Why Erik Ten Hag's Man United Isn't Working Yet
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00:00 Hello there you handsome handsome bunch, Adam Clear here from 442 and Manchester United.
00:10 What's going on there then?
00:12 They spent a whole big heap of money again this summer and some people, not everybody
00:16 I should clarify, not everybody but some people think they should now have a team capable
00:20 of challenging for the Premier League title.
00:23 But so far they've had a pretty minging performance against Wolves and now a pretty bad defeat
00:28 against Tottenham so if you're a Man United fan, should you be worrying?
00:32 I say no, at least not yet.
00:38 So here we are, it is Saturday evening, this is how Manchester United lined up against
00:42 Tottenham and I have to say for the first half I actually thought they did really really
00:47 well because the thing is when a 4-3-3 plays a 4-2-3-1 then theoretically you should match
00:52 up very nicely everywhere.
00:54 4-2-8 should be able to just sit with the two pivots and the 10 gets marked by your
00:58 defensive midfielder so in theory you should be pretty well covered.
01:02 Because a team like Man United will want to be aggressive, they won't want to allow the
01:05 opposition to just build up willy nilly then every single one of the three attackers will
01:08 take a man and then one of the eights, depending on which defender is free, will then push
01:12 on leaving the player he's left in the shadow cover.
01:17 Basically he's left him but he's stopping a pass getting to him.
01:19 But Tottenham, obviously very aware Man United were going to do this, allowed Porrow to invert
01:23 from the right back position adding an extra body in the middle and that kind of gave us
01:28 this.
01:29 It's the very principle of that box midfield we saw so many teams do last year.
01:32 Spurs now effectively have an extra man in the middle outnumbering Man United which means
01:36 if at any point the press here fails they can get a ball through that into the middle
01:41 of the pitch.
01:42 Very dangerous situation, it's why Arsenal, Man City, loads of teams try to do it last
01:45 year and that's what they were trying to do with Man United.
01:47 Casemiro had obviously been told specifically to stay with James Madison where possible
01:51 so that left Mason Mount with this problem here.
01:54 Theoretically he should stay with Sarr because that was his man originally but obviously
01:57 Porrow's now moved into the more aggressive area he's going to want to be pressing in
02:01 so he's kind of caught between these two players.
02:03 If he pushes on that kind of forces Shaw to come over and deal with Sarr leaving Kulishevski
02:08 free but if he sits that just leaves a really easy ball into Porrow.
02:11 But even just in the first couple of minutes of the game Man United clearly recognised
02:15 the situation, they saw it was a problem and they changed what they were doing to completely
02:19 nullify it.
02:20 The players just went and sat on Vezuma, they allowed Garnaccio to follow Porrow into this
02:23 space here effectively giving them a four of their own and matching this up.
02:27 And while this does mean that Rashford is then leading the press on his own effectively
02:30 getting outnumbered by the two defenders, whichever one he was leaving the corresponding
02:34 midfielder would push onto but again only in a straight line between the man they're
02:38 marking and the ball leaving what they call the same shadow cover.
02:42 So when they weren't blocking the man they were at least blocking the pass.
02:45 And this worked really really well in that first half, Man United kept forcing turnovers
02:49 in this area every single time they got the ball, it looked like they were going to score,
02:53 they managed to nick it off Porrow a couple of times, it worked really really well.
02:57 And that's the thing, while this performance is kind of being lamented and the result is
03:00 obviously quite bad and the nature of the goals they conceded obviously makes it a lot
03:04 worse, this first half they had their game plan pretty much solid, they looked way better
03:08 than they did against Wolves and they should have been leading this match.
03:11 This chance for Rashford which again came from a turnover looked really good, how many
03:15 times do you think Bruno Fernandes is going to miss that header across the course of a
03:18 season, it was going really well.
03:20 But then of course Tottenham made a fairly simple change in the second half and that
03:24 kind of exposed all the same fragility they had against Wolves.
03:28 And it was a change that theoretically Man United would have been very happy with, like
03:32 Porrow stopped inverting which allowed Garnaccio to play a lot wider, that's where he wants
03:35 to be, that meant that Sarr wasn't pushing as far up so Mount could follow him into a
03:39 more advanced area, that's where he wanted to be.
03:41 But what they effectively did was they made a huge area in the centre of the pitch that
03:46 was just wide open, the only two players in it were James Madison and Casemiro.
03:50 And what we kept seeing was Madison going deeper and deeper and deeper to receive the
03:54 ball, Casemiro going with him and once they were isolated in this one on one situation,
03:58 Madison just killed him, killed him dead.
