...thankfully not from my own limited brain, but another post drawing on content from The Athletic - a tactical analysis of the Atalanta game by Tom Worville.
Key points:
- This kind of chaotic game provides the perfect conditions for Fernandes: against a side that takes risks and man-marks rather than defends space. He received the ball a lot in the areas where he can do damage and (despite losing the ball with a lot of difficult, risky passes), had one of his best games ever for United, stats-wise, with eight chances created - six from open play.
- More generally, United's set up is the rock to Atalanta's (or Leeds') scissors: if we can beat the press, we're likely to find Bruno in a dangerous zone.
- From that point of view, the things that went well in the match doesn't tell us much about the key to playing against sides with a deeper defensive block, although the recurring flaws in our game do. It's suggested that we shouldn't push our forwards as high up the pitch as we did against Atalanta, because we're pretty bad and disorganised at pressing (as we were against Atalanta!). Instead, out of possession we should deploy a mid-block, which would compress the space that our midfield needs to cover.
- It also picked up on Ronaldo's tendency to drop deeper to collect the ball or drift to the left, which didn't help much. E.g. even when Rashford scored it was despite his movement rather than benefiting from it: Ronaldo dropped back and was ignored by defenders, when he could have dragged someone away. Ronaldo tends to slow things down and clog up space when he does this. The argument is that Ronaldo should limit those forays and generally stay high and central to stretch the opposition back line and offer an out-ball for Bruno.
https://theathletic.com/2904848/2021/10/22/beyond-the-chaos-one-of-fernandes-best-games-but-ronaldo-should-stay-high-up-pitch/
Atalanta game lessons
posted on 22/10/21
Thanks for the info on the Athletic RR, I've signed up.
As I've said previously, I've never had any interest in tactics. Basically I watch the man with the ball, so I never take much part in formation, tactics etc, because I'm pretty ignorant. But it's never too late to learn, so long as its a decent read.
posted on 22/10/21
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 3 minutes ago
Thanks for the info on the Athletic RR, I've signed up.
As I've said previously, I've never had any interest in tactics. Basically I watch the man with the ball, so I never take much part in formation, tactics etc, because I'm pretty ignorant. But it's never too late to learn, so long as its a decent read.
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This comment could be written by Ole to be fair.
posted on 22/10/21
comment by Stephen McGinn (U1734)
posted 18 minutes ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 3 minutes ago
Thanks for the info on the Athletic RR, I've signed up.
As I've said previously, I've never had any interest in tactics. Basically I watch the man with the ball, so I never take much part in formation, tactics etc, because I'm pretty ignorant. But it's never too late to learn, so long as its a decent read.
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This comment could be written by Ole to be fair.
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posted on 22/10/21
comment by The Post Nearly Man. Ex Lion Tamer. (U1270)
Talk about something else? Just a thought.
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Uhhh......., so how's life, Postie?
posted on 22/10/21
Lessons from the game.
Now, most of us on here can come up with quite a few things we can clearly see have not gone right.
The problem is Ole and his coaches do not learn from them. Until they do them we will keep getting over run through the middle.
When the opposition have the ball man mark their players. Quit with this marking space bollox (I swear this comes from Carrick) as does the shadowing without ever trying to win the ball. Try to win the ball. At the very least you might put the player under pressure to make a mistake.
I bet every team we play wonder how they get so much time on the ball.
posted on 22/10/21
VC, a lot of teams that are currently far more coherent and successful than United apply the 'defend space' approach. I think the problem isn't the idea itself, but the fact that we're not very good at it and we fail to condense key zones sufficiently, meaning that we often have two in the middle (whichever two they are) with too much space to mark.
I've read a couple of analysts who read the game a lot better than me pointing out that it's Atalanta's man-marking approach that made them so unusually easy for us to unlock. We were ridiculously open on Wednesday but let's not forget that we should have scored a couple by half-time ourselves, and I think we probably went into the game with the notion of taking a calculated risk playing a 4-2-4, believing they would be more vulnerable than us. Our dodgy defending made it very squeaky but we did beat them, not only in real terms, but also in the more important metric of expected goals.
posted on 22/10/21
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 2 hours, 5 minutes ago
VC, a lot of teams that are currently far more coherent and successful than United apply the 'defend space' approach. I think the problem isn't the idea itself, but the fact that we're not very good at it and we fail to condense key zones sufficiently, meaning that we often have two in the middle (whichever two they are) with too much space to mark.
I've read a couple of analysts who read the game a lot better than me pointing out that it's Atalanta's man-marking approach that made them so unusually easy for us to unlock. We were ridiculously open on Wednesday but let's not forget that we should have scored a couple by half-time ourselves, and I think we probably went into the game with the notion of taking a calculated risk playing a 4-2-4, believing they would be more vulnerable than us. Our dodgy defending made it very squeaky but we did beat them, not only in real terms, but also in the more important metric of expected goals.
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Nice tribute to Hafi in the last sentence there!
posted on 22/10/21
Hopefully Ole has renewed his subscription
posted on 22/10/21
comment by United we win (U19958)
posted 6 hours, 1 minute ago
Just googled slm ja606 found this article and it’s vidicschin being his miserable self 🤣 https://www.ja606.co.uk/comments/viewAllComments/117418
He was an old man then so he must be ancient now
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I was 52 then. And SLM agreed with my assessment of his post. Which you will know had you read it. You numbnut Nohlman.
posted on 23/10/21
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator