United's Winger Situation

Originally Posted by Harri Jaffa

Maybe there is a choice between the attaking ability of 'real' wingers and defensive fragility.

I do think that the problem is aleviated somewhat is fullbacks can both cross, run past the last defender and take up a more defensive poistion when the other fullback is attacking.

Synched up jelly

ah but if we have superb attacking full-backs do we need wingers as such. i know there's a danger of the full-backs then needing to be retitled as wing-backs or someat but that could be a risk worth taking. if only we had a healthy collection of centrebacks to choose from; if only we had a beckenbauer as well

Originally Posted by Tiberian

Defence is also a problem, 3 years ago it was possibly the best in Europe, certainly Vidic and Rio had a claim as the strongest CB partnership and Evra was one of the top left backs in the game. VDS behind with his experience meant it was a very solid unit.

Now Rio is maybe 80% of what he was, Vidic is coming back from injury, Evra has had a very poor 2 years and there is uncertainty over the Keeper. The team looks soft and vulnerable through the middle now. Utd should not be in a position where the wide players are told to play it safe because the rest of the team is not capable of dealing with the breakdowns in play that inevitably occur when a winger tries to make things happen. That type of thinking takes you to having a mediocrity like Downing on the wing, nice and tidy but utterly robotic and predictable.

again maybe teams are better drilled these days at capitising on those breakdowns, that's what I reckon has changed most.

also Ferguson's basic structure is that the ball must go inside before it goes back out to the winger. it has always been the same and it is as tried and trusted as you can get - it still works all these years later. But it is also as predictable as anything and though it remains difficult to stop because of the quality of our players it is still the case that when it is stopped the opposition know exactly what they need to do instantly on the counter to turn us round. People bang on about how rubbish we are and how weak we look, but truth is that it's our predictability that breaks the rhythm of our play up more than anything else because we don't get the ball back anything like as cheaply as we used to more often than not, especially in these group games. We spend as much time and effort chasing back as always, but nowadays more of that effort is wasted because more of the opposition coaches know exactly how to play in our half... Galatasaray didn't out-play us last night, they're just a decent team with good players who knew what they were doing and weren't scared of it. But even then, they have come to Manchester in the past and done better than that against supposedly better United midfields.

it's not true that the approach of our midfield hasn't changed a great deal. look at the game against wigan when we came out for the second half with instructions to be more aggressive winning the ball back. we put in half a dozen really strong challenges and pressed them right up and down the field and immediately we took control. that's what we need to do and not this passive sitting back, maintaining shape philosophy that seems to dominate most of our play these days.

Originally Posted by borsuk

it's not true that the approach of our midfield hasn't changed a great deal. look at the game against wigan when we came out for the second half with instructions to be more aggressive winning the ball back. we put in half a dozen really strong challenges and pressed them right up and down the field and immediately we took control. that's what we need to do and not this passive sitting back, maintaining shape philosophy that seems to dominate most of our play these days.

I wonder if the way we set about the non-contact gameplan in the CL really is that different to how it used to be tbh. As I said earlier, supposedly better United midfields than this one have been exposed just as much going back through the seasons.

United found that keeping the ball and controlling the rhythm and tempo was the solution and between 07 and 11 in particular they became the benchmark for the CL along with Barcelona and teams began to find ways to combat them.

In United's case the solution has clearly been to break their rhythm by turning them round as quickly and as often as possible, and United have struggled to cope with the increased physical aspect - basically the concentration whilst running flat out as much as anything - of this return to helter-skelter end to end matches in Europe.

sequences of challenges like the start of the second half of the Wigan game are few and far between in CL matches, so I'm not sure it's the most relevant comparison, even if it is true.

not sure that kind of physical tackling is that unusual tbh - it was what galatasaray were doing last night quite successfully. that and diving around like @#%&!s whenever a red shirt came within touching distance. barca have built a lot of their success on harrying the opposition whenever the ball is lost, real did something similar against barca last season.

think the point is that Real used that approach against City, emptying midfield to chase the ball, and Yaya ripped through them 4 or 5 times and was straight onto their defence.

that's what used to happen to united in the ince/keane days and ferguson deliberately moved away from it in the wake of huge criticism about dinosaur tactics/shit technique blah blah blah

teams are getting wired into United now as a solution to our domination of the CL and we need to react to that. i definitely think the physical standard and attitude is improving between pot 1 and 2 and the rest anyway.

the giveaway to this group will be how United do in the other games anyway, and whether we can assert our superiority on those sides - whether we can earn the right to play.

