Matic was excellent defensively, Pogba was sloppy on the ball. What a nonsense thread. Still, Bruno was so much worse & I felt Pogba should have been moved forward and Fred brought on for Bruno.
Subbing Pogba instead of Matic
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Id have took bruno and matic of. Mct and fred for their legs and push pogba on.
But when i seen fred i definitely didnt think it was pogba that was coming of hut bruno as well
Because the bench is so bad that it will all fall apart regardless if you start resting players.
Pogba basically gave the pass before the assist for both goals. He was caught on the ball twice and he deserves to question himself for that. But after that he controlled the game. We lost all control of the game when he was taken off. Bruno didn’t make a mistake that led to goal but he was really poor today in general. I think both were a bit tired though. But I think Bruno should have come off first so Pogba could be moved up and then Fred Nd Mctominay behind.
Anyways this is not the end of our chances. We just need to be focused and win our next game. Top 4 depends on us
We didn't need to. Martial to the right. Igahlo on for Greenwood.
Yup, that's when we put a tenner on 2-2. Sad money. Parking the bus doesn't work for us.
Pogba was never on, looked frustrated with himself. Not sure what was going on. Fernandes looked tired. Matic was the strongest of the three, but I don't think anyone will ever accuse him of the kinds of creativity that Paul and Bruno can provide.
I thought Ole should have subbed off Paul and Bruno at the same time, but I can understand not doing so.
I thought Ole should have subbed off Paul and Bruno at the same time, but I can understand not doing so.
Either way we parked the bus at home and didn’t come to terms with Southampton all game.
That said it should of been 3-1 before we went down to ten men and they should of had a player sent off.
That said it should of been 3-1 before we went down to ten men and they should of had a player sent off.
I think it was the right call, honestly. Southampton were targeting Pogba with their press and Fred gave us some much needed energy in midfield.
None of our midfielders had their best game. Just one of those things.
None of our midfielders had their best game. Just one of those things.
I'm not sure how that ever was going to work. It was obviously a game where we'd need more legs in the middle so I'm at a complete loss how the solution was to take one of our midfielders OUT of midfield and leave the other one there on his own.
Pogba was poor but we could have taken him off and Matic and put Fred and MCtominay in the middle if we'd wanted. How anyone on our bench expected Fred to come on and just magically do the same impossible job Pogba had been failing to do I'm not sure.
I had issues with some of what Pogba was getting up to but honestly it'd be impossible for any midfielder to play well when they have no one helping them against a team who constantly press. Fred couldn't even get near the ball when he came on. If he'd been there WITH Pogba one of the two would have had a lot more time and space and the ball might have actually made it to the forward players more than once every 8 minutes.
It's not like we'd have been more open defensively as Matic literally wasn't doing anything that needed to be done.
We basically played with 10 men all night. I'm with you Matic was obviously doing what he was told, but it was obvious after literally 5 minutes that it was causing us a lot of problems.
It was a poor job from the coaching staff all game I thought. In the end, we just kind of let Southampton have free reign of the midfield(even before the Williams injury).
The better move might have been taking off Greenwood(who couldn't get into the game) for Fred and then you shore up the midfield with an additional player and ease up Pogba's job.
I just thought it was obvious.
We had no midfield and we also had a "midfielder" sitting in with the centrebacks doing absolutely nothing. You can make a change there with absolutely no risk of it having a negative effect on the team because you have a player in one area struggling and a player in another area not doing anything.
I was surprised Matic even started because there's no way Matic and Pogba as a pair are suited to a team who sustain a high press, which it was blatant that Southampton would do because they literally always do. The plan to deal with that was to take Matic out of midfield...I mean that part is fair enough but that means you don't play him. You don't handicap the entire team just to accomodate him elsewhere.
It's the sort of thing that leads to problems down the line as well because Fred/Mctominay can't be happy to sit on the bench every week, and then they see that even when the person playing instead of them can't do their job and it causes the team to struggle, they still sit on the bench.
I had no real problem with Greenwood as his presence and movement was giving Rashford and Martial more space, and there was no reason why we shouldn't have been able to get the ball to them.
