Tactical Analysis: Effort and skill are nothing without chemistry
· Yahoo Sports
Over the summer, someone created a dumb internet game titled “82-0.” The game went viral for its simplicity and addictiveness. You had to pick five NBA players from a randomly drawn team and decade with the goal of putting together a team that could go 82-0 in a simulated season. You have to make sure you were building a well rounded team. You couldn’t just pick the five highest scorers, you had to factor in having enough rebounding in the team, do I have guys that will pass the ball around? Only the most well-balanced teams could go 82-0.
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Naturally, it immediately spawned a bunch of spin-offs, including Centurions from the new Futi app. You were given a Premier League team and season, and you had to pick a team that was capable of winning 100 points in a season.
It was the same concept but Centurions added a cool feature in the form of chemistry bars. While you were building your team if you selected a fullback whose profile fit well with say the central midfielder you already had, a green line would appear between the two. If a players profile was not compatible with someone you had already selected, an orange or red line would appear depending on how not compatible the players were.
Manchester United opened up their Premier League campaign on Saturday with a 2-0 loss to newly promoted Hull City. The result was, shocking, to say the least. Hull were one of the worst teams in the Championship last year based on expected goal difference. They somehow made the playoffs and somehow came through. They are widely expected to be one of the worst teams in the league this year and go straight back down. Meanwhile United won 12 of 17 games under Michael Carrick last year. Their midfield signings looked very good and the attack was buzzing. They should have steamrolled Hull.
It was also not so shocking. You never want to play away to a newly promoted side on the first week of the season. It’s a very charged atmosphere against a very fired up team. Four of the last five seasons have seen newly promoted clubs take points at home off of established Premier League sides on the first week of the season. Five of the six teams won their games outright. The 2020-21 season didn’t have fans while in 2019-20 season Norwich and Sheffield United each won their first home game. It’s a tough spot. For the second year in a row both the newly promoted sides that played at home won.
More important than a statistical trend was the starting XI that United put on the pitch. Had you entered United’s starting XI vs Hull into the Centurions game, you would have had red lines all over the pitch. The profiles and the chemistry of the players selected, none of it meshed together.
Let’s dive deeper into that starting on the left wing with Patrick Dorgu.
Dorgu is a left winger rather than a left back because he’s a very limited player. What he does do well, he does very well and tends to have a big impact. Dorgu is a player you want making runs into the box. You want him getting on of sequences where he can shoot the ball with either his first or second touch.
You don’t want Dorgu getting on the ball in many other scenarios. He’s not a very creative player or a good passer. He’s not particularly good with the ball at his feet.
Over on the right was Bryan Mbeumo. Mbeumo isn’t really a wide player. He’s not very creative, and while he’s blessed with great pace, he’s not particularly great with taking on his man or, crucially, beating his man. He’s at his best when he’s getting to the middle. While he played most his career at Brentford on the right wing (or even as a wingback) he also spent a lot of time playing in a front two. Last season Carrick immediately deployed down the middle, where he quickly found form. He scored three goals in preseason playing as a striker.
When Mbeumo plays out wide you want him making runs from out wide towards the middle of the pitch. He was at his best at Brentford when he got more central and was able to ping passes off of Yoanne Wissa to get into space and run at defenders. The best way to create that space for Mbeumo is to have your striker play as a false-9.
The false-9 is one of the most misunderstood things in football. A false-9 is not a description of a player who isn’t traditionally viewed as a striker being deployed as a striker. False-9 is a role that the striker plays where, rather than staying on the last line of defense, he drops into midfield, forcing the center back to decide whether to go with him or keep his position. If the center back doesn’t follow, you now have an overload in midfield. If he does, then a winger can look to attack the space the center back vacated. (Harry Kane, who is very much a no. 9, plays as a “false-9” all the time).
Amad’s goal, called back due to a narrow offside, in January’s derby is a great example of what it’s supposed to look like, with the striker dropping deep, and the winger quickly attacking that central space.
Mbeumo plays this role very well, but with him being deployed on the right, someone else needed to play down the middle. Enter Matheus Cunha.
Cunha is a bit of a maverick. He’s a fantastic footballer but he doesn’t really have a position. He’s good in most areas but wherever it’s never really a perfect fit. He’s not a winger, he likes to play centrally or in the half spaces. He’s not a striker though either. He doesn’t like to get in the box or use his head. He’s not going to win the physical battles and he doesn’t make a lot of runs in behind. He’s not the passer or shot creator you would want from a no. 10 either.
Cunha is someone who likes to drop deep to collect the ball, turn, and carry it up the pitch. That was his MO at Wolves where he could ping balls off of striker Jørgen Strand Larsen. Given Cunha likes to drop deep, in theory he’d be pretty good at playing as a false-9.
Unfortunately in practice it didn’t work like that. Cunha spent the first half against Hull dropping deep but too deep. Like central midfield deep.
This completely defeats the purpose of playing as a false-9. In order to be a false-9 you need to somewhat be in the center forward position. Then you drop off the last line you’re forcing the center back to make a decision about what he’s going to do. If you never establish yourself as a center forward, and just drop all the way into midfield, the decision is easy, the center backs just let you go.
