Since systematisation took hold in the mid-60s, football has always been about space, but the orthodoxy has always been that it was about creating it for yourself and denying it to the opposition. But Ten Hag has disrupted all that. He’s through the looking-glass. What, he’s asked, if you give the opposition space? Elite-level players are used to being put under pressure, they’re used to being closed down, they’re used to opponents pressing. Space alarms them. It makes them uneasy. It makes them think too much.
Amid the cavernous vaults of United’s midfield, their fears and doubts echo unnervingly. And so they miss. They can’t handle it when it’s too easy for them. Forget positionism, relationism, counter-pressing and the rest: this is the future. Ten Hag has invented inverted pressing.
It’s not just Liverpool who have found United’s weird openness hard to deal with. In the past 14 games, United have conceded 308 shots. That’s 22 per game, and yet United have lost only three of those matches. A rough rule of thumb over football history is that nine shots equal a goal: United in effect are giving away almost 2.5 goals per game, and yet in those 14 games they’re leaking an average of just 1.71.
And
The referee Anthony Taylor made as many interceptions in the game (two) as United’s central midfield trio between them.