 0
Fulham h w 1 0
Blackburn a w 2 0
QPR h w 2 0
Wigan a l 0 1
Aston Villa h w 4 0
Everton h d 4 4
Man City a l 0 1
Swansea h w 2 0
Sunderland a w 1 0

 

[Bloxy]

Why is it a start a thread saying "since around the time of the Liverpool game last season" (it's actually been a problem for a lot longer, but turned us into a full on boredem fest at around this time), and then half the responses are about how you can't judge anything from one pre-season game? Do people just see what they want to rather than reading the post?

been like that for years

 

[noodlehair]

I think AshG gets to the nub of the matter. It's about Scholes, and it comes down to these things:

1) He's not that mobile anymore

so

2) He plays from deep

but

3) He can't defend

but

4) He's still easily our best midfielder and quite often our best player

Added to which, Carrick will tend to defer to him, and is deep-lying himself, so when they play together there's a lot of flat passing between them. What we could really do with is Carrick pushing up, or a centre-half stepping out, but they can't because 3).

I don't think the rest of the side's a problem... Nani, Rooney and Welbeck move, Hernandez moves, Giggs moves, Evra moves too much. Young and Valencia can be a bit static in the positions they take up I guess, though both show good movement once they're actually involved in a move.

I tend to agree, and I love Scholes, but if he can't keep up with the pace of the game, then surely him and Carrick can't be in the same team as each other, since Carrick is basically a midfield centreback these days.I actually find it hard to watch us these days. We're constantly dull as feck.

I'd stick Cleverley in as soon as he's back, for a start. His movement off and on the ball is his best asset...but he was fit towards the end of last season and we just left him sitting on the bench all the time. The difference he made when he came on against Wigan and actually moved around was completely embarassing.

Italy played Pirlo in the Euros in the way we should look to use Scholes. Have players run off and around him and just accept that it might leave you a bit more vulnerable on the break. Carrick is never going to do anything other than sit with him it seems, so unless one of them is willing to change their playing style, they should be fighting for one place. Not just walking into the team every single week based on them being older than everyone else.

 

[Randall Flagg]

Hard to watch? I never find us hard to watch I still find the vast majority of games entertaining.

Arent you lucky you didnt grow up support Bolton.

 

[Bloxy]

I tend to agree, and I love Scholes, but if he can't keep up with the pace of the game, then surely him and Carrick can't be in the same team as each other, since Carrick is basically a midfield centreback these days.I actually find it hard to watch us these days. We're constantly dull as feck.

I'd stick Cleverley in as soon as he's back, for a start. His movement off and on the ball is his best asset...but he was fit towards the end of last season and we just left him sitting on the bench all the time. The difference he made when he came on against Wigan and actually moved around was completely embarassing.

Italy played Pirlo in the Euros in the way we should look to use Scholes. Have players run off and around him and just accept that it might leave you a bit more vulnerable on the break. Carrick is never going to do anything other than sit it seems, so unless one of them is willing to change their playing style, him and Scholes should be fighting for one place.

as somebody pointed out earlier, against some teams who are willing to sit deep,they will be okay because they'll have enough time to pick out their passes. Against teams pressing high up, not only do they have to pass faster, they would also have to contend with attacks starting in their zone and often behind them which means they have to react that much quicker.

 

[marjen]

I think noods is overly dramatic, but looking past the drama and at the point, which certain posters tend not to be able to do, I do see the issue.

Basically it comes down to: We need a more dynamic central midfield as to not get predictable/be able to defend better as a team.

 

[Randall Flagg]

I think noods is overly dramatic, but looking past the drama and at the point, which certain posters tend not to be able to do, I do see the issue.

Basically it comes down to: We need a more dynamic central midfield as to not get predictable/be able to defend better as a team.

Yep, we are desperate for that midfielder. I am just not sure he exists or is at least gettable.

 

[Burrow]

For some reason I convinced myself that we were playing that way to conserve energy, to make sure that we dont get fatigued come late in the season, but seing how we're doing this even in pre-season is worrying.

 

[Cina]

Yep, we are desperate for that midfielder. I am just not sure he exists or is at least gettable.

Disagree. Our midfield has become so 'average' (for a team like us) that it actually wouldn't require too much head hunting in order to improve the thing.

 

[marjen]

Yep, we are desperate for that midfielder. I am just not sure he exists or is at least gettable.

I wasn't talking about a specific midfielder, rather for the central midfield to function like a more dynamic unit. If that means we can't play Scholes/Carrick in most games, so be it I'd say.

Cleverley and Kagawa might be the solution, at least partially, in tandem with Carrick. I think this trio could work, and they've got the legs to get up AND down the pitch.

I still wish we had that certain solution in midfield. Joao Moutinho would be an astute purchase IMO, as he'd work both in tandem with Carrick or Cleverley, and also could play quite easily in a midfield three. He defends reasonably well, is mobile, and a good progressive passer. I think he'd suit us really nicely actually.