They took the game to us, and our mentally fragile players couldn't cope. That's how far our players have fallen.
So the 3-5-2
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It's possible they do, I like the way they played themselves out of trouble at times. We have good individual players, but as a team we're disjointed. We kept passing the ball to MK DONs and they passed the ball better than us.
Exactly, some people think we're better in everything simply because it's Manchester United.
Heh. Exactly.
Very true, our players lack the basic understanding of football. It does my head in when the ball is given to Valencia and they all watch him impersonate a winger without giving him support.
You can picture every move our players are going to make in your head before it happens, and that alone shows me that things needed to change. No unpredictability, just uncomfortable players taking too many touches and getting nowhere. As soon as they have to try something slightly more difficult it's turn around and pass the responsibility on to someone else.
Yeah the famous "Rooney picks up the ball and passes it long to Valencia". I mean it's a beautiful long and accurate pass, Valencia controls it very well all the time but what happens next ? He either comes backs or try to dribble in his usual style, very rarely a player comes close for a give and go or for creating movement and instability.
It's more or less the same as the people advocating for a 4-2-3-1. There's not an awful lot of different between them really. Chances are they'd have similar players.
4-3-3 is what I'd like us to eventually works towards implementing.
Swap "back four" for "442" and you'd probably be reading the mind of David Moyes from exactly 12 months ago.
It is interesting that we've already seen how abject this squad of players can look playing a system with which they're totally familiar yet we are all showing so little patience with a new formation.
I'm caught between two stools here. I like the more traditional United approach. Two strikers, very attacking fullbacks and central defenders expected to cope with minimal protection from central midfield. When the Moyes experiment went tits up, though, I was ready to embrace whatever new-fangled approach a more sophisticated manager would throw at us. I also accepted that an overhaul to our system would take time and we would probably even get worse before we got better.
All of which means I'm being completely illogical when I moan about 352. It's just... you know... THREE central defenders? Really? I can't see past that piece of negativity to feel in any way pleased that Manchester United are set up this way.
Well we're not playing with fullbacks so who should be giving him that support? Fletcher? Cleverley? One less player in central midfield if/when we lose the ball. That would not end well.
In the 3-5-2, Mata or possibly the other striker. By support I didn't necessarily as in a overlapping run like Rafael used to do but more like giving a passing option.
In other formation, when Rafael isn't playing too, we often let Valencia on his own like he's a Robben type dribbler.
He had loads of passing options at the weekend. All infield. He consistently took them because he had little or no chance of beating the Sunderland winger and fullback on his own, without any overlapping runs to distract them. I think that's mainly because we were so painfully slow moving the ball through our midfield but I also think the formation itself makes it much more difficult to attack with any width.
My point basically, he isn't a great dribbler and our slow neanderthal football isn't helping. I've watched Juventus play the same formation with better fluidity and understanding but they have more mobile midfielders (Vidal and Pogba) and a passing genius in Pirlo. The ball and the players move a lot quicker for sure.
its tactilely far less demanding to play behind 2 CBs than to play infront of them. The same problems that are arise at the moment would arise in any other system: the rest of the midfield/offence fail to do their job and Evans, Smalling and Jones are all bang average (nobody can expect that blackett holds the defence together).
@Balu Thanks for the insight. Very interesting to hear our manager's history.
I was gonna dig up some of your old posts to point that out. Silly me, cause, you're aware of it.
I'm thinking 352 is a means to an end, and surely not an end in itself. He was probably thinking of killing two birds with one stone, by getting more defensive solidity as well as accommodating Rooney, Van Persie and Mata. Say what you will about Holland and how dull they were to watch, but they looked much more solid than what you would expect from the individual qualities of their defenders.
For a transient period, it could work for United too. The fact that he changed it as early as 45 minutes into a competitive game, shows also, that he's not so rigid and stubborn about it.
I don't fully understand the back 3, but to use the parlance of a back 4, our defenders all look really square. The play really deep and in line with each other which just invites pressure and means that we have 3 "last men", any one of whom is a mistake waiting to happen. Either they individually need to learn how to step into midfield when required or we need to switch to a back four. There's so much space between defence and midfield right now, it's unreal. The fact that LvG is going for Vidal rather than a holding midfielder can only exacerbate the problem. Having said that, I think the slowness of our passing also contributes somewhat. We're so laboured with our attacking play that the opposition aren't in any way frightened to push 3 or 4 players high up the pitch because they know we'll never be able to hurt them on the counter. There's so much wrong with the formation at the moment, I'm not sure I have the patience to see it out.
