We are not press resistant

[Mr Smith]

Look, I don't want to overreact to today; we had some terribly bad luck and were let down by two or three abysmal individual performances. But we do have a genuine problem with sides who press in a coordinated manner disrupting our rhythm and being unable to play through this. This does seem in part to be a coaching problem but is also a personell problem. The players we frequently start in midfield are vulnerable to pressing and completely lack the passing quality to play through the press. What frustrates me is that we have (theoretically) a player who is tailor-made to play short, quick passes to beat a pressing side in Donny Van De Beek, but for whatever reason Ole feels unwilling to play him.

We need to be able to handle when teams press us if we want to be a top side that are able to win things, because almost all the best sides do this.

 

[SuperiorXI]

We were very sloppy vs the press and didn't recognise it even though it was blindingly obvious. It was how they got their goal. Poor from the players and management... just pump the fecker up if you can't beat the press. We had two rapid players in Martial and Greenwood and a potential target man in Matic/Pogba.

 

[Dominos]

Honestly, it's 3 years into the current regime and we still can't play out from the back and we can't pass the ball like a top side. There's some on here who will claim it's kneejerk when really it's the same old problems year after year.

 

[Shane88]

We are not intelligent.

Idiots who are being pressed all game think they can wait for the ball to roll into their feet. Are they goldfish? Do they forget that they're being hassled and harried all game?

 

[Borys]

This seems to be our setup when we're facing pressing.

We're absolutely terrible at it. Wan Bissaka receives a pass, turns and looks for passing options (there aren't many).

 

[ivaldo]

We were press resistant against Leeds, no? It's significantly harder to resist the press when we have one player in midfield and Matic playing behind the CBs because he's too much of a coward to take the ball under any degree of pressure. If we had a fit Mctominay start today alongside Fred we would've won comfortably.

 

[flappyjay]

One thing about Southampton is that they press and I highly doubt that it would not have been touched on during the week. Yet it looked like about 8 players out there didn't get the memo.

 

[ivaldo]

This seems to be our setup when we're facing pressing.

We're absolutely terrible at it. Wan Bissaka receives a pass, turns and looks for passing options (there aren't many).

Matic should be behind Luke Shaw there.

 

[jackal&hyde]

Mid and AWB are poor in possession at times. We need new midfielders but we can't afford to do it all in one window.

 

[Kag]

You don’t beat the press all that well with a midfield two of Fred, Matic or McTominay. Or with Wan-Bissaka at right back (in spite of his other qualities).

 

[chris123]

I know everything comes back to the CDM issue, but it really applies here as well. We have good ball playing centre backs, but it doesn't really matter when we have no one in midfield we can play the ball into and actually trust to hold onto it and break a press. So in the end a lot of our attacking build up is passing it around the back and then hopeful long balls into Greenwood and Martial or whichever attacker is making a forward run.

 

[SirAnderson]

No we are not!

 

[KennyBurner]

A few months ago I claimed Maguire Shaw and lindelof are not press resistant and was met with a lot of backlash. When you add De Gea to the formula you then realize how pathetic they are under intense pressure. The whole back line throws away their “pass under pressure” instructions when they get nervous.
The problem is they all hold into the ball longer than you would expect and they just don’t trust one another.

the first step to building trust amongst our defenders would be getting rid of De gea who refuses to ever think a bit under pressure. His passes always make our defenders nervous.

 

[Delano]

Teams crying out for a Carrick.

 

[KennyBurner]

I know everything comes back to the CDM issue, but it really applies here as well. We have good ball playing centre backs, but it doesn't really matter when we have no one in midfield we can play the ball into and actually trust to hold onto it and break a press. So in the end a lot of our attacking build up is passing it around the back and then hopeful long balls into Greenwood and Martial or whichever attacker is making a forward run.

The problem is not our midfielders but our defenders not releasing balls quicker. Maguire today was taking forever to turn and pass with the ball. Lindelof doesn’t trust De Gea and he has good reason too. Shaw refuses to use his right foot which makes passing inward harder for him.
Matic is press resistant while Fred is sloppy on the ball. That’s about it.

 

[FootyGirl88]

That’s a coaching issue…

 

[Zen86]

Yea we are, a Matic and Fred midfield however is not.

 

[RepardReece]

Look, I don't want to overreact to today; we had some terribly bad luck and were let down by two or three abysmal individual performances. But we do have a genuine problem with sides who press in a coordinated manner disrupting our rhythm and being unable to play through this. This does seem in part to be a coaching problem but is also a personell problem. The players we frequently start in midfield are vulnerable to pressing and completely lack the passing quality to play through the press. What frustrates me is that we have (theoretically) a player who is tailor-made to play short, quick passes to beat a pressing side in Donny Van De Beek, but for whatever reason Ole feels unwilling to play him.

We need to be able to handle when teams press us if we want to be a top side that are able to win things, because almost all the best sides do this.

Well said. Agree with VDB, we're facing a similar scenario to last season if we continue to play the same midfield (2 of Fred, McT, Matic). Ole failing to see this issue is really worrying.

Said it in another thread, from this game, it just looks like we're going to be making the same mistakes as last season, not learning from them at all.

All be it, it's one game and we have 36 more games to play yet. Hopefully Varane in that CB position will alter our midfield.

 

[Harry190]

Barely any team is press resistant.

 

[bosnian_red]

Of course we aren't. That midfield is entirely to blame for that. Whether it's Fred, McTominay or Matic, it's the same issue. Slow and sloppy on the ball and not technically good enough between them. We need someone who is sharp on the ball there and can take the ball on the half turn, and knows where to move. They all shit themselves under pressure.