04:02 For a start it created this huge gap between Manchester United's defence and their midfield
04:06 which Kulishevsky was happy to go into, Richarlison was happy to go into, even Son started receiving
04:11 the ball in it meaning they were getting on it a lot more in the final third.
04:13 But when they did get it to Madison, you saw several times he was just so happy beating
04:19 Casemiro one on one and just ending up in the exact same scenario they had against Wolves.
04:24 And while you do have to caveat every mention of that game with the fact that they did ultimately
04:28 go on and win it, anyone who watched it will tell you it didn't really look like they were
04:32 going to do that.
04:33 Once the game became stretched, which is what Tottenham tried really hard to do in the second
04:37 half, Man United could not live with their running, they could not beat them in individual
04:41 battles.
04:42 The reason this is such a problem for Manchester United is because Eric Ten Hag's entire mentality,
04:46 something he's even spoken about himself this season, is that he wants them to be the best
04:50 team in world football at transitions.
04:53 Now I know not everybody is a bad nerd so if you're not sure what a transition is in
04:57 football basically imagine that team A has the ball and they are attacking and then team
05:02 B wins the ball off them for a couple of seconds because everybody's moving around, everybody's
05:07 finding space, they're doing all their fun attacking stuff, people are out of position,
05:11 nobody is necessarily set.
05:12 So those first few seconds after a ball is turned over are really important.
05:17 And if you're one of those teams that's really, really good at them then you can use the fact
05:20 that you've just won the ball when the opposition aren't ready to defend to really go out and
05:25 hurt them.
05:26 And as we saw in the first half, Man United are really good at doing that.
05:29 When they turn that ball over they know straight away where to go, what to do and how to hurt
05:33 teams and they should have been in the lead through doing that.
05:36 But the problem they have at the minute is that turnovers work both ways.
05:39 You also have to be good at doing them when you're the team that's lost the ball.
05:43 And again in that first half you could see this was part of their identity, something
05:46 they were working really hard on.
05:48 You can see here they lose the ball this time and Tottenham try and spring a quick counter
05:52 on but everybody's alive to what's going on.
05:54 Mason Mount who is, again, you've got to say, one of the best off the ball players in the
05:58 Premier League makes a really intelligent run, cuts that out and they get it back straight
06:03 away.
06:04 So what's the problem then?
06:05 I can hear you banging on your screen.
06:06 If they're this good at transitions and transitions are so important, why were they so bad against
06:10 Wolves, why have they lost this game?
06:12 And one word, mate.
06:16 Intensity.
06:17 I have already seen some people say this season that the problem Man United have got is that
06:20 they massively overcommit when they're attacking and that leaves Casemiro exposed.
06:24 And I mean, they do commit when they attack.
06:27 Right now they've got two wide players who both want to come inside with the ball.
06:30 Anthony especially just loves to get on his left foot, which means they need both the
06:33 full backs to try and provide either underlapping or overlapping runs.
06:37 And you've got Fernandes, obviously a great creative player.
06:39 He's just fallen off his base and Mount kind of wants to be in the space as well.
06:42 So it does sort of leave Casemiro all on his own.
06:45 It's a clue you.
06:46 That'll be him out for six weeks.
06:48 But they're not stupid like Bruno Fernandes for all you think of him as this great creative
06:52 force.
06:53 If you haven't watched a lot of Man United, these stats will probably surprise you.
06:56 But yeah, he's great on the ball and he makes things happen, but he also doesn't shirk his
07:00 defensive responsibility.
07:01 He wins the ball, he contests, he puts tackles in.
07:03 He's positionally very aware, so he's not leaving anybody massively isolated.
07:07 And likewise, Anthony, for what it sometimes looks like, he hasn't got a clue what he's
07:10 doing.
07:11 He does take instruction from Ten Hag really well.
07:13 If he is told to track his full back, if he makes a run into your half, he does that.
07:18 Look at this.
07:19 This is not the recovery run of a player who isn't bothered about defending.
07:22 But the reason I said intensity is because it's all well and good to have these instructions
07:26 and be able to carry them out.
07:27 But if you do not do them consistently and at a high level for an entire game, then you
07:32 will get punished by teams that do.
07:34 And this is what Man United's current problem is.
07:37 Right now, this looks to me like a system that does actually work pretty well.
07:41 They're just not executing it effectively for the entire duration of a match.
07:45 Like if we just look at this little freeze frame here and just presume you hadn't already
07:49 seen this goal.
07:50 And I said, point to me on this screen where you think Tottenham are about to pass the
07:54 ball.
07:55 Not in a million years would you think it was capable of going here.
07:59 This isn't some kind of counterattack.
08:01 It's not some lightning break.