When Cunha drops deep, his teammates are looking to fill the vacated space. The problem is Cunha is dropping so deep, no spaces are being vacated by Hull.
This has a knock on effect to the entire team. Suddenly Bruno Fernandes is now playing on the last line. He’s essentially been turned into a standard no. 9. To make matters worse he’s completely isolated up top against two center backs.
Bruno was the most creative player in the league last season. He is the lynchpin United are built around. Bruno had just 42 touches in the first half as United struggled to get him involved. That accounted for just 9.7 percent of United’s first half touches (he averaged just over 11.5 percent under Carrick last year).
With the centerbacks holding their positions, there was no space for Dorgu to run into. In order to get the ball he now had to come shorter and have the ball be played into his feet. That’s not his strength.
On the other side was Mbeumo. With no vacated space to attack he spent most of the match pinned to the right touchline, far away from where he could be effective. This was made worse by the selection of Noussair Mazraoui at right back.
This summer The Busby Babe outlined the shortcomings of Mazraoui. Mazraoui typically plays very narrow, forcing the winger on his side to stay on the touchline and hold the width. He doesn’t make overlapping runs and the runs he does make tend to get in the way of his wingers.
This often results in the winger on Mazraoui’s side of the pitch being isolated and it becomes very difficult for them to make an impact going forward. The map of where Mbeumo received each pass illustrates how wide he was forced to play.
While Mazraoui would take up the narrower positions.
Mbeumo struggles to take on and beat his man out on the wing. He needs an overlapping fullback to help ask questions of the defenders. But Mazraoui would often put him in a bad position, then fail to make a run to support him, leaving Mbeumo no options ahead of him.
Here, rather than making a run towards the byline, Mazraoui drops closer to Mbeumo to receive a pass. It’s a move that does nothing. Where the fullback should be supporting the winger he isn’t, and to emphasize how inept and disjointed it all is, the person who is forced to whip a cross in is Harry Maguire!
Perhaps no screen grab encapsulates all this better than this one.
Mbeumo has the ball out wide. Mazraoui has made a narrow run that does nothing, forcing Mbeumo to go up against two Hull City defenders. In the middle of the box is Bruno, surrounded by three Hull City defenders. Cunha, United’s striker, is hanging out well outside the box.
United’s starting XI did not take into account chemistry between players. Cunha’s inability to play as a false-9 completely neutralized Dorgu and Mbeumo on the wings. Everyone’s job became more difficult as they were all put in a situation that neutralized their talent and asked them to do things they are not particularly good at. They were all isolated and all forced to play as individuals.
This is as bad of a coaching decision as you can make. The job of a coach is to do pretty much exactly the opposite of this. Hide your players weaknesses and put him in a position where they could play to their strengths. It’s odd that Carrick got it so wrong because the biggest reason United were so good under him last year is that he just used the squad so much better. He understood players’ strengths and limitations and constantly put them in the right spots.
It’s probably unfair to lay all the blame at Carrick’s feet here because his hands were tied a bit by the circumstances. Based on the preseason, and last season, it’s fair to say Carrick originally planned on starting Mbeumo as his striker with Amad on the right wing, and then either Cunha or Dorgu on the left. Sometime between United’s last preseason match against AC Milan and Saturday, Amad picked up an injury. With Mason Mount also injured, Carrick’s options on the right were Mbeumo or academy graduate Shea Lacey, who’s never made a Premier League start.
Carrick opted to move Mbeumo out wide, leaving an opening in the middle. Benjamin Sesko had not played a single minute all preseason. He wasn’t fit to start. Cunha slotted in.
That left the left wing. In theory, Carrick could have started Marcus Rashford but we all know it’s not that simple. There are a lot of other things at play when it comes to Rashford, and it would have been a very big call to start him instead of Dorgu. There could also be other ramifications behind that decision. Rashford only played 30 minutes this preseason, while Dorgu was there from the jump – and played well. To let Rashford just walk back into the squad could send a message that preseason really doesn’t mean anything. Maybe that’s true, but it’s not the message a coach wants to send out.
This is another example of all the things a football manager needs to balance. Picking the starting XI isn’t always as simple as picking the 11 best players. Had this scenario of Amad getting injured) while Sesko isn’t ready to start) happened four weeks from now, Rashford would have started the game without any fuss. But because this was the first game of the season with so much (outside) noise surrounding the player, it was never really an option. It wasn’t the best starting XI, but given where many of the team’s World Cup players are in their preseason preparations, there wasn’t really another choice? (Other than the perplexing right back selection).
A week ago United looked like they were in a pretty good spot in regards to their forwards. Suddenly, one injury has thrown that into question, maybe not because of the particular player, but because of how all the other moving pieces affect one another.
There are lessons to be learned from this match. It’s another game where the opponent going three at the back has caused United issues. There’s now a big warning sign that United better figure out how to defend set pieces. The coaches need to get to work on finding a fix for that going forward. But figuring it out isn’t going to matter if they don’t put out a team with players who complement one another and allow each other to play to their strengths.