Aston Villa - Manchester United

Sorry it took me so long to post this, weekday matches are always difficult for me due to work. 

Anyways, glad to see another relatively solid win. In general, I'm quite happy with our current team right now - we look solid defensively, we have a solid midfield with plenty of depth, and we have some good attacking players who can change a game and everybody seems to have a great attitude. 

1) Some Rooney stuff

You're probably going to see quite a few posts about Rooney. Like Valencia and Falcao last season, I think he's currently the weakest part of our side. He just doesn't fit in with the rest of our attackers - poor touch, poor movement and slow. 

Here's one way a forward playing too deep can affect our defense. 

Example 1:

Below, the person circled in red is Schneiderlin pressing the Aston Villa center back (Richards). Rooney is playing so deep and not pressing their back line that Schneiderlin has to go forward to press them. That leaves a gap in our midfield while Rooney is kind of in the middle of no man's land - he's not helping to press them but he's far enough forward where he's not contributing to our midfield.

Example 2:

Here's another one. Rooney is once again neither pressing their center backs nor deep enough to help in midfield. This gives Richards a really easy pass into the Aston Villa midfielder. 

And now, Schneiderlin has to go forward while Rooney is still in a useless position - if Rooney was further forward closer to Richards, at least he would be cutting out the easy back pass. Now, he's just in an awkward position.

Unrelated:

Apart from him losing the ball with terrible touches so often, here's one that frustrated me. 

Rooney gets the ball in a great position. The Aston Villa player to the right of Rooney is their last defender. He has some great options - pass out wide to Memphis along red arrow, or take the ball and dribble it along the black arrows. He has plenty of space and if he beats the Aston Villa defender, he's through on goal.

Instead, he passes the ball straight back to Herrera, who, as you can see, has two Aston Villa players ready to defend him. 

This is why LVG didn't include him when he listed players like Hazard and Aguero who can change the game. 

2) Carrick still learning to play with Schneiderlin

It's been a while since we had another midfielder who can cover the defense like Schneiderlin can. I've noticed that this has allowed Carrick a little more freedom to go forward and join with the link up play more, rather than being only a deep lying playmaker. However, Carrick sometimes just automatically goes deeper when he should be going forward because Schneiderlin is already covering for him.

Here, Carrick, instead of running back, should be making a forward run along the blue arrow to give Darmian more options for passing. We don't have any players in that right central midfield area (the area the blue arrow is pointing at) and it's because Carrick should be in that area. Schneiderlin has central mid area well covered in case we lose the ball.

Since Darmian only has one pass, he passes it down the line to Mata. The problem is Mata is well marked and his only option is a back pass to Darmian. If Carrick had made the forward run, he would be in the blue circled area, which is perfect to receive a pass from Mata.

 3) Mata again with poor defensive instinct

Here, the Aston Villa player is about to pass the ball wide for their fullback to run onto. Mata knows that and he starts making the run back along the blue arrow. So far so good.

Except after a few yards of tracking back, Mata inexplicably checks his run and looks backwards for the ball. He needs to continue running along the blue arrow because there's no way he's going to intercept the ball if it goes over the top. 

And this is the result. 

Darmian was too far forward and the moment the fullback is caught out, the wide midfielder has to be covering for the fullback position. Mata will make it difficult for Darmian to contribute to the attack - if Darmian can't trust Mata to cover for him, he's not going to be making those overlapping runs that fullbacks need to make. 

4) This is why you need to practice your off foot

Here's Januzaj on the ball during a counterattack. He has Memphis up top, Rooney in the middle, Mata on the bottom to pass to. All three of those passes are easily made with the right foot. 

Except Januzaj is left footed and outside boot passes when the ball is rolling forward are very difficult to make and he couldn't get in a comfortable position to make it with his right. He ends up getting tackled because it took him too long to release the ball. 

Also, look at the first picture. Rooney is the furthest back of our three attackers and he's supposed to be our forward leading the line...

Some final thoughts

I'm not sure Memphis or Januzaj are going to be very successful playing "in the hole" if Rooney is playing striker. He just drops back too deep and they have no forward to pass to and not enough space to work with. I really hope to see Hernandez or Wilson play up front with this exact team and see how our number 10 player, whether it's Memphis, Mata or Januzaj will perform then. 

Also, loving Darmian. He really does remind me of Neville - he's an defender first and foremost, but has enough skill and technique to contribute to the attack. 

Thanks for reading!

Manchester United - Tottenham

Welcome back to the new season everyone!

Pretty happy with our transfers over the summer, finally got a proper right back and Darmian looked so solid today. Romero looked a little nervous but we kept a clean sheet and he had some decent distribution with his feet and good saves. I thought Depay looked pretty good considering it was his first game in the English league. Young continues to perform well and Smalling has done enough to convince me that he's a good defender.

Just reminding everyone that my analysis here isn't comprehensive and I treat it more like how a coach might go over video replays with players to point out their individual mistakes. I also try to stay away from pointing out the good things since there's not much point to it as we know we have quality players and a quality club :)

1) Small mistake by Darmian

I was very happy with Darmian today and this isn't a huge mistake but I would still expect LVG or the club staff to mention it when they go over the match afterwards.

Below, Kane has the ball and you see Smalling and Blind are the furthest ones back, nothing too dangerous yet.



Eriksen makes a run forward and Smalling and Blind step up to play him offside. However, Darmian screws it up by not stepping up and it almost led to a goal. There's absolutely no need for Darmian to try to mark Eriksen as Darmian is behind Eriksen already and there's no way for him to mark him properly from behind. 