But United isn't playing a sweeper behind two centerbacks? It's a flat back three from what I've seen and that's a completely different challenge than a back four with an additional sweeper behind helping out wherever necessary. Not that the latter would help solve the problem with the huge open gap in midfield.
What I don't get is that for now, it's obvious until Rafael and Shaw are back(most important) and United sign another good MF, there aren't really the right personnel to play this formation, so why persist with it? Why not find a formation that will at least work with the players available now, then when those two are back and everyone is fit, carry on with the 3-5-2 if that what he really wants.
I go the other way to be honest. Until those two are back (or Rojo becomes available) then in a 4-3-3 we're going to be playing James/Jones/Blackett in the full back positions. Frankly I think that's going to be make us even less effective down the flanks. At least 3-5-2 allows us to play Valencia/Young in those positions.
(and yes I know the line "at least it allows us to play Valencia/Young" is like the least compelling argument imaginable, but I still think its true)
I am not (yet) a friend of that back 3 but if we want to maintain that because of the lack of quality at the back, the I like the formation Gary Neville showed on Sky Sports
It looks alright but when we're playing inferior teams it makes sense to take out one CB and bring another wide player, say Januzaj or Welbeck. The team doesn't lose balance. It's overly defensive, I think it may work against some better teams if we sit back but we're going to struggle to break teams down with this formation.
Completely agree. This formation makes it even more difficult for our wide players to get to the byline. Which means replacing Valencia/Young will make us even less creative than we've been in our opening games (hard to imagine!)
Of course, the flipside of this is that having top quality competent fullbacks available will allow him to play 433, without fear of being torn apart on our flanks. Which might have been a factor in playing 5 at the back when injuries are forcing us to play the likes of Valencia and James at fullback.
That is correct. It is just a flat regular three man defense, notoriously easily countered if it comes up against just one striker - unless you have one CB who is comfortable stepping up to the defensive midfield whenever this happens, which we don't.
When the opponent uses one striker, you basically have three defenders all doing the job of 1-2 defenders meaning you have a numerical disadvantage at the rest of the field.
Teams haven't been playing one up against us. They've been getting 3 or 4 into the box and overloading our defence time and time again. We're so slow at building attacks that opposition teams aren't afraid that they'll be caught out of position.
It's a massive IF. But IF we signed Vidal... we could play the below:
-------------Herrera-----Vidal-----Di Maria--------------
-----Rafael-----------------------------------Shaw-----
-------------------Rooney---Welbeck-------------------
Problem is you'd be leaving out Januzaj, RvP and Mata. You could replace Welbeck with RvP I guess (although I'd prefer Welbeck as he gives better balance). I think Januzaj should be used on the bench anyway, the big issue is Mata! The only way I could get everyone in the formation is to play 4-3-3 like so:
-------------------------Vidal--------------------------
----------Herrera----------------------Di Maria---------
-------------------------Mata--------------------------
-----------------RvP--------------Rooney--------------
If you want to keep Vidal out of this, replace his name with Carrick in your head.
I feel dirty after this post. Never again!
-------------Herrera-----Vidal-----Di Maria--------------
-----Rafael-----------------------------------Shaw-----
-------------------Rooney---Welbeck-------------------
Problem is you'd be leaving out Januzaj, RvP and Mata. You could replace Welbeck with RvP I guess (although I'd prefer Welbeck as he gives better balance). I think Januzaj should be used on the bench anyway, the big issue is Mata! The only way I could get everyone in the formation is to play 4-3-3 like so:
-------------------------Vidal--------------------------
----------Herrera----------------------Di Maria---------
-------------------------Mata--------------------------
-----------------RvP--------------Rooney--------------
If you want to keep Vidal out of this, replace his name with Carrick in your head.
I feel dirty after this post. Never again!
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The only difficulty implementing 433 would be that one of Rooney and van Persie will have to be benched. Other than that once we've signed a defensive midfielder we'll be able to play that formation with a very good team - Januzaj, Di Maria and Rooney/van Persie up front, Mata ahead of midfield two of Herrera and a new DM (Mata = Iniesta, Herrera = Xavi, Busquets = ?, basically Barcelona lite) and a competent 4-man defence.
352 needs to be dropped. Van Gaal's argument was personnel and at the time he was right. He isn't anymore now that we've signed Di Maria and are well capable of playing with actual width in attack.
I just fail to see the successful precedent for it.
I am sure we can play it better than this, and I would quite like to see Carrick evolve into the middle of the three with the license to carry the ball forward.
