Manchester United - Leicester

Return of the 4-4-2! I thought we looked much better today and demonstrated much better movement with more inventive attacking play. I just wish we could have kept a clean sheet but with our "unbalanced" team of amazing attackers, 3-1 scoreline is at least more representative of our imbalance.

1) Our free kicks are much too predictable

Example 1: 

14th minute in, free kick on our right. Ever since LVG has arrived, we'll always play an in-swinging free kick (which I like and will mention on the next point). Since we're on the right here, Di Maria is going to take it with Rooney faking and running over the ball first.

Example 2:

29th minute free kick on our left. Rooney will take it with Di Maria faking and running over the ball first.  

Next time you watch us play, see if you notice that we do this exact same routine every time. I'm not sure what running over the ball to fake the kick does since it's obvious we'll do it. Maybe LVG plans to mix it up eventually or once in a blue moon will do the opposite to throw our opposition off but I haven't seen it yet. It just seems like a waste of a player who could be an extra attacker in the box. 

2) I like our in-swinging corners

Again, ever since LVG came, for our corners, we'll have a right footer take it if the corner is on our left and a left footer take it if the corner is on our right (usually Mata or Di Maria). 

I took these two pictures from the corner we scored on in minute 43. Here Rooney takes in swinging corner to near post. 

Now here is Blind coming up to head it. You see he's not even facing their goal and it's actually quite an awkward header for him. However, since the ball is already curving towards goal, all he really has to do is get a touch on it and deflect it's path to get it past their keeper. 

I think in-swinging corners are generally better overall in that it also prevents the other team from counterattacking as easily. An out-swinging corner means that if it misses all the players or gets a small deflection, it's heading towards our own goal and their players can sprint forward onto the ball while an in-swinging one at worst will leave their team with a goal kick. We also don't have great headers and with an in-swinger, all it needs is a slight touch to be dangerous while with an out-swinger, you need to have perfect contact to redirect the ball towards goal.

3) The problem with the diamond

I like our 4-4-2 diamond much better than our 3-5-2 formation and I thought we played much better today, no twitchy ass either. However, 4-4-2 diamond does leave a gap in the center midfield area. Januzaj is a wide player so if Januzaj stays out wide, Rooney needs to cover both the center and the right side or Di Maria needs to drop back more but it inevitably leads to a player having to cover more ground and fill the gaps.

It wasn't too much of a problem today so not too many instances but here's a really good example. This is 36 minutes in and Blind drops deep to receive the ball, which is normal for a player who is playing the pivot in the diamond. I actually drew the diamond with the red pen with Rooney down at the bottom of the picture and Januzaj at the top right with Di Maria out of the picture on the right. The blue circle indicates the spot where there's a big gap left by this diamond. Blind here doesn't really have too many options forward and passing it his defenders on either side doesn't really accomplish much.

Here's what happens next: Blind does a great job and he dribbles it forward a little bit to draw the Leicester players out of position. He passes the ball to Di Maria who drifted out wide right to give Blind an option. However, you see the ball path, which I indicated with the black arrow, basically passes through the gap area (blue circle). If there was someone in that area, they could have received the ball, turned and then picked a pass rather than Di Maria receiving the ball with back to goal; he had no option but to make a back pass to Rooney.

4) Why are Falcao and RVP on post duty during defensive corners?

This is taken from the 46th minute in the first half and Leicester has a corner. Our team isn't the tallest or most physical team and it really astounded me to see both RVP and Falcao on the post when we were defending our corners. They're two of our tallest players and both strikers who are decent in the air (especially Falcao) - you would think they'd be asked to mark Leicester players instead of having players like Januzaj and Di Maria mark them. My thought was that most teams put the player who is weakest in the air on the post since there's really not much to do there except to make the goal smaller for the keeper. When we played under SAF, usually it was someone like Park Ji Sung or even Evra (who's awesome in the air but just short) on the post. 

5) No need to clear it

I think Shaw is a great player and he played well today, with Jones making the most mistakes. A lot of Jones' mistakes were obvious dumb stuff but in this instance, Shaw's lack of composure really stuck out at me. 

This is during the 60th minute and Leicester was counterattacking - Ulloa was driving the ball forward and Rojo did a great job defending him. End result was Ulloa tried to cut in but he slipped and you can see him on the ground. Shaw and Jones were both running back to help defend and you see Shaw just boots the ball out to the side after Ulloa slips. 

That's obviously the safest choice but you can see in this picture there's absolutely no one near him. He had plenty of time to slow down, turn and dribble the ball or just make a slight lay off to Rojo to carry it forward and either would have kept possession for us. Booting it out like that is something I'd expect of a Sunday league center back who can barely control the ball, not of a professional defender of Shaw's quality. End result was Leicester had a throw in in a dangerous position. 

6) Unnecessary pressing

This is during the 59th minute before any substitutes have been made on our end so we're still playing our 4-4-2 diamond and we're up 3-0.

Di Maria was doing a great job pressing the Leicester players and they were forced to play it back to their keeper. For some reason, Di Maria continues running forward to press the keeper to press him. He's no where close enough to the keeper to really put any pressure on him and I don't think he should have ran forward like this as it put him out of position to defend. This leaves a gap in our midfield that either Falcao or RVP has to drop back to fill and wastes energy on Di Maria's part. Since Falcao and RVP aren't really in position to drop back, basically in this instance, as the Leicester keeper is making his pass forward, we only have 3 in midfield compared to Leicester's four with Di Maria, Falcao and RVP no where back far enough to help defend. 

I can understand if we were down one or two and chasing the game but we're winning 3-0 and there's no need to waste energy or not keep our shape. 

Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this week's post! Hopefully we build on this result and see more of the promising attacking play that we saw today.