I was looking forward to writing this last post of the season but after the game, I lost all motivation to write it. Just an awful, awful game - we played like a team with no motivation and our players just kept immediately passing it back. It's a little worrying that we couldn't handle Hull's energy and pressing because if we can't handle them, teams like Atletico Madrid are going to destroy us next season. Hopefully this is purely a one off thing and only because we were basically playing for nothing.
Check back in next season, I will continue writing these posts!
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Manchester United - Arsenal
I thought we played really well in the first half and then dropped off the second half. We were able to impose our style on them the first half while the second half, their game plan of disrupting us with pace worked and we weren't able to be comfortable in possession. Young is showing us that that he still is the great player we bought from Aston Villa and I thought Fellaini was really tidy and hard working as usual.
Disappointed we didn't win but 4th place is secured and that was the goal of this season. We'll do better next season.
A pretty typical counter attacking play is to rush forward from a defensive corner because the team taking their corner has a lot of their players forward. It's absolutely important to to stop the counter attack immediately if the ball starts heading back towards your own goal.
Here, Blind made a bad and naive mistake off our corner close to the 10th minute. He's about to head the ball after it bounces out and what he should be doing is making sure it goes over all of those Arsenal players. It's better to accidentally head it too hard and have it go out for a goal kick than to accidentally head it too soft and have all of those Arsenal players pounce on to it.
Blue areas are his possible options.
Instead, he heads it softly down to exactly where he shouldn't.
This is one of those times where it's okay to just put his head through it to make sure no counter attack comes. We got lucky here and Arsenal screwed up their counter attack.
This is a nice sequence I like and I think it's a good example of what LVG is trying to implement with his possession style football. This is Herrera and Valencia and they're passing the ball back and forth between them.
This is pass number 1 (Valencia just passed it to Herrera and Herrera is passing it back to Valencia. Notice that Herrera can't receive the ball and turn because there's an Arsenal player close behind him so he passes it back to Valencia.
Fortunately, Valencia also realizes that he can't force anything and he passes it back to Herrera. This is pass number 2.
This is pass number 3. By being patient, they waited for Mata to find an open space to exploit and now Herrera has a clear forward pass to make. They weren't just passing it back and forth for the sake of passing.
Sidenote:
Look at these pictures above and look at Falcao. He barely moves! Compare that with Mata who ran all the way around to exploit the open space. Herrera and Valencia passed it back and forth three times and Falcao didn't once make a run that would allow Herrera to make a good pass into him. He had plenty of opportunities too - looking at the second picture, all he had to do was make a run to the right of the Arsenal centerback (basically a little bit further in the gap that Mata eventually runs to).
It's kind of weird because I don't see Falcao as a lazy player but I wasn't impressed by his pressing. I felt he should have done a much better job. He may have a bad touch and he may not be scoring, but at the very least he should be pressing the Arsenal defense more. I think he presses adequately but I see Rooney doing a better job of pressing up front and Rooney can also score.
Mertesacker has the ball and he's bringing it out for Arsenal. Falcao should be stepping in to press along the red arrow.
Except he lets Mertesacker just keep strolling forward while he's walking around watching. Look who can't resist and goes forward to press him - it's Herrera. Over pressing and getting dragged out of position is a problem that Herrera has. You see here that he messes up our perform flat midfield shape and leaves a gap in midfield (black circle).
The thing is, if Falcao had done his job in the first place, Herrera wouldn't need to get dragged out of position to cover for him. It's the striker's job to mark/press the opposition defenders, not the midfielder's job.
4) Blind's needs to work on his concentration
Last week, we saw Blind shielding the sun from his eyes only to realize that a ball was getting kicked at his face and he flinched, leading to the goal from the freekick. I think Blind tends to zone out sometimes and he's not always "on". Players like Rooney and Roy Keane are always "on" but Blind seems a little too relaxed to be a top midfielder.
Here, Jones passes it to Blind and Blind doesn't even realize it. Maybe Jones was wrong to pass it to Blind with his back turned but Blind shouldn't be letting this happen. As a player, you can't zone out like this. You have to be aware of where the ball is at all times, what it's doing, how you're going to receive the ball, and what you're going to do with it - all before the ball even gets to you.
This is why Rooney has said in the past that matches are more mentally tiring for him than physically tiring.
Here's one that really frustrated me.
