Manchester United is back. 21 is coming!
It’s has been quite a long time since I wrote about Manchester United. The last time, if I recall correctly, was the beginning of the second season under Erik ten Hag. Since that time, United have had two of their worst season finishes in premier league history and won an FA Cup, AND lost a European final to Tottenham — someone wake up me up please. But yeah, this is the recent reality of Manchester United.
And here we are, a new season, a new hope, and a new dream that Manchester United might actually be on the right track this time.
After match day 1 of each season, the predictions, the hyperbole, the commentary is always over the top. Negative or positive. Manchester United lost to Arsenal 0–1 on the opening day at Old Trafford.
For United fans, coming from 15th place last season, they just wanted to see a good performance, myself included. I believe we got that from United but that doesn’t say much. I mean it cannot get worse than last season so any effort will be an improvement.
From an analytical perspective, I wanted to see something different from United and Ruben Amorim. At the first watch, I was impressed with the level of effort and determination the team showed.
The injection of Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo has definitely helped United raise the talent floor of the team. One thing United have always missed in the past was enough ball carriers all over the pitch and not only that, but some ball carriers with engines. This adds a lot to their penetration power.
In the match, we have seen examples of that. There were one or two Cunha solo runs and Mbeumo runs over the last line or directly at the last line. The limitation to that though is space. United had a ball carrier in Rashford before and his weakness was low blocks.
Carriers can disrupt opposition defensive shapes but in case of low blocks you will need more than ball carrying, you’ll need to have a good dribbling ability and timing of release. Cunha has that ability and the arrogance to do it, although his success rate stands at 44.5% and Mbeumo has a slightly higher success rate of take-on/dribbles at 46.4% but with a much less frequency (less by 3x I believe). The greater reason for their success last season was they carried the ball through space on the transition. Again, we have seen that power in the game against Arsenal a few days ago.
With the introduction of Šeško, however, I believe the dynamics for Mbeumo and Cunha will change slightly. Even if they are stuck vs a low block, they don’t need to take on many players to reach him. They can just cross and both have that quality in them. Additionally, they both are a threat in the box for different reasons; Cunha can spin people and shoot while Mbeumo can get on the end of things as we have seen with the header that Raya saved near the 70-something minute.
What about Ruben Amorim, his system and tactics in that first match? Did we see anything different?
The simple answer Yes and No.
In the coaching world, they say players make systems not the other way around. Adding Cunha and Mbeumo, the return of Mount and Shaw to the team then later adding Šeško, will undoubtedly change the dynamics of the team and their abilities 3, 4, 5 folds. All of them are quality players and quality in possession. Nonetheless, the placement of players and the instructions they are given will bound/restrict that quality or set it free.
The preseason definitely has made United sharper and more aggressive. They pressed with more intensity than last season, and taking into consideration that Mbeumo and Cunha are work horses; there was no doubt United would look hungrier. Vs Arsenal, United aimed to cut off central progression as United’s weak point is the midfield. The norm for Arsenal is around 33-36% central progression. Vs United that went down to 27-29%, which means United were fairly successful in blocking their central areas and reducing Arsenal’s ability to pass through.
Yet, the 27% Arsenal got were very worrying not because of the number but because of how easy it was to run at the last line once that first line of press was passed. That signaled how vulnerable United are in the middle and how the two in midfield just can’t cope — Fernandes as CM is pain. The saving grace for United is so many of Arsenal’s attacks died by their own hands through a miss placed pass or an overhit pass. The Arsenal attack was just not clicking. Ødegaard, Saka and Gyökeres were just making no runs or bad runs, and when they did, Ødegaard made a bad pass.
This is not taking away from United’s CBs, they did great individually when isolated. The times where the press was passed, they stepped up to back up the press by cutting the pass before it reached the attacker and made aggressive tackles without giving away fouls (only a few times).
What about in possession? What changed from last season?
Other than the qualities mentioned that Cunha, Mbeumo and Šeško brought to them team, the re-introduction of Shaw and Mount helped United’s left side dynamics a lot.
The ideas from Ruben in possession was the same as last season. United needed to bypass the midfield and aim at the 10s or WBs, if possible, to make it stick. The CB (de Ligt) still moved into midfield to cancel the overload in midfield and Bayindir launched the ball every time.
Another reason behind the CB in midfield move is to nullify Arsenal’s press, refer to picture above. Arsenal was trying to bait United into playing through the middle where they can press Casemiro. His weak receiving under pressure. Moving de Ligt into midfield means the 4–2 -2 -2 press of Arsenal would have to leave either Fernandes or Mbeumo free between the lines — largely Fernandes. This is a positive outlook on the CB moving into midfield but while it helps free a midfielder high, your entire game becomes reliant on launching from the GK and making it stick.
Another little positive tweak Ruben made was the idea of shifting his back 5 into a back 4 both in possession and out of possession when necessary. For example, if Arsenal is building and United forced them out-wide as planned; a WB (Let’s say Dorgu) moves up to press the Arsenal FB from the 5–2–1–2 out of possession United had and a CB becomes a FB (in this case Shaw).
In the second half, Arsenal started to sit back more and more when game edged towards a 1–0. When United starting holding a lot more of the possession, a pattern that was evident was how the wide CBs (Shaw and Yoro) were given license to move very high and combine with the WBs. It was seen several times with Shaw and Dorgu, as seen above. This left United with a back 2 and a Casemiro as a rest defense in these instances — not ideal but Ruben was wiling to take the risk. I’m certain Ruben bet on the fact that Arsenal is not a transitional team — they suck at it.
This was all from a setup perspective. Now from an attacking perspective, initially I was impressed by United and maybe that was because I put it in comparison to Arsenal. However, there are glaring issues in attack for United despite the many positives Mbeumo and Cunha bring.
- There was no box presence most game.
2. Too many shots from outside of the box or the edge of it. As result from relying too much on transitions while not enough personnel up there to support.
3. Too reliant on Cunha and Mbeumo for solo attacks. Although I enjoyed the Mount switches to Mbeumo to isolate him with the fullbacks.
United had many shots and accumulated a higher xG than Arsenal but most of the xG was very low quality attacks bar the Mbeumo header, the 2 Cunha solo runs, and the Cunha turn inside the box and shot from a tight angle.
From an analytical perspective, United had tiny bursts of attacks out of desperation towards the end of both halves. That kind of pressure means very little as this is a normal game state behaviour for a team that is losing and a team that is trying to hold onto a result. The desperation becomes evident when the team resorts to hoofing the ball to a CB in the box or spamming crosses just to cause any chaos in the box and flick one in.
7 out of the 10 shots United had in the first half came from the 36min onwards and 7 out of 12 shots United had in the second half came from the 88min onwards. Do you see the pattern?!
Now, does that mean United were bad? No. However, the upsurge in fitness and effort, and the addition of quality players didn’t eradicate the weaknesses they had from last season. But again, this is just the first match and it would be idiotic to build any definitive conclusions from it.
The media will run its narrative and United fans coming from last season’s woes are pleasantly surprised. I am still cautious. The weaknesses are still there and the limitations are still there but the quality has definitely improved. It is not United of last season but it is not a vastly improved United yet.
Thank you.
Abdel Rahman
