Manchester United - Manchester City

It wasn't a great game, but like most people, I think I'm okay with a 0-0 draw. We put in a professional performance, generally controlled the game and struggled to create. Obviously I'd like to see us win but that's fine against a good team like City as long as we keep winning the games that we need to win.

Just to be clear, I don't hate Mata. I know I seem to have focused on him a bit but that's because he does make obvious mistakes over and over. I would really like to see him play as our no. 10 so he can focus more on attacking and creating chances, which are his strengths. Right now, I think it's a little better because Herrera and Mata are kind of rotating positions so Herrera is able to cover the right wing area for Mata and in that aspect, I think Mata works fine on the right.

1) Turn around Rojo

I thought Rojo put in a great defensive performance yesterday but he still needs to work a bit more on the LVG possession philosophy. Below, you can see that he doesn't have anybody in front to pass the ball to, which is a pretty common thing playing at full back. 

He forces a pass to Rooney and we lose possession here. All Rojo had to do was stop and make a back pass to Smalling. 

There's no reason to make a high risk pass like this which more or less has no reward. Rojo is still coming into the team and learning and I think he'll get much better at making the right choice with more time under LVG.

2) Schweinsteiger in no man's land

I've noticed Schweinsteiger has had a few instances in the last few games where he drifts forward too much and loses his man in the midfield. Here's one instance below.

Here, he's caught in two minds - should he go forward and mark the City player ahead of him or stay back and mark the City midfielder behind him? He kind of stays in the middle between them.

The City midfielder behind him drifts further forward and now Schweinsteiger realizes he's out of position and Yaya Toure makes the pass along the red arrow to the City midfielder. 

This is the result.

In general, I don't see this as much with Carrick or Schneiderlin. That's okay, Schweinsteiger isn't defensive mid but I would hope that LVG isn't expecting him to be as good defensively as those two.

3) The epitome of Rooney's game nowadays

He receives the ball in a good position here. Quick pass to Herrera and then just run forward for Herrera's return pass, that's what I would do.

Except he dribbles it straight back and blasts the ball out wide in a terrible diagonal pass to Valencia. 

Look at how much space he needed - his turning radius is ridiculous. Looking at the lines on the pitch, he needed an entire 6 yards or 18 feet to just control the ball and turn around.

The result:

Just looked at Herrera in the picture and see how frustrated he is.

4) Fellaini needs support

Here, Fellaini (circled in black) is about to head a long cross. Look at how much he has to deal with - there's two City players marking him. 

Rooney (circled in blue) needs to be further forward, not jogging/standing next to a City player. He should be in the red circled area to receive a knockdown from Fellaini.

Fellaini has done his job here and Rooney has not done his job. Fellaini got his head onto the ball and occupied two Manchester City players - that's as much as anybody can be expected to do. It wasn't much to ask Rooney to just run a few steps forward so he can actually head it to someone.

Final thoughts

I was really impressed by Valencia. He's still a little too aggressive at the wrong times but his positioning has improved and he's making good forward runs again. He was a major target for my criticism last season but I don't have much complaint about his play this season. I'm a big fan of Darmian but Darmian's one weakness is that he doesn't have too much pace and I really like that we have a pacy option in Valencia and an intelligent defender in Darmian as our two options.

I don't even know what to say about Rooney anymore - it's not just a run of bad form as he doesn't look remotely like his old self now. It's annoying that we're putting Martial, our best striker, out wide when Martial is the one striker who can actually score goals.

Thanks for reading and see you next week against Crystal Palace!

Everton - Manchester United

Great result that eased much of my worries after that Arsenal game. What a great way to return from international break. Sorry for the delay in this post - I had to work over the weekend so could not watch until yesterday.

I was worried going into the game as Everton are a high energy pressing team but we completely dominated the game. That's one of my favorite things about having LVG as our manager. His style, when it works, allows us to dominate the opposition and control the game exactly how we want to.

Martial impressed me again but I'd like to see him playing up as a striker again. It doesn't make sense to put our best striker out wide and put Rooney who hasn't been scoring up front. Rooney did play a lot better and this was easily his best game of the season so far, but that's not saying much. Loved Herrera in the middle switching positions with Mata tucking in - they have a great connection and great understanding of movement.

1) Mata loses his man for the millionth time

This continues to be a big problem for us. I think LVG is getting tired of it too as there's a reason LVG subbed Mata out at half time and I'm sure this was part of it.