Smalling is charging forward on a counter attack and the only person ahead of him is Falcao, who is marked by two defenders. The entire play, Falcao didn't manage to get into a position where a pass to him was feasible.
Smalling keeps going, clearly no available pass to Falcao.
And Smalling continues dribbling, still not possible to get a good pass to Falcao. In this picture below, I marked two options that Falcao could have done but he did neither and just kept running straight.
With the red option, he should be further right. You see that the Arsenal defenders are not even and Falcao can exploit that by going further right and getting ahead of the Arsenal defender while staying onside because the other Arsenal defender is deeper.
With the blue option, he goes far post, which allows Smalling to whip a cross in when he goes into the box. It also separates the two Arsenal defenders so it leaves Smalling with only one defender to beat if he chooses to try to dribble past him.
Smalling continues advancing but there's no clear pass to Falcao still. The top Arsenal defender is essentially defending both Falcao and Smalling - he's ready to defend Smalling's dribble and he's blocking the passing lane from Smalling to Falcao. A top attacker should require two people to defend him, not the other way around.
Smalling runs out of options since he can't dribble past the Arsenal player and Falcao couldn't make himself available. If he had initially run along the blue arrowed option I drew two pictures above, he would be in the black circled area and Smalling would have been able to at least send a cross in. Now, he's just in an awkward position with no chance of receiving the ball.
The thing that frustrated me even more was when this play broke down, Falcao threw his hands up and blamed Smalling for not getting the ball to him. It's his own fault for not making a good run and Smalling should not be blamed for not forcing an impossible pass. At least take responsibility for his failure.
Arsenal have a throw-in in our half. The blue circled player is Rojo and his position is fine, he's defending a possible long throw in.
Bellerin throws it backwards and Young goes to defend it, still pretty normal and Blind is sticking tight to his man.
Except the problem is, now the throw-in taker (Bellerin) is completely open! The ball is passed to him and now, Blind should be going along the blue arrow to defend him with Rojo stepping forward to cover Blind's man, pretty simple switch here.
Except for some reason, Blind gestures at Rojo to run all the way around to defend Bellerin.
Instead of each person running only 1-3 yards, Rojo has to cover ~10 yards to get all the way to Bellerin and that gave Bellerin way too much space.
Example 2:
Arsenal are attacking and Blind knows this pass is coming, he's in a decent position to intercept it.
Except he doesn't. He's just a yard or so off and doesn't manage to intercept the pass.
It's not a huge mistake like my first example, but he has to be making these interceptions if he wants to be the defensive midfielder/deep lying playmaker for a top club. Carrick would have 100% intercepted that pass.
Example 3:
Here, the Arsenal player is about to make a pass and Blind is slightly out of position. He should be in the blue circled area instead of running straight forward at the Arsenal player. By being in the blue circled area, he would be defending two players and would be able to intercept either of the possible attacking options.
You might say that by being in the blue circled area, that puts him too far to the right and the Arsenal player can turn around and dribble, along the black arrow. However, Ashley Young is there and clearly ready in case he does that.
It's just disappointing that Blind is letting all of these dangerous passes get by when I've seen Carrick cut out these passes season after season.
Example 4:
Here, he's just completely out of position, should be in the blue circled area. I went back a little bit to see if there was a reason he's so far out of position but it looks like he just ran forward to the right to get the ball despite having no need to - a defensive midfielder's job is to cover for every one else and other players shouldn't be covering for him. There's more or less no reason for him to ever be further forward than Herrera or Fellaini.
I've said in past posts that we go much too defensive when we're winning 1-0 and then we tend to play badly as a result. Just look at this sequence - there's six of our players lined up as a defensive line marking basically no one. They're not putting any pressure on Arsenal players and it just allows the Arsenal players to run and dribble at them.
This left a huge gap on our right midfield area which gets exploited. The Arsenal players have the ball and we don't really have anybody close to them. If you look at the timestamp, there's a 14 second difference from the top image to the one below - this is because Mata fouled Bellerin. This should have given Mata plenty of time to sprint back to his position on the right.
One thing to question though is why no one filled in and covered on the right for Mata. It was obvious that if Mata is on the left side, someone needs to be cover his position on the right side but no one did.
Disappointed we didn't win but 4th place is secured and that was the goal of this season. We'll do better next season.
1) Preventing counter attacks from offensive corners
A pretty typical counter attacking play is to rush forward from a defensive corner because the team taking their corner has a lot of their players forward. It's absolutely important to to stop the counter attack immediately if the ball starts heading back towards your own goal.