08:02 Man United is supposed to be fairly set here.
08:04 And yet Kulishevsky is standing in about eight square miles of space on the right hand side.
08:10 Garnaccio does then run back, but it would be incredibly generous to consider that a
08:13 sprint.
08:14 And he even hesitates at the last second as he's about to pull the trigger.
08:18 But just shall we rewind this clip?
08:21 At the start of this move, this is Pape Sarr and this is Man United's entire midfield three.
08:26 Disregarding the fact for a second that Kulishevsky is entirely unmarked, you would actually say
08:30 they're pretty well set here.
08:31 The back four are nice and compact.
08:33 All three of the midfielders are in the correct shape and in front of them.
08:36 It should be pretty difficult to find a way through.
08:38 And here is Kulishevsky drives towards the box.
08:41 Man United have five defenders already in it.
08:43 The two Tottenham players are tightly marked and only Sarr, who is capable of making a
08:48 late run, still has both Mount and Casemiro capable of picking him up.
08:52 And crucially, as the ball comes in, not one Man United player has a look around to assess
08:59 the situation.
09:00 Like even from this shot here, Manchester United's midfield three are perfectly positioned
09:05 specifically to stop a runner like Sarr from getting in.
09:09 They've got two players who can go with him.
09:10 They've got one player who's already ahead of him.
09:12 And yet somehow he is the only one who makes the intense run required to get on the end
09:18 of that ball.
09:19 Happened again almost immediately afterwards.
09:20 Like Anthony has done the right thing.
09:21 He has tracked his runner to this point.
09:23 And then instead of upping the intensity to follow him into the box, he just points and
09:28 allows him to run clean through.
09:30 A few minutes after that, Manchester United are perfectly set here.
09:33 Fernandes is in a great position, but as soon as his runner leaves, he just stands there.
09:37 And then by some distance, the worst one of all, the second goal, like Ben Davies has
09:40 come on at this point, you know, really lightning fast, really scary Ben Davies.
09:44 He comes on and he again leaves Fernandes.
09:47 He just sort of lightly jogs into the box, stands there for a couple of seconds asking
09:50 for the ball.
09:51 And despite the fact Eriksen and Varane can both see him, neither of them put in the sprint
09:57 required to cover that man.
09:59 Now, yes, OK, this one was a known goal, but if you just look at it here, Ben Davies should
10:03 bury that, shouldn't require Martinez to put it in for him.
10:07 And if you're a Man United fan, this should be the really concerning thing.
10:10 Look at the body language here.
10:12 You are one nil down.
10:13 You are desperately trying to get an equaliser.
10:16 Three of you are within mere yards of a player who looks like he might be about to bury it.
10:21 Where's the urgency?
10:22 Where's the desperation?
10:23 And the really mad thing is Man United still quite easily could have got something out
10:27 of this game.
10:28 That's a really, really good side.
10:29 It was just a really good example of how wanting it more might sound like a cliche, but it
10:34 does actually carry.
10:36 Like between ten hogs, Man United and Posta Koglu's Tottenham, you've got two teams who
10:40 are both trying out new things, are both exploring new systems, but they are both really dependent
10:44 on a lot of high intensity running, either to close down space or to break into it.
10:50 And in Tottenham, you had a team that was willing to do that for 90 minutes.
10:53 And in Man United, you didn't.
10:55 Now why that is, it's way too early to say.
10:58 Their fitness levels might just not be there.
11:00 They might not have had the proper pre-season preparation, or it might be a mindset thing,
11:03 or it might be an attitude thing.
11:05 We don't know yet.
11:06 But what's clear off these first two games is that Man United have a really great plan
11:11 here.
11:12 They're just not doing it properly.
11:14 At their best, they are forcing high turnovers and creating chances, and they are tracking
11:19 their runners to make sure that the space they're inviting isn't too much of a problem.
11:23 But in just large portions of the game, they're not doing that.
11:27 And as you saw with Madison and Casemiro, when they don't do it properly, it leaves
11:30 players isolated, which makes them individually look dreadful.
11:34 And that's, my friends, is why if you're a Man United fan, you should not be worried
11:38 about those first two results.
11:39 But if it keeps going this way, then you might need to be.
11:43 But anyway, more important than that, that's just what I think, isn't it?
11:46 So if you are a Man United fan, or even if you're not, please give me your thoughts,
11:49 your theories, your opinions, all of them in the comments below.
11:52 We do really love to read them all.
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12:16 It's in the corner.
12:17 I'm not going to read it out again.
12:18 And until next time, bye.
12:20 That's all I've got.
12:22 That's what I was looking for.
12:23 Bye.