I get that earlier in the season we didn't necessarily have the players to be effective but now everyone is fit and we have strong numbers in midfield, so there's no excuse to handicap ourselves in games.
It was the right move against their relentless energy. Tonight either the games in quick succession caught up with him or he still isn’t operating at 100%.
This. They were all over Pogba like a rash, constantly sat in-between 6 of their players. Needed to be pushed forward with Fred coming on.
Time to bleed in another DM from the ranks. TfM be ideal. And squad tweaks need to happen to achieve perfection and organise the team as needed.
Both Bruno and Pogba had a largely off game, with Pogba doing slightly better than Bruno. I would have wanted Bruno to be pulled off, but it was Pogba.
Don't really see why Matic should have been pulled off. Southampton were running relentlessly at us. Losing Matic wouldn't have helped at all. Rather I think it was a good idea to get in Fred to assist him.
Don't really see why Matic should have been pulled off. Southampton were running relentlessly at us. Losing Matic wouldn't have helped at all. Rather I think it was a good idea to get in Fred to assist him.
I personally kinda expected James to be subbed on earlier. Mason looked a bit confused. He did not make runs nor get the chance to shoot, only passing it safely. Which is understandable, he's young and far exceeded my expectation this season.
And then when Pogba was subbed, I thought Bruno would drop deeper and played as part of the midfield because it was quite obvious Pogba was the only one capable of controlling the midfield. But Bruno kept running and chasing the ball around.. which I think was part of the plan. No idea why is that but that cannot be good with the amount of games coming up, he looked tired.
Outside of those, no complaints. Pogba sub was probably correct, he looked disappointed with his performance and made a few mistakes. Not the day for him.
And then when Pogba was subbed, I thought Bruno would drop deeper and played as part of the midfield because it was quite obvious Pogba was the only one capable of controlling the midfield. But Bruno kept running and chasing the ball around.. which I think was part of the plan. No idea why is that but that cannot be good with the amount of games coming up, he looked tired.
Outside of those, no complaints. Pogba sub was probably correct, he looked disappointed with his performance and made a few mistakes. Not the day for him.
I think at that time it's fair.
Pogba is losing too much possession at the centre. But the trade-off is he's unlocking the defenses.
Bruno is largely off and for me should be subbed out instead, and then change the system to 433 and push Pogba to further up attacking. But I can understand why Ole is reluctant since Bruno can still suddenly win us games later on potentially.
Are people serious wanting Matic out instead? That would mean Fred/McT + Pogba. Not much changes, Pogba will still gave the ball away for Southampton to counter quickly. Not like Fred/McT can teleport to cover him defensively.
Pogba is losing too much possession at the centre. But the trade-off is he's unlocking the defenses.
Bruno is largely off and for me should be subbed out instead, and then change the system to 433 and push Pogba to further up attacking. But I can understand why Ole is reluctant since Bruno can still suddenly win us games later on potentially.
Are people serious wanting Matic out instead? That would mean Fred/McT + Pogba. Not much changes, Pogba will still gave the ball away for Southampton to counter quickly. Not like Fred/McT can teleport to cover him defensively.
Matic isn't a defender. He is a midfielder. We didn't play an extra person in midfield to compensate for Matic not being there so that was just blatantly going to cause us problems.
He also wasn't excellent defensively. We conceded two really soft goals. Maguire and Lindelof did most of the defending in the area while Matic let Redmond walk past him and nearly score and then didn't pick up his man for the corner we conceded from. I don't blame him as he isn't a centreback so shouldn't be fecking playing there, but he was far from excellent. He was a midfielder who spent 98 minutes doing absolutely no midfielding, in a game where we desperately needed help in midfield.
There was a hugely noticable difference when Pogba came off as well. He wasn't at his best but he was at least a presence. Fred there on his own was just chasing shadows...and again I don't blame him. It was him against 3 Southampton players and Ole did nothing to help him. Just threw him into the same situation Pogba had struggled with all night.
You can't play an entire game with one midfielder and expect it not to be a struggle. I don't know why this needs pointing out but it's literally what we tried to do, against one of the in form teams in the country.