Here, Blind made a bad and naive mistake off our corner close to the 10th minute. He's about to head the ball after it bounces out and what he should be doing is making sure it goes over all of those Arsenal players. It's better to accidentally head it too hard and have it go out for a goal kick than to accidentally head it too soft and have all of those Arsenal players pounce on to it.
Blue areas are his possible options.
Instead, he heads it softly down to exactly where he shouldn't.
This is one of those times where it's okay to just put his head through it to make sure no counter attack comes. We got lucky here and Arsenal screwed up their counter attack.
2) Calm possession
This is a nice sequence I like and I think it's a good example of what LVG is trying to implement with his possession style football. This is Herrera and Valencia and they're passing the ball back and forth between them.
This is pass number 1 (Valencia just passed it to Herrera and Herrera is passing it back to Valencia. Notice that Herrera can't receive the ball and turn because there's an Arsenal player close behind him so he passes it back to Valencia.
Fortunately, Valencia also realizes that he can't force anything and he passes it back to Herrera. This is pass number 2.
Sidenote:
Look at these pictures above and look at Falcao. He barely moves! Compare that with Mata who ran all the way around to exploit the open space. Herrera and Valencia passed it back and forth three times and Falcao didn't once make a run that would allow Herrera to make a good pass into him. He had plenty of opportunities too - looking at the second picture, all he had to do was make a run to the right of the Arsenal centerback (basically a little bit further in the gap that Mata eventually runs to).
3) I find Falcao's pressing lacking
It's kind of weird because I don't see Falcao as a lazy player but I wasn't impressed by his pressing. I felt he should have done a much better job. He may have a bad touch and he may not be scoring, but at the very least he should be pressing the Arsenal defense more. I think he presses adequately but I see Rooney doing a better job of pressing up front and Rooney can also score.
Mertesacker has the ball and he's bringing it out for Arsenal. Falcao should be stepping in to press along the red arrow.
Except he lets Mertesacker just keep strolling forward while he's walking around watching. Look who can't resist and goes forward to press him - it's Herrera. Over pressing and getting dragged out of position is a problem that Herrera has. You see here that he messes up our perform flat midfield shape and leaves a gap in midfield (black circle).
The thing is, if Falcao had done his job in the first place, Herrera wouldn't need to get dragged out of position to cover for him. It's the striker's job to mark/press the opposition defenders, not the midfielder's job.
4) Blind's needs to work on his concentration
Last week, we saw Blind shielding the sun from his eyes only to realize that a ball was getting kicked at his face and he flinched, leading to the goal from the freekick. I think Blind tends to zone out sometimes and he's not always "on". Players like Rooney and Roy Keane are always "on" but Blind seems a little too relaxed to be a top midfielder.
Here, Jones passes it to Blind and Blind doesn't even realize it. Maybe Jones was wrong to pass it to Blind with his back turned but Blind shouldn't be letting this happen. As a player, you can't zone out like this. You have to be aware of where the ball is at all times, what it's doing, how you're going to receive the ball, and what you're going to do with it - all before the ball even gets to you.
This is why Rooney has said in the past that matches are more mentally tiring for him than physically tiring.
5) Falcao makes another bad run
Here's one that really frustrated me.
Smalling is charging forward on a counter attack and the only person ahead of him is Falcao, who is marked by two defenders. The entire play, Falcao didn't manage to get into a position where a pass to him was feasible.
And Smalling continues dribbling, still not possible to get a good pass to Falcao. In this picture below, I marked two options that Falcao could have done but he did neither and just kept running straight.
With the red option, he should be further right. You see that the Arsenal defenders are not even and Falcao can exploit that by going further right and getting ahead of the Arsenal defender while staying onside because the other Arsenal defender is deeper.
With the blue option, he goes far post, which allows Smalling to whip a cross in when he goes into the box. It also separates the two Arsenal defenders so it leaves Smalling with only one defender to beat if he chooses to try to dribble past him.
Smalling continues advancing but there's no clear pass to Falcao still. The top Arsenal defender is essentially defending both Falcao and Smalling - he's ready to defend Smalling's dribble and he's blocking the passing lane from Smalling to Falcao. A top attacker should require two people to defend him, not the other way around.
