No he said transition
ETH: "We want to be the best transition team in the world"
- Thread starter sullydnl
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Very good point, I said the exact same thing in the Lens match day thread yesterday, i.e we don't seem to have much control of the ball in midfield. But the game itself was really enjoyable and I had fun watching us play. It is also a risk as you say, particularly against the big teams and away from home where we simply have to have some control of the ball in midfield.
A lot of us were saying last season that we hoped and expected to see us being better in possession in season 2. And that to an extent he was working with the players he had which were bought under a counter attack mindset.
Casemiro isn't "loose" in possession. He isn't elite like Rodri or Busquets but he's very good. The problem is he doesn't have many passing options because he plays between defensive formation and offensive formation, which are two separate beings as neither of Mount / Bruno really help that much in the buildup / defensively. They do a lot of running but their starting position is so high it effectively leaves Case on his own.
Back to the topic. Being a "transition team" is fine as long as the opponent plays this game. What happens if they sit back and force us into possession / buildup game? I saw this yesterday in first half and it looked like Lens were the team playing quick transition football because we had no clue what to do with the ball and lost it many times in dangerous areas.
If a team sits back you are then are able to press further forward. We want teams to sit back, who wants teams attacking them?
We see it during Klopps reign at Anfield, the midfield didn’t have a creative spark between them but the bullied and harassed teams into not getting out and buried them in their own box
Well yeah, he just said, “Real Madrid fans”.
Folk who want us to build up patiently like City are probably never going to be happy.
Ten Hag is a pragmatic bloke. When he arrived at the club, our best attacking players were Bruno and Rashford. His best youth prospect was Garnacho. Therefore, his transfer targets are athletic and physical players like Mount and Hojlund.
I’d like us to be a little better in possession, and I understand the concerns about how sloppy we can be, but the make-up of our squad includes players who are up there with the best counter-attacking players in the game. It’s obvious that Ten Hag uses that to the team’s advantage.
Ten Hag is a pragmatic bloke. When he arrived at the club, our best attacking players were Bruno and Rashford. His best youth prospect was Garnacho. Therefore, his transfer targets are athletic and physical players like Mount and Hojlund.
I’d like us to be a little better in possession, and I understand the concerns about how sloppy we can be, but the make-up of our squad includes players who are up there with the best counter-attacking players in the game. It’s obvious that Ten Hag uses that to the team’s advantage.
Do you want control of the ball or control of the match, is the question.ETH wants us to control the game in and out of possession. He wants us to be able to punish the opponent regardless of the amount of possession we have.
I might be wrong but as I understand it the main difference is that in a counterattacking team your forward line is barely outside your box with maybe a CF near the middle. So you create attacks with your forwards in your own box and must wait for others to join, and break all their lines to attack.
In a transitional team would be at their half or by the middle line when not pressing and ready to run when recovering the ball. So a long ball could easily create direct attacks to the defensive line/keeper bypassing the midfielders.
I would have thought he would be more obsessed with us being able to control games and dominate teams, pinning them back. It was a big weakness for us last season and a common strength for teams that have challenged for the title in the past 5 years.
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Being a top transition team is a team dominating games
The reality is that the teams who have been challenging for the title have been excellent both in possession and in transition. It isn't an either/or or opposite sides of some spectrum, they're complementary strengths and you need to be good at both.
And being strong in transition helps you dominate teams and pin them back, as Liverpool found when they became the best transition team on the planet and (not coincidentally) their average possession increased season on season. We didn't think of them as a possession team but they were still averaging more possession than everyone in the league bar City.
All the quote tells us is that the main focus right now is maximising our ability in the transition aspects of the game. But that doesn't mean we don't also want to get stronger in possession, or that we won't even this season. It wouldn't be at all surprising if we dominated posssesion more this season than last, and more so again next season all going well.
It's been a weakness of the team for the last decade. United have never had a manager determined to control the games neither the player personnel to do so. I said from the start that the clubs transfer activity under ETH makes it hard to theorize what the plan for the team is, from Eriksen to Mount being a transition team in some sense is basically a counter attacking team without dropping back to defend but playing a higher line.
The moment the club prioritized Mount the presumed prerogative of being a possession team was infinitely lost. I don't see anything wrong with a team that intends to depend on transitions but when I look at the player personnel with Casemiro, Bruno and Mount that's not a midfield that will control the midfield in the slightest.