What was Matic actually doing?
I could see what Pogba was doing. He was trying to play against Southampton's entire midfield on his own. I could see what Fernandes was doing. He was trying to link the ball to our forwards...he was having a poor game but at least was in the game.
I had no idea what Matic was doing. Something he was told to do clearly but I have no idea what it was. He did nothing all night that Lindelof and Maguire couldn't have done without his help. It was like we were scared to play him in midfield but didn't want to not play him, so just invented a non existent position for him.
There is supposed to be someone next to Pogba in midfield and there was no one there all night. When we had a chance to change it, instead we took him off and put Fred in exactly the same situation.
I'm not sure how Fred and McTominay have gone from having very good seasons to apparently being so rubbish that playing no one next to Pogba is no worse than playing one of them there.
Did you not notice after literally 10 minutes of the game that Southampton's ENTIRE midfield and even forwards were able to press Pogba at will whenever he went near the ball because he was the only United player in the middle of the pitch? Did you not notice that it actually also cost us a goal?
You're right. Pogba was surrounded by 6 players all game, Bruno was too high up the pitch, and Matic was too deep.
While the setup has been working in general, it was starting to get exposed a little in the past few matches, and this match especially warranted a quick change right from the beginning. Bruno deeper and Matic higher up would have been better than just replacing Pogba with Fred and carrying on.
It's one of the worries of a 4-2-3-1 like that, the midfield can be overrun if adjustments aren't made.
Today was the game we should have played with 3 man midfield and pushed Bruno onto the front three with free role to roam around. I can see the dilemma on Ole mind to not change the winning team and dropping Greenwood with the scoring run he is in but it was vital to win the midfield battle and that tough decision should have been taken. Anyway looking forward we definitely need a more mobile midfield partner for pogba, Matic and Pogba won't work against high pressing team.
Nope, I fully expected Pogba to get taken off. He was poor. He was getting increasingly agitated at being pressed while he was fatigued. Around the time he got subbed he was chasing shadows. I thought Fred would do really well to run around Matic cleaning up.
Subbing Bruno was absolutely bizarre. Mainly because we still needed someone that is an outlet when being attacked constantly. Matic off Scott on and leave Bruno on to take the pressure off the team.
Subbing Bruno was absolutely bizarre. Mainly because we still needed someone that is an outlet when being attacked constantly. Matic off Scott on and leave Bruno on to take the pressure off the team.
Matic hasn't been nearly as deep in other games even though he usually does drop off, and I thought he looked really laboured against Villa as well. There's nothing wrong with giving a player a rest rather than trying to change your entire tactics just to accomodate them when they are tired.
Even so, we played him and tried it. Ok, but it was just blatantly obvious from very early on that it wasn't working and Pogba needed help. We could have moved Matic into midfield (i.e. his actual position) or we could have bought someone on for him to play there. We could even as someone else said had left him where he was and replaced someone else with an extra midfielder. Instead we decided to pretend that playing with 1 midfielder was somehow not causing a problem, after an hour of it clearly being a problem.
I don't think any of the players were THAT bad tonight to be honest. Bissaka looked knackered and Matic due to his role was pointless but wasn't exaclty awful. The rest were just struggling with the system. Pogba and Fred especially. Fred had no idea where to go when he came on. You could see him running about trying to cover two areas at once.
If Pogba came off then Fred and McTominay should have come on together really as we absolutely NEEDED an extra player in that area. As you said Pogba was chasing shadows so Fred was never going to be able to come on and do any different without a change to the set up.
Using Matic to just stand in the area cleaning things up is bizarre. Mourinho tactics really. Have extra players do the centrebacks jobs for them then get confused when the team are under pressure due to being short in other areas of the pitch.
I agree, in the same way the positive results have made everyone's performance seem better, the negative result today is doing the opposite.
Ever since Ole changed from the 4-3-3 during his interim tenure I've been advocating returning to that system, and even with the recent good results I'm still skeptical about the 4-2-3-1 we play, where the AM is a 4th forward and doesn't really help with buildup. Traditionally it's easy to be overrun with such a system and we've seen that a lot throughout the season, today included.