The thing that frustrated me even more was when this play broke down, Falcao threw his hands up and blamed Smalling for not getting the ball to him. It's his own fault for not making a good run and Smalling should not be blamed for not forcing an impossible pass. At least take responsibility for his failure.
6) Some Blind mistakes
Example 1:Arsenal have a throw-in in our half. The blue circled player is Rojo and his position is fine, he's defending a possible long throw in.
Instead of each person running only 1-3 yards, Rojo has to cover ~10 yards to get all the way to Bellerin and that gave Bellerin way too much space.
Example 2:
Arsenal are attacking and Blind knows this pass is coming, he's in a decent position to intercept it.
It's not a huge mistake like my first example, but he has to be making these interceptions if he wants to be the defensive midfielder/deep lying playmaker for a top club. Carrick would have 100% intercepted that pass.
Example 3:
Here, the Arsenal player is about to make a pass and Blind is slightly out of position. He should be in the blue circled area instead of running straight forward at the Arsenal player. By being in the blue circled area, he would be defending two players and would be able to intercept either of the possible attacking options.
You might say that by being in the blue circled area, that puts him too far to the right and the Arsenal player can turn around and dribble, along the black arrow. However, Ashley Young is there and clearly ready in case he does that.
It's just disappointing that Blind is letting all of these dangerous passes get by when I've seen Carrick cut out these passes season after season.
Example 4:
Here, he's just completely out of position, should be in the blue circled area. I went back a little bit to see if there was a reason he's so far out of position but it looks like he just ran forward to the right to get the ball despite having no need to - a defensive midfielder's job is to cover for every one else and other players shouldn't be covering for him. There's more or less no reason for him to ever be further forward than Herrera or Fellaini.
7) This is probably part of why we played badly in the second half
I've said in past posts that we go much too defensive when we're winning 1-0 and then we tend to play badly as a result. Just look at this sequence - there's six of our players lined up as a defensive line marking basically no one. They're not putting any pressure on Arsenal players and it just allows the Arsenal players to run and dribble at them.
8) No discipline from Mata
We all know Mata has been playing on the right but here, he ends up getting sucked to the left pressing Arsenal's right back (Bellerin).
This left a huge gap on our right midfield area which gets exploited. The Arsenal players have the ball and we don't really have anybody close to them. If you look at the timestamp, there's a 14 second difference from the top image to the one below - this is because Mata fouled Bellerin. This should have given Mata plenty of time to sprint back to his position on the right.
One thing to question though is why no one filled in and covered on the right for Mata. It was obvious that if Mata is on the left side, someone needs to be cover his position on the right side but no one did.
Conclusion
I also feel that I should mention Rojo had a pretty bad game. I wrote down six instances where he just passed it straight to an Arsenal player under no real pressure. I'm not going to bother showing them since there's really nothing interesting about showing a player passing it straight to the opposition. He did just return from injury and he's playing in an unfamiliar position so I'll cut him some slack.
One more game to go! I'm definitely happy that we've secured top 4 and I look forward to next season!
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Crystal Palace - Manchester United
Really feels like the season is ending now but still a few more games to go! I thought we played pretty badly today but managed to squeeze out a good result which is always nice. Young is continuing with his good form and Fellaini once again shows his usefulness.
Example 1:
For me, Blind playing at left back always feels a little odd and while he does a good job there, Shaw just feels more natural to me playing there, even though sometimes I find it hard to describe.
Here's him with good awareness of holding the defensive line and being part of the back four unit. He knows Bolasie is making a run and he sees that the pass is going to be played to Bolasie and he starts running to mark him.
But he also knows that Smalling and Jones are holding their line so instead of following and marking Bolasie, he steps up and plays him offside.
Compare that to this (from the match against City) where Blind is playing at left back:
Very similar situation and Blind breaks down our defensive line. You even see that our centerback realizes he's broken it and he has to start running back to cover - in the pictures of Shaw today, you see that our centerbacks are relaxed.
I often criticize Rooney for making first time diagonal passes but in this case, we needed someone to do that.
This would be better with a moving GIF but I don't know how to make those so I just uploaded a picture of every touch. Here, Valencia has the ball.
He passes it to Herrera who passes it back to him immediately. Notice that Blind is completely open.
Valencia passes it down the line to Mata (I think). Notice that Blind is still completely open. Also, notice that all three of them on the right are well marked by three Crystal Palace players.
It goes back towards Valencia again and now we see Smalling coming back from up front to help out.