In the end I think it is actually just weak management though because I don't think Van Gaal particularly favours the system and is playing it because we have Mata, Rooney and RVP, and because he thinks we don't have the wingers for a 433. I am really hoping Di Maria will change his mind as 433 deserves a shot.
Shaw, Rafael, Rojo, Valencia, Young, Lingard if needed Di Maria can all play there, ow and James (but he might go on loan I don't know)
That seems enough for me for a team that will only once a week
But on the flip side it gives players the chance to play in a familiar position/system. We now also have Di Maria who I'm assuming will jump straight into the starting 11. I mean for the weekend you could go with De Gea, Jones, Smalling, Rojo, Evans, Herrera, Fletcher, Di Maria, Januzaj, Welbeck, Rooney or swap Mata for Welbeck and play Mata in the midfield 3 and Di Maria as a winger.
Rafael, Lingard and Young are all not good enough at wingback and playing Di Maria there would be a total waste of your most dangerous attacking player.
I said it on day one, I dont like the 3-5-2. You might play it away from home against a top team but other than that, I prefer a more attacking line up
The transition from offense to defense for the back 3 is a serious issue especially when we lose the ball in our own half. (It thanks to Danny Mills that I have an idea about whats going on).
Why would they not be good enough ? Rafael hasn't played yet, Lingard and definitley Young have proven they can handle the role in the USA.
Haven't seen it in competitive games. Rafael is a disaster waiting to happen and Young seems to have regressed to his usual. Lingard hasn't had a chance to prove himself one way or another yet.
playing with 3 CB doesnt mean that they always have to play in a line or that one always has to act like a sweeper. Its situational and its really not that hard to pull off. I agree, that the defence didnt look good, but thats eventually the most basic strategy to defend, while giving each player the maximum room for error. Playing with a back 4 is so much less forgiving.
After reading it I think that the writer is jumping on to the bandwagon against the formation, I am aboard that one myself, but it doesn't address the critical issue we have which is lack of movement on the ball. In the first frame highlighting Keane's error I think the major issues are Anderson and Powell not moving to shake off their markers plus Keane himself taking the extra touch which drives him wider but he fails to read Januzaj's run and attempts an infield ball where there was no one to receive the ball. If Anderson moves a yard or two backwards a simple pass for Keane opens up and the press is broken, if Keane makes a first time pass down the line to Januzaj then instead of conceding a goal from sloppy play we get the chance to launch a counter. Keane was just careless in that instant and no formation can cover for such brainless actions.
If those friendlies meant anything we would be sat here plotting a title charge, there were meaningless and the collapse, back to normal service, of players like Young, Fletcher and Cleverley confirms this. If we play Real Madrid today it could get ugly, cricket score ugly. We/LvG should never have based his strategy on the form of desperate players fighting to save their United careers because, surprise, surprise, the moment they knew they were safe they returned to their shells. We need to clear out this dross and assess things only after the club is free from this mediocrity.
Complete bullshit that those friendlies didn't mean anything. Young was able cross, beat a man and function properly in the team, you can't just pretend that didn't happen. The reason our players currently can't reach the level they had in the USA is because of nerves, they look scarred as shit, once they could get over that (once we start winning) their performance will improve. In the USA they played liberated and with confidence, they wanted to show themselves, give me one good reason why they couldn't replicate that versus other teams.
I know we are in a really bad situation, but to just dismiss every positive we saw in the USA is a bridge to far for me. If a player is crap he can't do the things we did in the USA, no matter versus who they are playing and wheter they are liberated or not. Yet a player that can do these things and has the quality might not be able to do it in games where their nerves are getting to them, when their confidence is low and they look scarred it is a mental problem rather than just a quality problem.
Not saying I fully agree with it, just that I thought some might find it interesting.
In my opinion the real issue isn't the formation at all. The formation would work if we moved the ball more quickly. There's a lot of hesitancy at the moment that leads to players taking loads of touches, only to pass it five yards sideways. When we speed up our passing and movement we can catch teams before they set up to defend. The 3-5-2 actually helps make the pitch really big when we attack in a cohesive way. Our issue has been that the nervousness leads players to hold the ball for too long, by time they pass (even if they try a bold pass), the other team are already in two banks of four. Van Gaal likes intermittent pressing because he likes space in behind to attack. Unfortunately we are so slow with our attacks the ground we give up to allow the defence to come out gets wasted, everyone is back in their lines before we're ready to attack.
@NoArroJusBeta is right. This slowness is fundamentally a product of fear. They're scared and they're playing scared. If we changed to 4-4-2 it would look just as bad as when Moyes used 4-4-2. Formations won't cure the fear.