United were again easily turned round last night at times, not least for the goal.

Mostly though that was less of a problem and there was a more solid shape. We could soak up what pressure there was fairly comfortably, although this was clunge ffs.

The biggest disappointment last night was that we should have been able to rip them apart at pace, but had zero counter-attack threat - no Nani, no Valencia, no Young and no-one to feed them even if they'd been there.

Both goals came from balls in from wide areas from the player nominally at the point of the diamond.

The ball for the 2nd goal was a beauty, but not nearly worth the sterile, flat, lifeless, joyless 93 minutes it was part of.

Time to let go of the orthodox winger idea folks.

Originally Posted by saffers

Time to let go of the orthodox winger idea folks.

they don't need to be orthodox

united need to have genuine pace and to make the pitch as wide as possible

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

they don't need to be orthodox

united need to have genuine pace and to make the pitch as wide as possible

I don't want that if it means the mediocre Valencia is dumbing football down for us on the right.

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

In Europe you can go right back to Athinaikos, Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray, Gothenburg and Rotor Volgograd to see this phenomenon. Fast forward to Leverkusen at Old Trafford, or AC Milan in 2005 and you see the same thing. And yet people get their knickers right in a twist about this current team like never before, as if somehow the traditional wing play United are famed for should just be jettisoned in favour of 4-5-1 (in whatever version you want to call it).

Maybe that's because we had moved on from that naive & hugely simplistic way of football in 2006 and then regressed back to a system which is proven agaisnt weak teams and proven to fail against well organised sides.

Seems to have coincided with queiroz leaving.

I hate 442, especially with a lightweight or immobile middle 2.

You seem to think that because it worked 18 years ago it should be fine now too.

Originally Posted by borsuk

it's not true that the approach of our midfield hasn't changed a great deal. look at the game against wigan when we came out for the second half with instructions to be more aggressive winning the ball back. we put in half a dozen really strong challenges and pressed them right up and down the field and immediately we took control. that's what we need to do and not this passive sitting back, maintaining shape philosophy that seems to dominate most of our play these days.

so the answer is to play better and with more energy? to avoid prioritising shape, the lack of which led us to lose at home to shitty spurs and really got us destroyed at home 6-1 last year by our closest rivals.

okey dokey.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy Dunlop

Maybe that's because we had moved on from that naive & hugely simplistic way of football in 2006 and then regressed back to a system which is proven agaisnt weak teams and proven to fail against well organised sides.

Seems to have coincided with queiroz leaving.

I hate 442, especially with a lightweight or immobile middle 2.

You seem to think that because it worked 18 years ago it should be fine now too.

not at all.

also it's incredibly naive and simplistic to dismiss successful tactics from the past.

there are only so many tactical adjustments that can be made before classic 4-4-2 once again becomes one of the best ways - the best way - to exploit new ideas.

and i didn't even mention that it had to classic 4-4-2 anyway.

i'd like us to play a system that gets the best out of the players we have. if we had a prime keane and a prime scholes then two wingers in a midfield four would be great. if we've got a 30+ y.o. carrick and the 2012 version of scholes then we should play something else.

calling all alternatives 4-5-1 is nonsense btw.

i think the midfield shape we've tried against newcastle and clunge is probably the way forward. there's space for valencia on the right of the diamond, nani or young as part of a front three, lots of alternatives tbh. it puts a lot of emphasis on the full backs to get forward, which is fine but demanding and we'll need to find the right combinations of buttner / evra / rafael / valencia / jones / smalling over the season.