 

[littleman]

Teams crying out for a Carrick.

Carrick was not press resistant, this is one of the most foolish posts in this thread.

Scholes was fairly press resistant.

I think Pogba is our only midfielder who is sort of press resistant.

The Euro winning Italian team’s midfield was immensely press resistant. A DM will help keep possession and recycle, but the forwards still need to combine

 

[NinjaZombie]

Mid and AWB are poor in possession at times. We need new midfielders but we can't afford to do it all in one window.

If we can't get a new midfielder, we've still got VDB. I swear Ole's loyalty to Fred is holding us back. It's worrying that he prefers a passion merchant rather than an actual footballer.

 

[chris123]

The problem is not our midfielders but our defenders not releasing balls quicker. Maguire today was taking forever to turn and pass with the ball. Lindelof doesn’t trust De Gea and he has good reason too. Shaw refuses to use his right foot which makes passing inward harder for him.
Matic is press resistant while Fred is sloppy on the ball. That’s about it.

Not sure I agree with this. Sure Maguire got caught A LOT today, but eventually playing out of the back, defenders have to look to progress the ball into midfield, and I could count the number of times Maguire/Lindelof played it into Fred/Matic today on one hand. You say Fred is sloppy on the ball, that is a HUGE issue for a player playing in a double pivot, and Matic looked like he was unable to retrieve a pass that was even a foot either side of him.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Of course we aren't.

 

[Cassidy]

We have known this for years.

 

[Cheimoon]

The odd thing is that United have been having great results against Klopp's Liverpool and Pep's City though - which are also mad press machines. Does it have something to do with motivation? Or maybe it's because Ole sets up more defensively against those, so United can really play counter-attacking football? He couldn't do that against Southampton though; that'd be pathetic.

 

[Champ]

Press resistant....is that of equal nonsense to 'double pivot'?

What a load of rubbish.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Leeds are one of the best presses in the league and we just absolutely roasted them like very few teams are able to do.

Although of course there are different types of press.

We haven't had a centre mid in so many years that is comfortable on the ball, hopefully we can change that before too long.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

If we can't get a new midfielder, we've still got VDB. I swear Ole's loyalty to Fred is holding us back. It's worrying that he prefers a passion merchant rather than an actual footballer.

See the problem is Fred plays on average so so much better than Donny has, not sure why ole is letting that hold him back from playing the more fashionable player though

 

[Borys]

Carrick was not press resistant, this is one of the most foolish posts in this thread.

Scholes was fairly press resistant.

I think Pogba is our only midfielder who is sort of press resistant.

The Euro winning Italian team’s midfield was immensely press resistant. A DM will help keep possession and recycle, but the forwards still need to combine

I agree, especially the bolded bit. Forwards must drop to support and provide passing options. Our defense (even Wan Bissaka) is decent on the ball, but they can't be expected to beat the pressing on their own. No team plays like that.

 

[DickDastardly]

The odd thing is that United have been having great results against Klopp's Liverpool and Pep's City though - which are also mad press machines. Does it have something to do with motivation? Or maybe it's because Ole sets up more defensively against those, so United can really play counter-attacking football? He couldn't do that against Southampton though; that'd be pathetic.

I think it's the players heads.

They're not afraid of hoofing it forward against the likes of Pool and Shitty.

They do however think they're better then Southampton. While the case could be made that some of them, simply aren't.

 

[Hammondo]

Teams crying out for a Carrick.

Yep.

 

[BluesJr]

Never have been.

 

[Abraxas]

It's not that easy to beat every well co-ordinated press. We have done it and scored fantastic counterattacking goals, in fact we are known for our expertise in that department.

But if it's organised and done well it's hard to face. It's why the PL is so difficult. You don't have to have great players to conduct a good press, just tactical discipline and physicality and home fans help motivate the second part of that. Southampton have been quite adept at it for a while so you have to give them some credit too, as much as we had some poor moments.

I think it's difficult to point figures as I think the whole team succumbed to it, but I think it's always going to be hard with Matic. He's the one in there to get on the ball but his legs are a lot slower than his mind. AWB lacks some technical skill, which we know. So there are a couple of sticking points when moving the ball out of the back.

 

[laughtersassassin]

We play a very poor Midfield pairs. Asking for trouble.

Recruitment in that are has been baffling

 

[pascell]

We're too easy to play against when pressed. Press our CMs and we'll spread the ball out wide, then we'll attempt to play it to the LW and RW to attack but they are already tightly marked by the opposition full backs.

And as our CM have been pressed and played the ball wide, we're not playing through the middle so our striker is then segregated and easily nullified.

 

[SAFMUTD]

That’s a coaching issue…

Totally, but let's blame the players.

 

[Lentwood]

Honestly, it's 3 years into the current regime and we still can't play out from the back and we can't pass the ball like a top side. There's some on here who will claim it's kneejerk when really it's the same old problems year after year.

What do you suggest though? Its not a "coaching" issue, it's the quality of the personnel at our disposal.

Until we have two midfield players who can comfortably take and move the ball under pressure, we won't be a top side.

Being quick on the transition and decent defensively will only ever get us so far

 

[FatTails]

Our passing is terrible all around. It’s weird but we can’t seem to actually pass and receive the ball properly, resist the press, or control the tempo of the game.

 

[wolvored]

Carrick was not press resistant, this is one of the most foolish posts in this thread.

Scholes was fairly press resistant.

I think Pogba is our only midfielder who is sort of press resistant.

The Euro winning Italian team’s midfield was immensely press resistant. A DM will help keep possession and recycle, but the forwards still need to combine

No Pogba has been caught in possession many times since he came back.