The ball gets to Smalling and he still tries to force a pass to our right wing (again, I think its Mata).
Blind is open the entire time during this sequence! All they needed to do was to just turn and look left and they would have found space but instead, they tried to do it the hard way. If this was in a more dangerous position closer to the Crystal Palace goal, it might be worth doing something intricate but this was too far away and they should have taken advantage of Blind being completely open. It's general field awareness that players like Herrera need to develop (which Scholes was the master of - I would bet that at any given moment, Scholes would be able to tell you the position of every player on the pitch without looking).
Example 2:
This one isn't too Shaw specific but I think it just shows how well Shaw blends in and works with our center backs as a unit. Here, the ball goes over the top and that's Smalling, Jones and Shaw all defending their respective players. Jones is a little forward since he's the aggressive center back, Smalling is further back as a sweeper type and Shaw is marking is man.
The ball doesn't really fall right for us and it goes over Shaw. The important thing here is that our defenders are all still marking their players and tracking their runs.
Eventually, De Gea gathers it and you see that now, Jones is furthest back, Shaw is moved Central and Smalling is on the left. Despite this switch in position, all of them are still marking their respective players.
It's kind of hard to show with just pictures but this sequence just stuck out to me because Jones, Smalling, and Shaw all knew exactly what to do and there was no confusion about where to run or who to mark. It was an example of perfectly fluid defending by a coordinated unit.
At the beginning/middle of the season, I didn't think there was a big difference between Carrick and Blind in the defensive midfield role, but now that I've seen more of Blind in that position, I realized Carrick is definitely the better player in the role. Blind still hasn't had too many games there so obviously he can still improve and he could still turn out to be excellent there.
Example 1:
Just look at this - this is a Crystal Palace attack and their number 7 (Bolasie) is completely open. Shaw has rightly moved centrally to defend the player with the ball.
A few seconds later, Blind and Fellaini (red arrows) finally come back to cover him - it was much too long and if the Crystal Palace player just did a back heel flick, it would have been an easy goal. Also notice that Fellaini is back but he's also playing much further up, almost as a striker for us and he's covering back here because Blind wasn't covering.
I went back a few more seconds to look at their initial positions and I found Blind, circled in red. I have no idea why Blind is all the way there when we have so many other players there. Fellaini is there because this was from a Crystal Palace goal kick and he was there to help with a defensive header. Blind should have been in the red circled area and if he was, he would have been in a much better position to mark the Crystal Palace player.
Example 2:
Here, Crystal Palace send a cross in and there's two Crystal Palace players on top of the box with no one marking them. That's the job of the pivot/defensive midfielder/deep playmaker and that was clearly Blind's role. The furthest midfielder we have back and the closest one to marking them is Fellaini (circled in blue) and Fellaini is playing much further forward. Blind (circled in red, Herrera is circled in black) should be right at the top of the 18 yard box even just going by position alone, even ignoring the two unmarked Crystal Palace players there.
Example 3:
Palace are attacking on the left with Bolasie dribbling the ball down the line and Smalling defending him. There's a Crystal Palace player making a run through the middle, circled in blue. I also circled Blind who I feel should already be a little closer to him. That's his job, to cover the midfield runners. This isn't too bad of a mistake yet.
Except now, Blind lets the runner continue without following him. Yes, we have a defender there to cover the cross in that area but when our defender is standing still and the opposition midfielder is running forward, it's extremely dangerous to let the defender take over because the midfielder gets a running start for a header. Blind should be tracking and following him all the way - going by a simple rule, defenders mark strikers and midfielders mark midfielders.
This sequence stuck out to me because Fellaini not only worked hard but more importantly, he used his brains to defend here.
Below, Fellaini had just made a bad pass and the ball gets to a Crystal Palace player (Bolasie) who dribbles it straight down the line at pace.
Fellaini sprints back to defend his dribble (which is expected of someone who just gave the ball away due to a bad pass). You see, Bolasie has him completely beaten for pace and it's very easy to just take the easy way out and clip his heel here and give away a foul. But there's no need to because Jones is there to cover and Fellaini knows that.
He basically just follows Bolasie until he runs into the corner and falls over by himself. That's perfect, composed and intelligent defending. You see players often give away dumb fouls because they just made a mistake and get frustrated but Fellaini avoids this trap.
