We seem to have a fairly good over-riding tactical set-up, which is highlighted by how often we don't just beat good teams but comfortably beat them. It hasn't just been counter-attacks either. Obviously we have some days where it really doesn't work, but more often than not we do seem to have things set up well and it's the players simply not playing well.
What we do poorly, and have ever since Ferigie's last team ended, is off-the-ball movement and interplay between players. Watch just about any other top team (or hell, even half the 'lesser' teams in the league) and their movement is far better than ours in terms of players constantly making themselves available. When a player gets the ball they almost always have at least one good option to make a quick pass to, who will in turn have at least one good option to pass to, and so on. Often three or more good options at once, which just makes things much easier for them and allows them to play through teams much better than we can.
I think that's another reason we tend to look much better with Fred than without. It's not just his defensive work rate, he's also comfortably better than any of our other central midfielders at making himself available to receive the pass and keep the ball moving. Obviously VDB looks like he's also going to be a huge help in that aspect, so the two of them together is definitely promising if they are able to be solid enough defensively. We've already seen some nice interplay between them. Bruno obviously is good as well. But none of our forwards, with the possible exception of Cavani now, are good at it. Matic and Pogba are both poor at it. Our fullbacks are poor at it. If it were just one or two you can blame the players, but when it's the majority of the team and has been that way for long enough that players have come, gone and been replaced it really does seem to be a huge issue with the coaching.