2) Mata has no defensive instinct

Mata has pretty good work rate but the problem is, he often runs to the wrong place when he's tracking back and it doesn't end up contributing to our defense at all.

Spurs are attacking here and Kane has the ball. Darmian is closing him down to mark him. It's not a comfortable position right now but at this moment, Darmian prevents Kane from going to Kane's right so Kane can only go to his left. Mata, circled in red, should be running along the red arrowed line to mark Chadli's run.

Except for some reason, Mata runs in the other direction. There's absolutely no reason for Mata to run centrally as even if Kane had someone went to his right, there's no way Mata can defend him from that far behind. Now Chadli is completely unmarked in the box and Mata is no where near him.

This is obviously a very easy thing to spot when we're watching it on TV but that's what defensive instinct is. Mata shouldn't need to think about all this - it should occur to him naturally to run wide to get Chadli's run, especially since he's playing right wing/wide forward. Ashley Young has good instinct, Darmian clearly does, but players like Valencia and Mata do not.

3) Disappointed with Rooney today, he's all over the pitch

I was looking forward to seeing Rooney play as a pure striker again but he seems to drift all over the place, leaving him out of place when we have opportunities to score. 

Example 1:

Here, Memphis has the ball in a good position and he's dribbling towards the Spur's goal. Rooney, circled in red, has to be running forward but instead, he runs back to receive the ball.

If he's going to play as a forward, he needs to be on the center back's shoulders in situations like these. First, it'll give Memphis more space to dribble into and second, if he was on their shoulder, it would have been have relatively simple through pass for Memphis to make to Rooney.

So after Rooney comes short, he gives it back to Memphis and he just stands there. He has to pass and move! You can't just stand still after a pass like this. Look at how impossible of a situation this leaves Memphis - there's almost no options for him to actually create something and he would have to dribble past 4 or 5 players to do anything. If Rooney actually ran forward, he'd take one or two of the Tottenham players with him and that would allow Memphis to dribble it forward more and maybe even get a long range shot off.

Example 2:

I think this one is partly an LVG style thing. He seems to prefer our forwards to sit back a little and allow the opposition team's center backs a bit of space. I noticed that Memphis and Rooney didn't really press the center backs much and I would think that's with LVG's instructions.

In this case, I was urging Rooney, circled in blue, to go forward to press the Spurs center back - we were allowing him to be too comfortable bringing it out like that.

And a few moments later, Carrick makes a nice interception and we counter attack. If Rooney wasn't so far back initially, he would be at around the blue circled area (the Spur's center back is offscreen to the right so Rooney would still be onside). Carrick could have slid a through back to him or he would have had more space to run into. Missed opportunity.

The next moment, Memphis has the ball and I circled Rooney in blue. Yet again, Rooney should be further forward, at either of the spots the blue arrows are pointing to. If he was at either of those spots, Memphis could have created a goal scoring chance with a nice through ball to Rooney. 

These two positions are golden positions for a player playing in the hole like Memphis was. I'm worried that Rooney's lack of forward runs is going to limit Memphis's potential to succeed as one, it cuts down on his opportunities to make assists and two, it decreases the space he has to dribble into since Rooney drops back and allows the opposition center backs to come forward to mark Memphis. 

Example 3:

We're counter attacking here, Rooney drops deep to flick it into Herrera's path. That's perfect, good choice of dropping back. However, I'd expect Rooney to turn around and immediately starting sprint forward, something like along the blue dotted line since we're counterattacking and he's our only forward.

Instead, he jogs back another few yards and slowly turns around, and now Herrera is in front of him with no one to pass to.

We make a few nice passes and we get it to Schweinstager out wide. Except Rooney is still all the way back there (circled in blue)! Instead, Rooney should be in either of the blue circled areas and that would give Schweinstager an option to do an early cross/through ball to create a chance. Instead, Schweinstager has absolutely no options to pass to despite being in acres of space, what a waste of a good opportunity. 

Example 4:

This is definitely frustrating to players. Midfielders need to have strikers to pass to and they don't want their forwards playing so deep they're only a few yards away from them. It inhibits a midfielder's playmaking opportunities and it's uncomfortable to have another teammate be so close and leaving gaps of space to run into when it's not necessary for the forward to track back.

Here's Herrera gesturing for Rooney to go forward more. The ball is in the black scribbled area and Herrera wants him to put more pressure on the Spurs back line. 

Hard to tell from a picture but to me, it was a gesture of frustration and I chuckled a little watching it live. 

4) Let's hope Darmian stays fit

It was fantastic to have a proper right back today and when Valencia came it, we just looked so shaky on the right. Here's one example.

The Spurs player ends up making a really nice pass along the blue dotted line forward, but Valencia should have been in position to stop it. Why was Valencia standing so close to the other Spurs player when the other Spurs player is running away from goal? This is a minor positioning error of only around 5 feet or so - if Valencia was a little bit further left, in the red circled area, he would have prevented that gap for the pass and still be close enough to the other Spurs player to defend him if the ball goes to him. 

As a right back, Valencia has to be aware that there's someone behind him that is open and he needs to position himself to prevent that pass to him. Difference in 5 feet is the difference between a good right back and a former winger. 

Conclusion

Thanks for reading guys, I've been looking forward to the league starting all summer!

Hull City - Manchester United

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! 

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!