Below, it's only 2 minutes in and Mata already makes the mistake. He's starting in the same position as the Everton player - there's no disadvantage.

The problem is he doesn't keep up with the Everton player and they get a pass into him at a dangerous position.

Comparison

At the start of the second half, I noticed Martial in a similar position on the left flank. 

Martial realizes the danger and makes the proper defensive run and it blocks the pass so the pass never happened.

Who's the 19 year old kid and who's the experienced player?

2) Rooney's turning radius

This is just a little funny thing, not a huge criticism but it does show why Rooney can't really play in the 10 position which tends to be very congested. In this instance, Rooney actually did really well and got a good shot on goal.

Rooney receives the ball here.

Takes a touch backwards to make some space and get away from his man. You'd think he would be able to turn around and dribble it into space along the blue arrow at this point.

Except he keeps going and finally turns around now. I traced his turning path, look how big of a circle he took.

That's one of my problems with him playing in the hole. He doesn't have a good enough touch or confidence to play in tight spaces so whenever he receives the ball, instead of making a quick incisive pass, he needs to make a lot of room for himself first. This slows down our play and kind of defeats the purpose of having a player in the hole (here, he goes from in the hole to backwards and wide right).

3) Another reason LVG took Mata off at half time

Mata was good contributing to the attack but he had some really bad passes in our half. This was one of them.

Instead of clearing the ball out down the line or out to the right for a throw in, Mata kicks the ball right back into the most dangerous position along the blue arrow.

That's just an awful awful mistake. He had plenty of time to turn and just get the ball out of danger. Almost anything he could have done would have been better than sending the ball centrally at the top of the 18 yard box.

4) I wonder what SAF would have wanted

This isn't a criticism at all. Rooney has the ball and we're counter attacking. There aren't really any great options for him so Rooney turns around and passes it back.

The result: we have the ball safely.

We're up 2 to 0 and there's really no need to force a pass - I actually completely agree with Rooney passing backwards in this case and I think LVG appreciated it as well. Herrera doesn't have a ton of pace and there's no way Mata would have kept up with the counter attack.

It's just that I know under SAF, he would have been urging Rooney forward and he probably would have let the hairdryer loose on him for passing backwards like this. However, under SAF, we had Ronaldo instead of Herrera making the forward run and that's a big difference in counter attacking ability.

5) Jones needs to calm down (obviously)

Everton makes a pass along the red dotted line and Jones rushes forward to intercept it. 

He completely misses the ball and this is the result. Fortunately, one of our players covered it well.

It isn't a mistake to try and intercept it - that's fine in you make the interception. He just needs to know when he can rush forward to intercept it and when he cannot instead of trying to do this every time. 

Conclusion

I only had a few things noted in the second half and looking back at them, none of them are interesting or important enough to point out. Our second half performance was very very professional and I loved it - we were up 3 - 0 and we played safe, kept possession and created a few chances without risking too much. Perfect way to smother and control a 3 - 0 lead and Lingard did well covering up the holes Mata left on the right.

Any one watch Monday Night Football? Gary Neville did an analysis of this game and compared it to our game against Arsenal and he made the exact same point I made last week (1st point, midfield too aggressive) ;)

Anyways, thanks for reading and looking forward to our game against City next week!

Arsenal - Manchester United

I wish I could just pretend this game never happened. Awful awful game and so many things went wrong that I could spend days writing about it. I'll try to point out only some of the more interesting things that I saw. Unfortunately, I can't say I'm 100% surprised by what happened - I already mentioned last week that I was worried about Sanchez exploiting our right sided weakness and unfortunately he did.

On the brighter side, Martial still looks amazing and he's so dangerous every time he gets the ball.

1) Midfield too aggressive

This one is weird and I'm not sure if it is a player mistake or if they're following LVG's instructions. Circled in blue is Schweinsteiger - why is he pressing the ball and further forward than Martial (circled red)? In my opinion, Martial should be the one pressing the ball and Schweinsteiger should be in our half. You see that Rooney is still in the center circle so there's no one covering the spot area that Schweinsteiger left open.

Here's the next moment. Schweinsteiger, on the far left, is now completely out of position. I circled Rooney in blue because his positioning here is bad - he should be in the black circled area. Because of his bad positioning, the Arsenal player turns and beats him very easily.

Here's the next moment, after the Arsenal player beats Rooney. Option 1: if Schweinsteiger wasn't out of position, he would have been next to Carrick (circled in blue) in the other blue circle and he'd be able to mark the Arsenal player with the ball. Option 2: Rooney (circled in red) should have immediately realized that Schweinsteiger was out of position and should have dropped back into Schweinsteiger's normal position, somewhere around the red circled area. 

