So, I thought I would write something about our recent "tactical improvements" and where we might be heading under LVG, including what our next season might be like. These are the questions that I asked myself before writing this up and have given my best possible answer. Feel free to criticize my opinions.
Q. What has changed about Mata and what's this "Inverted Right Winger" role that LVG is talking about?
A. Let's rollback to Mata's Chelsea years and think about what was his role there. He was never a typical no.10 at Chelsea. Infact it is very difficult to fit a typical No.10 in any team. De Bruyne, Silva, Ozil, Mata in Chelsea colours, Hazard, Kagawa at United have either played as inverted wingers or have had problems in becoming a complete no.10. It's a poisoned chalice of a position, where if you are too diminutive and become a team's focal point of attack, then you can easily be marked out of the game. I can't speak for others here as I've not watched them enough, but this is where Mata struggled for us whenever he played there. If he started centrally, as a fixed no.10, he was easily marked out and lost possession easily thus our attacks breaking down. We then tried to put Mata in our midfield which was another failed experiment as he lacked positional awareness of a midfielder to be available for a pass. We also had zero cohesiveness and understanding in our midfield to even understand where your midfield partner might be open for a pass. Both Moyes and LVG had completely forgotten where Mata played for Chelsea, which was not a no.10. Yes, he was Chelsea's no.10, but he always played an inverted winger switching between Hazard and Oscar, which as we all remember was a rather deadly combination. Now, how did that work? If you watch some of the current Chelsea matches, and even the ones in which Mata played, you would see that a lot of running/tracking back behind him was done by Oscar/Ramires.
Enter Herrera. If you watch now, everytime Mata needs an outlet to pass he always has Herrera next to him and Valencia behind him. We might differ in our opinions about the defensive capabilities of Valencia and Herrera, but both are extremely good runners. Even if Mata finds himself crowded out on the wing, he doesn't need his pace to dribble past them. All he has to do is pass it to Herrera/Carrick/Valencia, and run into the midfield. They pass it back to him, Herrera takes up Mata's current vacant space on the inverted winger position and Mata now has an direct influence of the game, without being a typical no.10, thus not being marked, nor being a winger thus not being out-paced. Best example of this is the second goal against L'pool. Herrera tries a shot at midfield, while Mata cuts in from the wing. Herrera then swiftly switches positions with Mata. Mata goes in for the attack while Herrera is completely free and unmarked. LVG must be given some credit for finding a set of players that can get the best out of each other, though one might say that it took too long. Better late than never, eh?
Q. What's Fellaini's role and why is he important?
A. Let's forget whatever Fellaini has done till the past two games. Let's talk about the ones against Spurs and L'pool. These two sides press the most in the league. When a team is pressing you as much as they do, and irrespective of how good a short-passing team you might be, you would eventually give up possession higher up on the pitch. There were multiple occasions against L'pool where Jones and Blind would've easily lost possession if not for Fellaini. Playing Fellaini with good passers like Mata and co, brings about the usage of both Plan A and Plan B. Why should Fellaini be plan B when he can be an extremely effective cog of plan A? Check out the both the goals against L'pool.
In the first goal, De Gea targets Fellaini. L'pool can't obviously get anywhere close to it due to Fellaini due to his presence. It's quite simple. If a man is using his head and chest more and is usually twice the size of you, your pressing will result in nothing as Can found out yesterday. Fellaini gets the ball, passes it to Jones. Now Jones gets pressed. Where does he go? Back to Fellaini. Here Fellaini is not being pressed because they have already tasted failure on this. So, L'pool's midfield is now confused, but more importantly, concentrated more towards the left of the field. This is where Fellaini's intelligence comes into picture. He could've easily turned around and tried a hoof to Young. He didn't. He waited for Herrera's run and then passed it to him who was completely unmarked thanks to L'pool players being confused in this usage of two systems at the same time. You press us hard, we will just hoof it to our big man, switch our play and enjoy acres of space that you can't defend anymore because of poor positioning. Smart and effective.
Q. Are there any flaws in this system? How do we address them in summer?
A. As you might have noticed, we are ropey when it comes to hanging onto leads. Even when we were leading L'pool, there was an element of them coming back and snatching a point. We are also piss-poor when it comes to playing against 10 men. This isn't a LVG thing. Even under Fergie, in the later years, we were absolute garbage against 10 men and became garbage when we got down to 10 men. So, can all this be related to our defence?
I would like to disagree here and point towards something a little less obvious. Yes, our midfield. You might think that how dare I question a midfield that has been playing so well, scoring goals and creating assists like no other United midfield in recent years. But let's not forget that a team invites pressure or pressurizes opponents because of midfield that has good, fast box-to-box midfielders. You can have a brilliant front 3 but if your midfield is light weight, losses possession easily or is static, you will get pressurized. More often than not this is what used to happen to us. This resulted in our attackers going deep to get on the ball. Thus resulting in our outlets out of pressure situations being completely cut off. LVG, as you might have noticed is a stickler for positional understanding. When Rooney played upfront for Fergie, he had the complete freedom to drop as deep as he wants to, to defend or attack. When he is playing under LVG as a frontman, he doesn't roam around leaving his responsibilities. Even if he is not getting on the ball, he doesn't go out of position. I think this is one of the biggest reasons why we have performed so well in every single time we've been reduced to ten men this season.
What has caused this? Partly LVG, partly a non-static midfield. But is this enough? I don't think so. We currently have no replacement for Carrick in our ranks. And I don't think Blind has truly shown that yet. Yes, he has a more attacking mindset than Carrick and maybe a yard or more faster than him, but he will more often than not go for the safer pass. Remember Carrick was ridiculed for his sidepasses a few seasons back? He has developed a lot and I hope Blind follows suit. But we sure do need a box-to-box midfielder as much as anything else in summer. Someone who can absorb pressure like Carrick. And run with the ball, and not just depend upon his passing abilities in getting out of clutch situations. Pogba, Enzo Perez or even Gabi would be kind of midfielder that can be great here. No, they aren't necessarily the replacement for Carrick but if Blind's long term position is that of Carrick then we've to find a partner for him to combine with Herrera, one who would occupy the left-midfield. I don't want to comment on the defenders and attackers that we might be targeting as a lot would depend on who we sell. But I sure do hope that a box-to-box midfielder is one of our biggest priorities, if not our biggest.
Thank you for reading!
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