Yes City and Arsenal do play with a similar structure of two advanced 8s but their players have more Individual quality on the ball. Odegaard is far better at recycling possession than Bruno and there's no use comparing De Bryune, Rodri or Gundogan with any of our midfield for this phase of the game. Also we cannot compare it with Klopp either as the statistics show during their prime they were in the top percentile in the league for maintaining possession.
Essentially we will have to see how the team looks after a few games into the season. My biggest issue personally is not with the coaches intentions but rather the quality of the players to enhance that intention as others have highlighted it's hard to not see a reality where this teams midfield doesn't lack efficiency especially against teams that will sit back or press where the midfield is essential to play through the press.
No it isn’t
How is it not? It’s winning the ball back quickly with pressing and counter pressing. It’s basically quick turnovers. It’s Klopp Liverpool or the late 2000 EPL teams when playing home legs in the CL
What do you think it is?
So counter attack football
Those terms don't have some sort of industry standard definition that everybody subscribes to. As you see it in here, even the word transitional team creates multiple understandings. So bringing up another abstract term like "dominating" will not help the debate.
I also think you either put a few things weirdly or you misunderstood something: if a team sits back and you continue to press them, you create infinite amounts of room for them to run into. When they sit back, the distances get more close so controlling the ball becomes more difficult, but pressing gets more difficult too. From what we have seen in preseason, it doesn't indicate that we are trying to suffocate opposition with a high press. To me, it looks more like we have a little go at them early on and then we get back a little to invite them to the 2nd third where we really are trying to win the ball back PLUS when doing so, trying to release our fast attackers with space to run into.
Klopps midfield was consisting of workhorses - that is correct. But it had Robertson and TAA as chance creators in the team. With Robertson being a potent runner and dribbler and TAA a very good passer from deep. We won't be able to replicate that.
Good point. To me, I've seen it as an ever ongoing cycle. A teams becomes compact and hard to beat. It starts to develop capabilities of strong counter attacks and will jump up the table because it is difficult to score against them and easy to receive a counter. The longer this is ongoing, opposition will adapt and don't give opportunities to counter. It forces the team to increase capabilities on the ball, players who are better in possession are brought in. Oppo teams are sitting deeper and deeper to adapt until there comes a point, where the team itself gets overly vulnerable to counters itself.
Becoming very capable on the counter, with space to attack is a prerequisite of all great teams. Tiki Taka Barcelona killed you on the counter if it was on. The more interesting point is how "you" evolve from being good on the counter (something we have seen a few years ago under Ole) to a team that is capable with the ball in possession (the thing that Ole was able to achieve).
This sounds a little to direct in my ears. As I said, opposition teams will adapt to you, when you are good on transition, teams will sit back and allow you more time on the ball focussing on keeping it tight themselves. You are right though, Liverpool where up there possession wise even though they were known for a more transitional style.
This will be interesting indeed. To bring up another aspect, I wonder how much of this "want to be best transition team" is based on the fact, that the teams current best players, Rashford and Bruno are more or less designed for this style (critics might even say exclusively for this style...). I wonder, if going more transitional isn't more of a reaction than an actual action or decision of the manager. I just hope, that we will find a good way to be more consequential. What I noted last year, was that even though we had a big tendency to just release it into space for Rashford to run on to, especially Bruno (who is really good at it), we still weren't good in being somewhat compact through-out the team. And this was visible in this pre season again (at least I thought I've seen it). Defense and Attack are often too far apart, which then makes it nightmare for any midfielder to play there because they are too often on their own and outnumbered.
There is nothing wrong with trying to be more counter oriented, or transition based. But if this is what you are going for, adjust the start of your pressing line, adjust the line of defence and so on to make it a more functional setup all together. There will be a point where opposition will adapt and deny space, so be it. We could try to get goals via setpieces, we could add dribblers and try to get more pens, whatever. It isn't like it is either possession or transition. The issue for Ole was, that we never really had a working Plan B. If teams denied space, we were done. And this is a scenario, that is likely to appear again. Which in term is the main reason, why people think we have to improve other capabilities of the team.
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We want to be a possesion based team that can counter attack as soon as we lose the ball.
