West Ham - Manchester United

Very disappointed with the draw, today was our opportunity to capitalize on Man City's result against Hull. Can't really say any of our players performed well today except for Shaw (and Valencia). It will be a tough run for top four and it looks like it'll be an exciting finish to the season at least.

1) Falcao and RVP on the post while defending corners

Last week, on point number 4, I questioned why Falcao and RVP were on post duty during corners. Today, they were on post duty again but I did manage to see why LVG might have put them there. 

This is about 14 minutes in and I circled Falcao and RVP. Falcao is the one at the top of the picture.

Here, I circled the ball and I circled Falcao. You see that as the ball comes into the box, Falcao runs forwards to head it out of play.

So I guess LVG put them on the post not particularly for the typical post duty but for them to play zonal defense. RVP and Falcao type of strikers in general are very good at running onto headers with good timing of their jumps but usually not great at man marking. By putting them on the post, it allows them to get a running start to head the ball and relieves them of any man marking duties which can be especially tough against teams who have complicated corner routines.

I'm not saying this is the best method but at least I have some idea why LVG set up our defensive corners like this.

2) Rooney doesn't time his forward runs properly

19 minutes in below and Shaw is dribbling the ball down the wing. 

I circled Rooney in red here - look how close he is to RVP and Falcao. First, this limits where RVP And Falcao can run and second, it leaves a big gap in center midfield. It also forces Shaw to cross - he doesn't have the option of cutting back and squaring it to middle because there's no one there. It also means there's no one in the blue circled area to run on to and shoot the ball if the ball gets deflected or if a West Ham defender gets a header on the ball. It also leaves Rooney out of position to track back and defend if we lose the ball.

Being in the blue circled area and blasting a long shot in is basically a trademark box to box midfield type goal (think Scholes/Lampard/Gerrard) and if Rooney is going to play as a midfield, he needs to get in those types of positions. 

It really just doesn't make sense why anyone who run into a space where there's already two of your own players and not drop into the space that those two players already created. 

3) Where's the support?

26th minute in, we have a nice counter attack with Rooney making a nice long pass over the top to Falcao who I drew a red arrow pointing at.

Falcao is well marked and the West Ham player pokes it out of play. Falcao grabs the ball for the quick throw in and he starts looking around for someone to throw it to. You can almost see the expression of disappointment in his face here - no one ran up to receive the throw in so we could continue our attack.

End result: Falcao's only option is a long throw in backwards. You can see in the picture below that there's no Manchester United players close to him. It killed our counterattacking ability and allowed West Ham's players to get set to defend. 

4) Jones continues to be overly aggressive for no reason

31st minute in, West Ham's keeper takes a goal kick and it bounces towards Jones, who I circled in red. We have four defenders back (Valencia is just out of the picture on the left of the picture) plus two midfielders surrounding the ball and West Ham only have two players. In the entire screenshot, which doesn't even include Valencia, there's eight Manchester United players in our own half while there's only four West Ham players in our half. 

All Jones needs to do here is stay tight and maybe try to poke the ball out from the West Ham players feet after he receives it. Instead, he swings at it wildly with his right foot and obviously catches the West Ham player, giving away a free kick in a dangerous area against a team who is really good at set pieces. If Jones just calmed down a little, he could have toe poked the ball with his left foot.

5) I don't trust Rooney further back in midfield

Example 1:

Rooney has great work rate and provides energy but he makes a lot of stupid decisions in our own half that good center midfielders don't make and usually it's pretty basic stuff.

Below, 34 minutes in, Rojo makes a high clearance forward and Rooney runs back to get the ball. The ball was very high and it would be a difficult trap for any player. 

For some reason, Rooney tries to one time flick it back to Valencia. Since it was a difficult high ball, he over hits it and as you can see, it goes straight to a West Ham player. A difficult pass like that is okay to try in your opponent's half but not okay when it's your own half and the flick is towards your own goal. All Rooney had to do here was take one or two touches and lay it off to Valencia - the picture clearly shows that Rooney had at least a little time and space to do so.

Example 2:

46th minute, Rooney is receiving a high ball in the midfield, surrounded by West Ham players.

He actually flicks the ball back towards Valencia and look at how dangerous the pass was - the West Ham forward almost gets to it. The pass that Rooney made would have been a decent attacking pass for a West Ham player to make. 

It's more or less basic coaching to not make sideways/diagonal passes towards your own goal if you're in a difficult position - everyone knows to just knock it forward down the line to be safe. Ideally, Rooney should have just trapped it and dribbled it back a little in the central space where there's no West Ham players but at the very least, if he wasn't confident of doing that, all he had to do was knock it forward. You can't put your defenders under that kind of pressure as a midfielder. 

Example 3

This is too many examples already. 63rd minute, Rooney receiving the ball in our own half.

Again, a nice one time back pass right to the West Ham player and right to his feet as well.

6) Getting in each other's way and use of space

Above, in my second point, I showed how Rooney was in RVP and Falcao's space and I noticed this happens to our entire team as well. I think it shows a lack of understanding of space, of discipline and awareness.