The result: Arsenal scored a goal from this. They cut through our midfield like it was nothing because Schweinsteiger got dragged out of position and Rooney didn't cover for him. Both experienced players who should have known better.

If you'll notice, I already pointed out something like this in the match against Southampton in the first point "bad positioning, mostly by Martial."

2) Blind too deep

This is a big flaw with Blind as a defender and I already pointed this out even last season when he was playing left back. He tends to be the furthest defender back - I think he prefers it because he doesn't have the pace to play too tight to the attackers and needs the extra yard. However, without pace, he can't play as the furthest defender back because he doesn't have the pace to cover the runners - he's basically trying to play sweeper and sweepers need to be fast.

Here, Blind should have just stepped up and played Theo Walcott offside. Easy, simple defense. He can see that Smalling is already forward and all he needed to do was take one step forward and the attack would have been stopped.

The result: Arsenal scores their second goal.

3) Where in the world is Mata?

Ok, first, there's another mistake here in that one of Carrick or Schweinsteiger should be near the red circled area but instead both of them are too far to our left.

Now, the main mistake: I circled our defensive line in blue. Ashley Young had went forward to attack (which he has to do as a fullback, that's normal). That meant that Blind had to shift to the left more in to the left back position, Smalling into the left center back position and Darmian had to shift to the right center back position. That's all normal, Darmian has to stay close to Smalling and help him with the dribbler.

The problem is that Mata needs to be covering Sanchez who is completely unmarked. That's Mata's job on the right and he's nowhere near him. 

The result: Arsenal's third goal.

This also made Darmian look bad because Sanchez ended up dribbling by him but the thing is, you can't expect even the best defender in the world to be able to defend a player like Sanchez when he has this kind of space. Sanchez is just too good to be given this sort of space. Darmian didn't really make a mistake here. He had to be close to Smalling so his positioning was fine and letting Sanchez dribble past him when Sanchez had 10+ yards of space is not a mistake - it's a given. 

All three goals are simple mistakes that I've pointed out in past games and I'm just some guy on the internet watching one Manchester United game per week. These things should have been addressed in training before we let it culminate into a defeat like this.

Sidenote:

I have two more notations of Mata losing his man or not tracking back but I won't bother uploading them. If you want to check out them, look at the replay of the game at these moments (approximately): 1) 41 minutes 2) 85 mnutes

4) Memphis just watches Cazorla shoot

It's hard to tell from a picture only but basically, Memphis here just stands there and lets Cazorla shoot on goal. Memphis was close enough to either get a foot in or at least put some pressure on him but he just stood there and watched.

I trust De Gea to stop a 30 yard volley any day but it's just basic mentally and training to not let the opposition get any shot on goal. Very poor from Memphis.

5) Double press mistake

Look at this - where are Rooney and Carrick both marking one player when there's other players who are completely free and unmarked? Rooney should be further back marking the unmarked Arsenal player. 

Double marking an opponent isn't necessary when they're in their own half and facing away from goal. This is terrible discipline and awareness.

6) A different defensive mistake by Mata

So far, I've mostly mentioned how Mata isn't really helping Darmian out, although I have pointed out some defensive awkwardness in the past. Here's another example of his lack of defensive instinct.

Below, he should be in the blue circled area so he can block/intercept the possible pass. It's only a few yards further back and if he was there, he would have prevented two possible options.

This is something that should come naturally to players and when they do it right, they'll never get praise for it because it's just what they should do. 

Final thoughts

It might seem like a Mata focused write up but honestly most of our team was just bad. I had about four times the number of notes written down and I just pointed out the most glaring mistakes, otherwise I would be spending days writing this. I like Mata as a player but LVG can't keep playing him at right midfield and pretending he can provide adequate defensive cover. Actually, I think LVG fixed this issue somewhat in the second half by having Fellaini play right center mid - Fellaini was able to cover for Mata and we ended up playing better.

Also, I'm still not seeing anything from Rooney on the pitch. I didn't see leadership, I didn't see hard work, I didn't see any good play. I'm scared every time the ball gets to him because at best, he'll just pass it backwards but more likely, he'll just lose the ball. I'm getting impatient and tired of seeing our captain not contributing anything visible to our team on the pitch.

International break next week, maybe the first time I don't mind it. I can definitely use some time to cool off and just forget about this game.

Thanks for reading!