We will take risks with our passes - like Bruno to Garanacho yesterday because we can both attack whilst holding possesion & attack when counter attacking by having defenders that win the ball(Casemiro/Wan Bissaka/Varane) & players that can create with the ball on their feet (Onana, Martinez, Mount, Bruno £ Hojlund).
We will take risks with our passes - like Bruno to Garanacho yesterday because we can both attack whilst holding possesion & attack when counter attacking by having defenders that win the ball(Casemiro/Wan Bissaka/Varane) & players that can create with the ball on their feet (Onana, Martinez, Mount, Bruno £ Hojlund).
That would really be revolutionary. Running counter attacks without the ball would definitely shock our opponents.
We have seen 12 months of Ten Hag football where we have suffered losses against top sides away from home because of his mindset not to change how we play.
What makes you think he is suddenly going to play counter attack football when he buys a keeper that allows us to push further forward and Mount as another number 8 that plays closer to the opposition goal?
It’s not even that hard to visualise, it’s how we played from the third game last season up until near the World Cup break. The Spurs, Liverpool (first 60 odd minutes until we did sit back after the second goal) and even Chelsea away is a lower example of how Ten Hag wants to play.
It’s not counter attack football, it’s not circa 2007 we’re discussing here
To a small minded person yes
That's not particularly surprising. A lot of the players we have are better at transitional football. Especially the midfield. If we wanted to dominate possession, we'd need to replace the entire midfield. The best players on the team when he arrived were Bruno and Rashford. He's building the team to their strengths.
We're not going to try and copy City. It'll be more like Liverpool during their recent good spell.
We're not going to try and copy City. It'll be more like Liverpool during their recent good spell.
Pep uses transition all the time. Fifty percent of the goals in Man City is about the transition when they recover the ball,” he said. “It's about that. You have to use that.”
https://spacespacespaceletter.com/pep-in-transition/
https://spacespacespaceletter.com/pep-in-transition/
Why are people so triggered by the word counter-attack?
Personally I don't care if we play transitions, possession or counter attacking football, as long as we score goals, don't concede many, win games and trophies, that's all that really matters
Even under Fergie we were never a purely possession based team, probably his best trait as a manager, being able to adapt to different opponents and to the squads he had. Good to know that Ten Hag is flexible as well.
Counter attack isn't really an issue and can very effective with certain players.
Need to match the squad's strength with tactics on the pitch. Proof:
Need to match the squad's strength with tactics on the pitch. Proof:
We use to rip teams apart by counter attacking under fergie. Tevez-Rooney-Ronaldo was an insane front 3 for that.
And those were the best front three in the world capable of performing in any kind of playstyle. And yet Fergie chose counter attack.
And what led to this was that teams weren't able to perfectly set up for us because nobody knew how we would play on any given day. As somebody said, we have been capable on the counter, as every top team is (should be, without it, you can't really be a top team) but also were dangerous with the ball. The issue these days is, it doesn't look as if we would be too capable with the ball.
Has the feeling it's gonna be Leeds under Bielsa but better quality this year.
There's gonna be some high scoring games.
Unfortunately I could see us getting tonked 7-0 at Anfield again playing this way. It's exciting to think about but it's suicidal as a proper tactic surely?
There's gonna be some high scoring games.
Unfortunately I could see us getting tonked 7-0 at Anfield again playing this way. It's exciting to think about but it's suicidal as a proper tactic surely?
We were good at counters doesn't mean it was the hub of our play under Fergie. Our counter opportunities were in transition like getting the ball back after opponents' corner kicks. Far from having it be the playstyle. Even Pep's City were great at counterattacks before PL teams realized overcommitting led to humiliating scorelines. It doesn't however mean they are a defensive counter team. Controlling games and being good at counters were never opposites. I don't see ETH setting up to surrender possession to bottomhalf sides like Jose or even Ole.
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We overthink football way too much. At the end of the day we want entertaining football that wins us games, who cares how it happens?
As someone else said in another thread, that's far to sensible a comment for this forum!
The bookies have us in fourth? Who are second and third, just out of interest?
Last I checked it was City, Arsenal, Liverpool and us in that order. City heavy favourites over the rest, obviously.
Echo this sentiment. I’m happy as long as it is entertaining. Which entails scoring loads of goals, not conceding and importantly be comfortable with the ball and not treat it like hot potato. Don’t care for any other stats.