1) Rooney
Again, will try to limit my posts about Rooney, otherwise would take forever to write. My problem with Rooney is that he's a hard worker at everything on the pitch except at being a striker. Look at Harry Kane play - he's all over the pitch and has insane work rate but he's still playing like a forward. Neither Kane nor Rooney are scoring but Kane is playing well, creating chances and he's the center of the Spurs attack.
Here's one where Rooney is crazy deep, trying to be involved in the play but not necessary.
We get the ball and now Schweinsteiger is looking up to see if he can make a long pass but Rooney is nowhere near the Newcastle center backs. Look at how far up the Newcastle center backs are - we should be punishing them for pushing up so far by playing balls over the top.
2) Set piece defensive organization
We look really solid defending against open play, but I thought we looked a little shaky defending set pieces. It seems like our players aren't entirely sure where to go.
Example 1:
Newcastle take a throw in in our half and manage to find a player completely unmarked in the center. That just shouldn't happen off a throw in. Mata was forced to go centrally to defend it but that left the Newcastle player completely open (the red question mark).
There were too many things off to say it was one person's fault and I think this is more of an team organization issue but I think Smalling, circled in blue, should have been more central to cover the throw in towards the center. We already have three players versus two of their players on the left, Smalling didn't need to go there to help. This would have allowed Mata to stay with the wide Newcastle player.
Darmian is in a decent position to cover that player, except that you see the next second below, he has to go forward and stay central to cover a runner. That left the Newcastle player on our right wide open and now Smalling has to make up a lot of ground.
Example 2:
This isn't directly off a corner - it's after we fail to clear it and they send it back in again. I think that messed up our defensive shape and organization, just look below. We have three players bunched up (circled in red), defending one player, while there's two Newcastle players at the far post who aren't really well marked. The closest player to them is Mata and Mata isn't going to be defending any headers well.
3) Mata too central?
In my opinion, LVG clearly wanted Mata to play more centrally, with Darmian pushing forwards and pretty much playing right back and right wing himself. This was fine since we have so much possession and Newcastle were rarely a threat.
I'm fine with that - Mata drifting centrally suits him and he's better doing that. The problem I have is that I think Mata needs to stay slightly wider when we're defending.
Look below, Mata is in the center and Newcastle have the ball on our left. Mata isn't defending anyone in that position, he's more or less there to receive the ball if we get the ball back. I think he should be near the red circled area, just in case the Newcastle left back makes a run and they switch the play.
He can still run centrally when we get the ball but I think he's leaving too many gaps on our right side when we're defending.
Just to show you what I mean regarding our attack, here was a formation I saw often when we were attacking and I liked it. Mata is basically playing in the 10 position, very close to Januzaj to make those quick flicks and passes between them. Darmian is wide right (red arrow), ready to run forward if he senses that the ball will go wide to our right.
4) Mata misses the deep run again
Not trying to pick on him, but he's not defending these runs well.
Below, you see it's obvious the Newcastle player is going to run forward but Mata is just slowly jogging. You can't tell by the picture but Mata slows down his run back and looks around, instead of just running straight back to defend the run.
Here's the result, Mata is behind the runner who receives the ball and Smalling is drawn out to defend it.
The thing here is, if you look at stats, things like this will add to his total distance ran which makes people think he's adequate defensively on the right. If he had just ran straight back, he would have either prevented the pass or intercepted the pass way and he would have only needed to run half the distance.
5) Schweinsteiger tired second half
I noticed one weird thing when the second half started. For some reason, Schweinsteiger was playing very far out to the left. I think this was an LVG instruction to provide some cover for Shaw so Memphis could stay forward more, which also accommodates Mata cutting in centrally from the right.
I think he was supposed to go wide left in defense and centrally when we had the ball except he was too tired to make the central runs. Likely why LVG took him off at 55 minutes.
See, here, he's out wide and way too close to Shaw. He should be making a run towards the center circle so we have an option to pass to in the center. Since he didn't, our only option was to go wide.
A few seconds later, he's still too wide, leaving a massive gap in the center and our player with the ball has no one to pass to. I'm not sure, but if you look at Blind on the right, I think he's telling Schweinsteiger to run centrally.
Again, a minute later, he's still weirdly out on the left and we don't have anyone playing in the middle.
6) Memphis and Shaw miscommunication
This is something they'll need to work out in training. Sorry for the weird pictures, the video I have only shows it from this terrible angle.
They're back in our left corner defending. Memphis sees that the player he is marking is going to make an overlapping run. Memphis should follow the player's run by running behind Shaw.
Instead, he gets a little lazy and just points at Shaw to go cover him instead. Switching players like this can be okay, but the problem here is Memphis is too far from the player that Shaw is marking. If they're going to switch players, Memphis needs to be closer so Shaw can actually defend the run that Newcastle's number 18 is making.
7) The Chicharito impact
I thought Hernandez made a big difference to our play when he came on. Look at him right here, he's right on the Newcastle defenders' shoulders, forcing them to play deep. This allows Mata, circled in blue, to have some space "in the hole" and Hernandez is even pointing to get the ball to Mata.
Now Mata has the ball and he has the time to turn, very dangerous position and he has two strikers to pass to. One of the Newcastle defenders defending Hernandez is drawn out and has to close down Mata. The other Newcastle defender defending Rooney also is drawn out. If Hernandez wasn't on their shoulders, they would already have been pushed forward and marking Mata already.
This actually resulted in a great pass from Mata to Rooney that almost resulted in a Rooney. All this was because Hernandez just stayed forward and didn't drop deep - he was willing to let Mata do the work in the hole.
I would really like to see Hernandez get a start with Januzaj, Memphis and Mata supplying him. I think we'd have a really exciting attack with great movement, tricks and pace if that happens.
Some final thoughts
I was actually pretty happy that Darmian was subbed out for Valencia. He did a ton of running down the right side, basically played both right back and right wing and we have a long season. He'll need the rest and I don't want him injured.
Playing Swansea away next week, should be interesting as I think they're a pretty high possession team too. I'm interested to see how Blind handles the physicality of Gomis - I think he'll be just fine. I really want to see Hernandez start up front for us but I doubt he will as Rooney seems to be untouchable no matter how he plays.
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
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