That's why I think instead of bringing someone else on, we should have just switched to a 4-3-3 where Pogba can't be targeted as easily or left alone in midfield. Or if we are going to bring on someone it should be to help the midfield, not a like for like replacement. To me the frustrating thing was that the issue seemed obvious from the first moments of the match, but still we failed to address it. With a few adjustments we could have made things a lot easier for ourselves.
I would have played McTominay over Matic today and probably expected Bruno to drop back if needed.
Honestly I don't think we needed this game to know Matic and Pogba doesn't work against high pressing teams. While we've seen both McTominay and Fred can do very well even against a much higher quality pressing team in City.
I don't think Pogba is suited to these types of games in himself but he does at least offer the ability to pick out killer balls so you can maybe accept losing a bit of control over the middle to keep him there.
Tonight though it looked like a well coached team playing against a team that didn't even really know what the plan was.
It was a problem long before 60 minutes tonight. He was in midfield on his own all night getting pressed by half the Southampton team. It cost us a goal in the first 20 minutes. He got dispossed again in dangerous areas several times after.
He needed help in there from the first minute so if we were going to take him off, replacing him with someone and not changing the system was never going to work. The only difference when Fred came on was he wasn't up to the pace of the game and didn't know which area to cover so struggled twice as much as Pogba did. Our possession stats much have taken a nose dive at that point and I suspect weren't brilliant before it. If he'd been there next to Pogba or with someone actually helping him that obviously woundn't have been the case.
I mean the reason I felt the need to point it out is because it was so blatant. Our first sub should have been to fix our midfield and to be honest it could have happened at half time and not been too soon. If we'd put an actual midfield there and still struggled fair enough but we were never ever not going to struggle playing only one player in there. I mean, just obviously this is never going to work against a side that presses.
The only reason I single out Matic as the one who could have come off is because he was literally doing a job that didn't need doing. We have centrebacks to defend our penalty box. The only reason to have extra players there helping them is if you've accepted you're going to be under constant pressure. We were playing Southampton not Bayern Munich.
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Just looking for excuses, c’mon. Ole’s subs weren’t the problem, neither was our setup. We made silly mistakes and got punished. Could’ve still won if we took our chances well.
I understand why Pogba came off. He wasn't on tonight and looked tired. Mix that with an opposing blue colour midfield and it's a recipe for disaster. I thought the mistake was taking Bruno off. He wasn't playing great either but he always puts in a shift and can create out of nothing. Once they both came off, our front line wasn't going to get any service. Throw in some bad luck, bad calls and bad defending and this was a game to forget....
@noodlehair the title probably doesn't reflect what you're putting across, since the issue seems to be with the overall setup moreso than the sub.
Matic's heat map shows him roughly parallel to where Pogba played. Yes he dropped back to form a back 3 at times but the majority of the time he was in midfield.
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...eague-2019-2020-Manchester-United-Southampton
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...eague-2019-2020-Manchester-United-Southampton
Watching the match again right now, I disagree. In the buildup he was pretty much always a 3rd CB, and Pogba was always a lone midfielder surrounded by 6 players.
The heatmap shows his overall involvement so it doesn't take those things into account.
If you dont think Pogba should've been subbed we saw a different game. He was shattered. We needed fresh legs who could press. If anything, Fred should've came on earlier
When the opposition is desperately chasing a goal, James' speed sounds a much more lethal weapon. In hindsight I would still go for James.
Don't think it would have mattered, both were garbage last night. Ole should have gone to a midfield three even in the first half as we were getting battered.
Well different opinions. James ran around a lot but we really needed to get hold of possession. Igalho is good at that.
Not sure that's a very good read of the heat map. Whoscored also have average position data, and I think this would sum up what we saw:
The mistake ultimately was taking Bruno off. At least Bruno, you know he’s capable of a moment of brilliance despite having a poor game. And yes Pogba is capable of that too but on recent form, Bruno should’ve stayed on.
We couldn't cope with their pressure and Pogba was having one of his worse games in a United shirt. We probably needed t o play a diamond formation but our 3 midfielders looked really tired.