Why it is increasingly easy to play Manchester United in the 'big' games

Ten Hag must scrap the plan that's served him well in a crucial December

It’s interesting looking back at the previous articles on this sub and the wild praise I had for Erik ten Hag in the 22/23 season.

Both on and off the pitch so much has occurred since. As is so often the case with managers at United since Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure, initial success and optimism occurs before everything seemingly unravels with the manager desperately scrambling to wrestle the decline.

The latest to do so is the former Ajax manager, who before the defeat to Newcastle had won 5 league games in 6.

It feels as though every week Ten Hag is managing his most important game for United as more questions are raised of his management in this poor season.

Even if those wins had an air of Max Allegri about them, it was perhaps something for the Red Devils to build on and gain confidence. United’s position of 3rd last year in the league came from largely beating lower opposition, and frankly this team at the moment is only good enough to beat your Fulhams, Lutons and Evertons.

There was a mini-revival in recent games.

Luton was thoroughly controlled with plenty of chances created. Kobbie Mainoo’s debut vs Everton finally provided United with the breath of calm they’ve been looking for so they don’t rush every attack.

Though United made a chaotic mess of their game in Turkey vs Galatasaray, it’s encouraging to go to a stadium so intimidating and lead by two goals twice but for Andre Onana and United’s constant flirtation with chaos to cost them.

The Newcastle game however shed light on something that is becoming a frequent occurrence throughout the season.

It is alarmingly easy for the bigger, more tougher opposition to manipulate United’s press and move their block around to create space:

Man-to-Man ain’t Man-to-Manning anymore

This was the Manchester Derby last season, where United for most parts of the game limited City as much as they could to having the ball wide.

The point of this structure is to stick man-to-man with your wingers (Fernandes and Rashford) tucking in to squeeze the middle of the pitch and make it as narrow as possible, meaning it makes it very tough for City to progress the ball through Bernardo, Rodri or de Bruyne as they are marked by a United player.

If Ake decides to pass to Bernardo, Casemiro is right behind him but Fernandes tucking in means Bernardo (if he receives) can’t turn on the ball and dribble.

This method clogs the middle of the pitch up and forces teams wide. Now of course it’s still a problem to deal with Man City wide, what with the wingers they possess, but that is the point of this structure.

Teams are much more dangerous when they find the space in the centre of the pitch.

Now compare that with this season:

City are building up in their 3-2, with Rodri and Stones as the 2 in the middle.

Amrabat is marking Alvarez, Eriksen on Stones, Mctominay on Rodri with Bernardo Silva out of the picture. This structure is largely in the correct place bar Fernandes needing to tuck in a little to block the pass off behind him.

What happens is, Fernandes tries to jump on Gvardiol (#24) baiting himself in the press. As this occurs Gvardiol can pass wide to Grealish and Bernardo is free to dart into the half-space.

Eriksen then has to leave his marker of Stones and shift to track Bernardo, in the mean time, Alvarez who was being marked by Amrabat has also overloaded the half-space in between Maguire and Dalot.

Naturally, Dalot has to go close down Grealish, Eriksen has to stay with Bernardo Silva but there is a wide gap opened between Maguire and Dalot that Alvarez and Bernado are occupying.

Tracking players man-to-man becomes more difficult if you don’t keep to the same structure and they keep moving around you to find space.

City are probably the best team in Europe, they can smell blood and create space intelligently during the game.

A big part of why the structure worked so well last season was because United had Casemiro. Not the ‘jumping into tackles far too early’ Casemiro of this season, but the Galactico, midfield general 5 Champions Leagues Casemiro.

Let’s do one with him in the team this season.

This is against Tottenham Hotspur away, when going man-to-man Casemiro is particularly good at this because he tracks the players movement wherever he goes.

He’s won 1000 Champions Leagues because of his ability to carry out such defensive duties. Whenever Maddison dropped deep Casemiro went with him. One of Fernandes or Rashford sat on the receiving midfielder (Bissouma) whilst the other pressed the centre-backs. Antony is tucking in to mark Destiny Udogie and Mason Mount is pushing up to close down Pedro Porro.

This was a variation of United’s man-to-man press we hadn’t seen before as it normally was deployed by Ten Hag to stop opposition from playing out. Against Spurs however, it was used as a tool to press high and cause turnovers.

It was working because United’s form of this press is man-to-man but not to actually stick to the same player but pick the nearest player close to them.

It keeps the same structure but ensures whilst the opposition players move around they are still tracked.

This time it’s Udogie dropping deep with Casemiro behind him. As the ball is played wide to Van der Ven, Antony knows to rush over to Maddison as the ball could be played there.

The adjustments Spurs made in the 2nd half dragged United’s structure around and created space. Compare the above image to the one before where United looked compact an organised. Pedro Porro was instructed to pull wider, though the structure from United was still narrow Maddison and Sarr to push out more horizontally creating gaps in the middle.

Whenever gaps were created Casemiro had to go try and mop up. Spurs became braver in terms of carrying the ball, so as they evaded markers it dragged players out of position and left other men spare.

It’s all about making tweaks to manipulate the central, narrow structure which is actually what Spurs did second half, and United just didn’t have an answer or an adjustment.

Brighton did something similar by pushing their centre-backs as wide as possible in build-up.

With Van Hecke and Dunk pushing wider as the first players in build-up it stretched United’s attack out of possession. Meaning the wide wingers like Rashford or Hojlund instead of tucking in were going to press both centre-backs which opened up a gap in midfield.

As Rashford has gone to press Van Hecke it leaves Dahoud open because Eriksen is mindful of the wide option next to him on the left, when he should be tucking inside.

Maybe this game didn’t help fielding a midfield of Eriksen, Mctominay and Casemiro with the injuries, as Antony’s work rate in this structure is quite valued but once again, a manager recognised what United were doing and quickly adjusted to use it as an advantage.

This finally brings me to Newcastle this past weekend. For some reason at certain points the United attack decided to press Newcastle’s defence

It’s ok doing this IF you have the midfield and defence to back you up, which didn’t happen so when Newcastle escaped the press there was acres of space for them to run into.

United have gone 3v3 on Newcastle here attempting to block off the passing lanes to midfield with Mctominay on Joelinton, Fernandes on Guimares and Mainoo on Miley.

When United’s press jumps and can’t create the turnover the ball is fired into Isak who turns Maguire and is dribbling at the defence with United scampering back.

If teams are finding variations and different ways to play through you as a result of how you setup, you should look into changing it or at least question it. The confused, occasional pressing only adds to the issues as it isn’t the full team doing it rather just the attack on occasion.

When this happened attackers were up the pitch pressing rather than helping to make the midfield as secure as possible.

It feels like teams know what United are going to do out of possession and are wilfully exploiting it.

Would an in-form and fit Casemiro-Lisandro Martinez axis help improve things? Possibly, but Ten Hag doesn’t have that right now.

If you have worked and practiced a style of play time and again you can stubbornly stick to it and reap the benefits of the same practiced moves. United don’t have that.

There are far too many examples where United have failed to nullify teams using this structure without the ball this season.

With Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Liverpool and Aston Villa on the horizon in December, the Dutchman will need a big performance in a big game and needs to pivot away from his default tactic to do so.