Example 1:

Below, 39 minutes in, De Gea takes a goal kick and for some reason RVP sprints back to head the ball. 

RVP jumps on top of Valencia to get the back - he should have stayed in his original position so Valencia can flick it on to him. Why are our players colliding with each other to get the ball under no pressure? What is Valencia supposed to do right here, run away from RVP?

Example 2:

41st minute here - Blind is heading a goal kick back out and he clearly has a good position. Why is Rooney (circled in red) looking at him head the ball standing five feet from him? There's no way Blind can cushion a soft header right at him. Rooney should be in the blue circled area and if he was, maybe Blind could glance the header out wide to him.

End result - Blind's header goes to the West Ham playing and Downing takes the ball and has tons of time and space in the exact area that Rooney should have been in in the first place. 

7) Too slow

40th minute, slight counter attack. Falcao lays it off to Rooney below and runs forward. Count the number of West Ham players defending - five. There's two other West Ham players jogging back.

Rooney dawdles on the ball and now look, by the time he actually makes the pass, the other two West Ham players originally jogging back are already back and defending. It was originally 4 United players vs 5 and now it's 5 United players (Valencia in the bottom) vs 7 just because Rooney took too long to make a decision.

Also, notice how he's in the exact same position - he makes no attempt to dribble or drive it forward despite having plenty of space and time.

8) How are RVP/Falcao supposed to play well with this kind of service?

I do think both of them are playing poorly and Falcao really needs to finish his chances but they really don't get much of the ball in good positions at all.

Below, 51ts minute and Rooney is dribbling the ball forward during a counter attack. You can see that here, Rooney can't really good the ball to RVP and Falcao since they're well marked and instead Rooney opts to slide it forward to Di Maria on his right. Fine, that's a good choice.

End result: bad execution and Rooney sends Di Maria wide and Di Maria (circled in red) has to chase it down with his back to goal. And RVP and Falcao are completely wide open with only one West Ham defender marking the two of them. If Rooney had slipped Di Maria in properly, they would be in the same exact position but Di Maria would have been able to cross it to them to score. 

This picture is just so frustrating - we have two potentially great strikers in such a good position and the ball isn't getting to them.

Side note: same with Di Maria

55th minute, Rooney has the ball in the center and has time to make a nice pass. Di Maria is circled in red and Valencia is circled in blue. Who would you pass to? Our 60 million star winger who can run at the defense or our right back who can't cross the ball? 

End result actually shows that Valencia wasn't even that open and I circled Valencia and the West Ham player in blue and the ball in red to show that he ended up not even receiving the ball uncontested. 

Di Maria has been poor and needs to improve as well but that was a perfect opportunity to give him the ball and have him cut in from deep to run at West Ham players, especially since he's on the right side cutting in with his left. 

Also, I don't understand why Rooney needs to make the difficult long pass when the easier pass which also happens to be the better pass is literally right in front of him.

9) Why is Shaw marking Kevin Nolan on corners?

I only have one picture to show for it because I forgot to write down the time stamp of the other ones but this happened on every single defensive corner we had. 

Blue arrow is Nolan and red arrow is Shaw.  Shaw is a great defender but Nolan is very very good at heading the ball and there's no way Shaw can match with Nolan in the air. Just look at the height difference!

10) Where's the attacking impetus, desire, and urgency?

Example 1:

89th minute, we're doing 0 - 1. Fellaini does a great job in the box and gets a shot into the lower left corner. 

The keeper spills it but where are our players to get the rebound? I'd understand if we were winning 1 - 0 but we're losing and there's only a few minutes of play left. That's something we did very well under SAF - if we were losing, we'd be crashing their goal with everything we had. If we had Hernandez on the field here today, he would have seen Fellaini shooting and immediately ran towards the keeper just in case there's a rebound.

We're trying to get a goal and there's seven West Ham players in the box and only four of our players attacking it.

Example 2: 

Below, Blind just scores the equalizer for us and the ball is barely even in the net yet. I circled RVP and made an arrow to show that he immediately starts running towards the ball to grab it and bring it back to the center circle so we can score another. RVP excelled under SAF partly because he has such a good winning mentality - you could tell that he always wanted to win and wasn't satisfied with anything else.

And while RVP is bringing the ball back the the center circle, Shaw and Blind run to the corner to celebrate. Why are the wasting time celebrating (especially in corner) an equalizer when we're in stoppage time and we need to score one more goal to win? You just don't waste a single second when you only have two minutes left to score another goal. I really like Shaw and Blind but that's the difference between an SAF player and an LVG player. 

Example 3:

Shaw get's booked and sent off in the 93rd minute. Fair booking and it wasn't a bad mistake by Shaw - he had to make the challenge. Why are Rooney and Shaw arguing with Clattenberg? Shaw should be sprinting off the field so we can get on with it and score another goal. There's absolutely no point in arguing as referees don't change their mind just because a player made a good point and it's just wasting valuable time.

The End

Can our team just play better so I have less points to make? This week's post took much too long and I already had to leave out a bunch of other stuff.