ddg
rafael - rio - evans - buttner
fletcher
cleverley - anderson
kagawa
rvp - rooney

is probably our best 11 and formation atm. plenty of alternatives for each position and for resting/rotation.

last night it was interesting, in a boring-as-£#%&! kind of way, that we had leftie anderson on the right and rightie cleverley on the left. wonder what the reason for that was.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy Dunlop

so the answer is to play better and with more energy? to avoid prioritising shape, the lack of which led us to lose at home to shitty spurs and really got us destroyed at home 6-1 last year by our closest rivals.

okey dokey.

that's not what i said at all

even when we had keane and scholes at a some form of prime (2003? vs Madrid) we were still more often than not found out in europe.

The individual talent was there but leaving two in midfield with nothing really infront of them is just, proven to fail more than succeed. Now there are european managers in england, that issue iss showing up in domestic football too.

You cant' ask the players we have to be faster (scholes) or stronger (carrick) or fitter and more consistant (last night's 3). You can't ask rio to be faster either. They need something that is set up to get the most out of them.

it just has to be 3 in the middle.

Keane and Scholes as a two at any age struggled if they were against more than 2. People need to get away from this idea that the reason 2 players may struggle in the current United midfield is due to inherent lack of ability. Keane and Scholes wasn't that successful a central midfield partnership anyway for a start off. How often was it actually used and even when it was how often was it that simplistic? The midfield hub was part of a well drilled machine. The secret of United's success has always been pace - always. Be it in 4-4-2 (split wide or long) or in various versions of 4-5-1 pace is still the key. That pace has generally come from wide areas and most importantly of all it's been allied to making the pitch wide with an incredible work ethic across the whole team, together with successful combinations in all areas. These are all the things that need tweaking atm - each one of these points could be improved 3, 4 or 5% and the aggregate of that would take us back up to the level we need to be at. In the meantime it's a constant battle to control the tempo and then react to the opposition stepping it up on ball turnover. And it's a constant battle to get 4 fit defenders on the pitch.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy Dunlop

even when we had keane and scholes at a some form of prime (2003? vs Madrid) we were still more often than not found out in europe.

The individual talent was there but leaving two in midfield with nothing really infront of them is just, proven to fail more than succeed. Now there are european managers in england, that issue iss showing up in domestic football too.

You cant' ask the players we have to be faster (scholes) or stronger (carrick) or fitter and more consistant (last night's 3). You can't ask rio to be faster either. They need something that is set up to get the most out of them.

it just has to be 3 in the middle.

didn't read this before posting - agree generally and said so earlier in the thread...

to trick is going to be to get width from a solid base. people driving through from central midfield is not enough on its own - and is precisely what caught us out for Bale's goal on Saturday

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

Keane and Scholes as a two at any age struggled if they were against more than 2.

sometimes, yes, but not always. part of that was by choice - a more gung-ho approach leaving players ahead of the ball to allow for a fast counter - and part depended on the rest of the team - are there two out-and-out strikers like yorke and cole ahead, or somebody like rooney or kagawa who drops deeper? formation is one thing, instructions and tactics are something else.

as i said, i'd like us to play a formation that suits the players we have, emphasises their strengths and ameliorates their weaknesses. i don't think two central midfielders + two traditional wingers does that.

Originally Posted by borsuk

sometimes, yes, but not always. part of that was by choice - a more gung-ho approach leaving players ahead of the ball to allow for a fast counter - and part depended on the rest of the team - are there two out-and-out strikers like yorke and cole ahead, or somebody like rooney or kagawa who drops deeper? formation is one thing, instructions and tactics are something else.

as i said, i'd like us to play a formation that suits the players we have, emphasises their strengths and ameliorates their weaknesses. i don't think two central midfielders + two traditional wingers does that.

we haven't got two traditional wingers