Louis van Gaal's tactics

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crossy1686 said:
What I was most impressed about regarding the win at Everton, we looked like the United under Fergie at times. It was a hybrid of LvG's keep possession, then Fergie's counter attacking football. Brilliant to watch and most definitely the best performance of the season so far.

Part of me wonders how much of a part Gigg's played in that performance, it just seems strange for LvG to abandon his tactics for something a little bit riskier. Either way, if we play like that more often, we're in with a very good shout of running whoever wins the league very close.
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Louis van Gaal in an interview said the best time to score is during the transition from defence to attack, it's his third phase of play, he's been training the team on it but he has himself admitted we need to improve that part of our game.

His style is to win the ball back and then hit a fast counter while the opposition are disorganised, this is the third phase of play. However when the opposition assume their defensive organisation then he reverts to the possession game to attempt to disorganise their defence. The problem is that during the counter, we have a very short window to execute, if one person slows things down then the opportunity has gone and that happens to us a lot.

The man built teams that played really good football for periods of their season, but we've only done this for a few games in his time here, he's been unsuccessful so far in getting us to do what he wants consistently but he is working towards it and it's what you describe. That fast counter is very important to him but if we hesitate and the opposition get organised defensively then it is no longer on, at this point he reverts to the patient game.

The counter doesn't just happen by the manager telling the players to do it, they have to train it because a little hesitation and the opposition are back in their defensive shape, it takes a lot of training and understanding between the players before it can be done consistently. Hopefully as the season progresses we improve our play in this phase of attack because it will look good but it also requires the opposition to come at us more so it won't always be possible.

Even when we don't get too many opportunities in a game to do it and so we play our patient possession game in the fourth phase of attack (when the opposition have their defensive shape) we need to do much better in disorganising them and creating chances, Louis van Gaal has already said this so hopefully we'll see improvements.
 
That is a really good review, when reading stuff like that I do sometimes wonder if pundits and us are reading too much into certain things. You know bad placed passes happen, mental lapses happen etc etc.

What I do agree on is that the game is becoming more tactical or at least with more analysis and more in depth we the viewer are gaining insights. I question if we'll ever see set plays being made (like happen today off set pieces and in general play) but with even more emphasis on open play. i.e Rooney shouts a number, players initiate a set play type drill. I think football does have more to do with opposition than some of the other sports that use this, Rugby / NFL etc. But you could work on, if the defender moves there we then go here etc etc.

I hope it doesnt and stays somewhere near where its been recently. Interesting tactical managers but with differing approaches and ways to win. Leaving players and space for individual creativity / skill to win games.
 
IwatUwat said:
That is a really good review, when reading stuff like that I do sometimes wonder if pundits and us are reading too much into certain things. You know bad placed passes happen, mental lapses happen etc etc.

What I do agree on is that the game is becoming more tactical or at least with more analysis and more in depth we the viewer are gaining insights. I question if we'll ever see set plays being made (like happen today off set pieces and in general play) but with even more emphasis on open play. i.e Rooney shouts a number, players initiate a set play type drill. I think football does have more to do with opposition than some of the other sports that use this, Rugby / NFL etc. But you could work on, if the defender moves there we then go here etc etc.

I hope it doesnt and stays somewhere near where its been recently. Interesting tactical managers but with differing approaches and ways to win. Leaving players and space for individual creativity / skill to win games.
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What do you mean by that?
 
That reminds me of that "insightful" Chicharito video few years explaining how he runs, etc. :lol:

Here you can see Rooney and Herrera pressing line. - Wow, they are actually pressing in line, well done for noticing that, it pays of watching the game three times.

In the next gif you can see Jagielka leaving gap and fouling Herrera. - That's what we experts call bad defending, I am sure you've learned a lot from my gifs.
 
JPRouve said:
What do you mean by that?
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I'm referencing the set up defensively. NFL for example players (as I understand it) get back into set positions this makes the ability to make ''plays'' easier. Same with Rugby chances are at the breakdown or a ruck or a scrum. You'll know where the opponents defenders will be, where in football the opponents do not always set up as static or pre-defined prior to you setting up an attack. In football yeah their defence should be roughly in a line at the back with a holding midfielder probably somewhere near the middle of the pitch goal side of your midfield. But with a continuously moving ball its a different beast, rather than stopping in a ruck or whatever to form an attack again. However no reason why a call of 99 cant mean fake to go down the right side but play it through to x player and then a midfield runner and a chipped ball over the top for example.
 
dasty said:
https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/3pe49r/a_closer_look_at_the_everton_game/

An extremely insightful article written on our playstyle vs Everton as well as Rooney's influence in game on reddit. It explains why LVG is still playing Rooney and how our pressing worked so well, as well as Schneiderlin's contribution to the game flow.
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Love reading analyses like those. It is interesting to know what we see but don't observe.

The tactics, once understood, immediately show limitations, though. For example, putting Schneiderlin under pressure, when he is offering a short option for Jones, immediately strains our defence and cuts off one mode of attack. Quick incisive playmakers like Silva or KDB can quickly turn our press into a counter-attack.
 
IwatUwat said:
I'm referencing the set up defensively. NFL for example players (as I understand it) get back into set positions this makes the ability to make ''plays'' easier. Same with Rugby chances are at the breakdown or a ruck or a scrum. You'll know where the opponents defenders will be, where in football the opponents do not always set up as static or pre-defined prior to you setting up an attack. In football yeah their defence should be roughly in a line at the back with a holding midfielder probably somewhere near the middle of the pitch goal side of your midfield. But with a continuously moving ball its a different beast, rather than stopping in a ruck or whatever to form an attack again. However no reason why a call of 99 cant mean fake to go down the right side but play it through to x player and then a midfield runner and a chipped ball over the top for example.
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In the NFL you don't necessarily know what the defense is doing, there is multiple schemes and a dozen of coverages. It's difficult to play a call in the NFL.
The reason why you can't do it in football is just due to the simple fact that there isn't static phases in the middle of the game, you don't have the time to call a play.
 
GapMinder said:
In his post-match interview LVG said the strategy was that "we dropped in a little bit to create space for ourselves".

Some questions about that:
- Do you expect that to be a more regular strategy or will it fully depend on the opponents?
- How well does this strategy fit Mata in his current position?
- Would Depay be better too with more space and would he deserve a chance?
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Yeah, that was striking for me, as was the tactics against Arsenal where he again alluded to trying to drop back a bit (though it didn't work at that time!). I would guess that LVG has now realised (with the help of Giggs perhaps) that the best way to win away in PL is adopt a mix of posession/counter attacking football, simply because teams are more willing to attack you at their home, and are good enough generally to stop teams scoring against them with everyone behind the ball.

My guess is that we would probably see similar tactics in away matches and continue our old style in home matches (where we have been quite successful to be fair). Our default away and big match strategy could also be to play Herrera at #10, like we did against Everton - which is very good. On the last point, I have sneaking feeling that Herrera started only because LVG wanted to rest Memphis and Blind, because they were not mentally ready after the dutch defeat. Hopefully though he would have learnt that playing only 2 midfielders against tough opponents is counter-productive to control, and that Herrera is quite good after all.
 
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