Herrera is great because he has great movement and he's always looking to run into space and receive to ball. The problem is that even defensively, he's always looking for the ball.
Example 1:
Below, he's circled in blue. You see that he's looking at the ball and he's running towards the ball. He's not thinking about where he should be and about the Crystal Palace player that's completely free (at the bottom of the picture).
And eventually, the ball gets to that Crystal Palace player and because Herrera was too deep from chasing the ball, he's given the Crystal Palace player much too space to work with.
Example 2:
Here, the Crystal Palace playing is getting his head onto a long ball. Herrera is at the top of the penalty area and he should be anticipating that the ball will go along the blue dotted line and be ready to or start running along the red arrowed line. He should know that there's a Crystal Palace player behind him making a run (Fellaini is defending him but is wrong sided so Herrera should still cover in front).
Except that Herrera is too slow because he's watching the ball and reacting to it as opposed to anticipating where the ball will go. The ball goes past him to the Crystal Palace player and Fellaini does some remarkable defending even though he's wrong sided.
That's already one mistake. Now, Fellaini has the Crystal Palace player contained and Herrera is looking/running towards the ball. The problem is that another Crystal Palace player is making a run (red arrow) and has gotten in front of Evans (an Evans mistake). Herrera has to have better awareness of someone running just a few feet from him but he's too focused on the ball.
The ball gets to the now open Crystal Palace player for an open shot about 12 yards from goal. Forunately, De Gea magic saved us once again.
I think I've mentioned this lack of awareness a few times in the past, most memorably here (Everton), point number 6. This is something I'll be looking to see him improve next season or I can't see LVG continuing to start him over a midfielder who has better defensive awareness.
Not much you can do, it's a pretty convincing trick in real time and if Smalling tries to get his arm out, the player will just fall and it'll look like Smalling dragged him down. Try it next time you play ;)
Conclusion
I'm a little worried about the lack of defensive awareness/positioning Herrera and Blind are showing and it's Fellaini who seems to be there at the back covering even though he's supposed to be playing further forward than either of them. This is likely contributing largely to our decline in form since Carrick has been injured and why there's so many rumors of us looking for another midfielder still.
Let's hope for a Chelsea victory tomorrow to assure our place in the top 4 :)
1) Shaw feels right at left back
Example 1:
For me, Blind playing at left back always feels a little odd and while he does a good job there, Shaw just feels more natural to me playing there, even though sometimes I find it hard to describe.
Here's him with good awareness of holding the defensive line and being part of the back four unit. He knows Bolasie is making a run and he sees that the pass is going to be played to Bolasie and he starts running to mark him.
But he also knows that Smalling and Jones are holding their line so instead of following and marking Bolasie, he steps up and plays him offside.
Compare that to this (from the match against City) where Blind is playing at left back:
Very similar situation and Blind breaks down our defensive line. You even see that our centerback realizes he's broken it and he has to start running back to cover - in the pictures of Shaw today, you see that our centerbacks are relaxed.
2) Switch the play!
I often criticize Rooney for making first time diagonal passes but in this case, we needed someone to do that.
This would be better with a moving GIF but I don't know how to make those so I just uploaded a picture of every touch. Here, Valencia has the ball.
Valencia passes it down the line to Mata (I think). Notice that Blind is still completely open. Also, notice that all three of them on the right are well marked by three Crystal Palace players.
Blind is open the entire time during this sequence! All they needed to do was to just turn and look left and they would have found space but instead, they tried to do it the hard way. If this was in a more dangerous position closer to the Crystal Palace goal, it might be worth doing something intricate but this was too far away and they should have taken advantage of Blind being completely open. It's general field awareness that players like Herrera need to develop (which Scholes was the master of - I would bet that at any given moment, Scholes would be able to tell you the position of every player on the pitch without looking).
Example 2:
This one isn't too Shaw specific but I think it just shows how well Shaw blends in and works with our center backs as a unit. Here, the ball goes over the top and that's Smalling, Jones and Shaw all defending their respective players. Jones is a little forward since he's the aggressive center back, Smalling is further back as a sweeper type and Shaw is marking is man.
Eventually, De Gea gathers it and you see that now, Jones is furthest back, Shaw is moved Central and Smalling is on the left. Despite this switch in position, all of them are still marking their respective players.
It's kind of hard to show with just pictures but this sequence just stuck out to me because Jones, Smalling, and Shaw all knew exactly what to do and there was no confusion about where to run or who to mark. It was an example of perfectly fluid defending by a coordinated unit.
