That, and decisions are a key part of coaching. The attack is so disorganized and players are constantly making the wrong decisions.
My feeling concerning Ten Haag and United attacking is that his systems don't actually work well in England. At Ajax he relied on two things, the quick transition attacks and overloading the flanks. The pace of the league was slower, the intensity was less, and Ajax had far superior players than any other team in the league. This meant that Ajax could camp out in the opposition half more regularly.
Their defenders, Blind, Martinez, Timber and Mazraoui were the players who actually were involved in the build up and progression phases as the team played mostly in the opposition half. As a result, the defenders positioning was fluid. They were constantly in different areas of the pitch and did not need to move back into their regularly positions as opposition teams didn't have the defensive or transitional qualities to take advantage of this chaos. This isn't like Pep having Stones step up into City's midfield or centre backs covering spaces on the left or right. This was almost suicidal. Timber would be in attacking midfield positions for a large share of minutes. There were games where Blind, the left back, would be the only defender actually in the back line. He could afford to play this way because it was the Eredivisie. The physicality and pace of the league was low enough that these actions could take place with little consequence. Ajax' midfield was also far more physical than any other team in the Eredivisie, so second chance disadvantages borne from gaps in midfield were recoverable.
He could also afford to push numbers up the pitch, particularly around the flanks when in possession. These patterns to break the opposition down on the flanks were complicated and required numbers. So you could have 4 players from Ajax on one flank, whilst still having a presence in the middle. That's a lot of bodies to commit to an attack and a priviledge that can hardly occur in England. City, even when attacking are not nearly as adventorous. Thieir structure around Rodri is sold and can facilitate those overloads on the pitch. Ten Haag's Ajax team did not have that structure. In England, these patterns would have been broken down quickly and created opportunities for transitions that could easily be exploited. In fact, both this season and last season, us trying to use those principles he had at Ajax resulted in us getting decimated. Yet everyone blamed our players when in actuality, these were tactical errors.
In fact, even in the Eredivisie, Ajax were punished quite frequently for this adventorous approach, but they scored enough goals to cover for this. Teams in England are far too good for that to occur. They would easily break up the complex combinations. They would also either quickly transition or keep possession of the ball (taking advantage of the space in the middle brought by the team shape). Losing the ball in the middle of the pitch with the fluid defensive line would result in us conceding goals ( similar to what we saw earlier in the season).
I actually think Ten Haag noticed that he would not be able to attack in this way in England due to how much we struggled with creating from wide combinations last season.. Which is why he started the season discussing about moving to a more transition based approach. This was essentially what helped him succeed in the Champions League in 2019. However, there were a few player profiles that he had then, that we currently don't have that allowed this to work. De Jong's transition play from midfield was very important and Ziyech was also having the best run of games in his life. Additionally they had Schone who was very energetic. However this transition game can't be used against teams like Luton, Everton or the like. In addition, we don't have a physical enough midfield to take that on or a strong enough defence to deal with the pressure since Shaw and Licha have been injured. So in games like today's, where we're expected to create chances, we're falling short because Ten Haag may not actually have a clear plan in attack. The complicated wide overloads that require too many steps to work successfully may require more bodies that we can't afford to use.
I'm starting to reach the conclusion that Dutch managers may not work in England for this very reason. The fluidity of total football may not work in this league.