3) Blind's needs to work on his defensive covering
At the beginning/middle of the season, I didn't think there was a big difference between Carrick and Blind in the defensive midfield role, but now that I've seen more of Blind in that position, I realized Carrick is definitely the better player in the role. Blind still hasn't had too many games there so obviously he can still improve and he could still turn out to be excellent there.
Example 1:
Just look at this - this is a Crystal Palace attack and their number 7 (Bolasie) is completely open. Shaw has rightly moved centrally to defend the player with the ball.
A few seconds later, Blind and Fellaini (red arrows) finally come back to cover him - it was much too long and if the Crystal Palace player just did a back heel flick, it would have been an easy goal. Also notice that Fellaini is back but he's also playing much further up, almost as a striker for us and he's covering back here because Blind wasn't covering.
Example 2:
Here, Crystal Palace send a cross in and there's two Crystal Palace players on top of the box with no one marking them. That's the job of the pivot/defensive midfielder/deep playmaker and that was clearly Blind's role. The furthest midfielder we have back and the closest one to marking them is Fellaini (circled in blue) and Fellaini is playing much further forward. Blind (circled in red, Herrera is circled in black) should be right at the top of the 18 yard box even just going by position alone, even ignoring the two unmarked Crystal Palace players there.
Example 3:
Palace are attacking on the left with Bolasie dribbling the ball down the line and Smalling defending him. There's a Crystal Palace player making a run through the middle, circled in blue. I also circled Blind who I feel should already be a little closer to him. That's his job, to cover the midfield runners. This isn't too bad of a mistake yet.
3) Fellaini works hard and has been playing more intelligently
This sequence stuck out to me because Fellaini not only worked hard but more importantly, he used his brains to defend here.
Below, Fellaini had just made a bad pass and the ball gets to a Crystal Palace player (Bolasie) who dribbles it straight down the line at pace.
Fellaini sprints back to defend his dribble (which is expected of someone who just gave the ball away due to a bad pass). You see, Bolasie has him completely beaten for pace and it's very easy to just take the easy way out and clip his heel here and give away a foul. But there's no need to because Jones is there to cover and Fellaini knows that.
He basically just follows Bolasie until he runs into the corner and falls over by himself. That's perfect, composed and intelligent defending. You see players often give away dumb fouls because they just made a mistake and get frustrated but Fellaini avoids this trap.
4) Herrera gets drawn to the ball too easily
Herrera is great because he has great movement and he's always looking to run into space and receive to ball. The problem is that even defensively, he's always looking for the ball.
Example 1:
Below, he's circled in blue. You see that he's looking at the ball and he's running towards the ball. He's not thinking about where he should be and about the Crystal Palace player that's completely free (at the bottom of the picture).
And eventually, the ball gets to that Crystal Palace player and because Herrera was too deep from chasing the ball, he's given the Crystal Palace player much too space to work with.
Example 2:
Here, the Crystal Palace playing is getting his head onto a long ball. Herrera is at the top of the penalty area and he should be anticipating that the ball will go along the blue dotted line and be ready to or start running along the red arrowed line. He should know that there's a Crystal Palace player behind him making a run (Fellaini is defending him but is wrong sided so Herrera should still cover in front).
I think I've mentioned this lack of awareness a few times in the past, most memorably here (Everton), point number 6. This is something I'll be looking to see him improve next season or I can't see LVG continuing to start him over a midfielder who has better defensive awareness.
5) A neat trick
Just wanted to point out a neat trick players do to fool the ref. You see below, it looks like Smalling is grabbing/hugging the Crystal Palace player with his left arm, especially to the red. Except that it's actually the Crystal Palace player grabbing onto Smalling's left arm and holding it to make it look like Smalling is fouling him.
Not much you can do, it's a pretty convincing trick in real time and if Smalling tries to get his arm out, the player will just fall and it'll look like Smalling dragged him down. Try it next time you play ;)
Conclusion
I'm a little worried about the lack of defensive awareness/positioning Herrera and Blind are showing and it's Fellaini who seems to be there at the back covering even though he's supposed to be playing further forward than either of them. This is likely contributing largely to our decline in form since Carrick has been injured and why there's so many rumors of us looking for another midfielder still.
Let's hope for a Chelsea victory tomorrow to assure our place in the top 4 :)
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