Metrics of change

[croadyman]

4 of the 5 signings were probably Ten Hag signings, but I imagine you're talking more about selling Bruno and Maguire and maybe Rashford go?

Maguire should go. Rashford I have no idea what the market is. I'd love him to get going here again but it's hard not to feel like Garnacho should get the non-Sancho LW minutes (and if Garnacho becomes a starter then Sancho can be the backup RW) if he's the player we hope.

Bruno is the biggest call. You'd think he'd want to move and also big teams would be after him, even with him losing the ball too much, but he seems to be happy here and nobody big seems to have gone hard after signing him. In theory you could see him being what Coutinho was to Klopp where they sold him for a ton and then bought players that suited the manager, so like us selling Bruno to say Newcastle for 80M and then spending 200M in the summer on quality players who fit what Ten Hag wants at the #8, RB, CB, and striker positions.

Yeah Maguire definitely needs to be shipped out despite the heavy loss on him. I don't like this constant lack of workrate from Rashford one little bit so he can move on as well.

I also think the Bruno comparison to Coutinho is very apt because had enough of this team carrying luxury players. He gives the ball away far too much and his constant on pitch moaning is tiresome.

 

[NoPace]

Yeah Maguire definitely needs to be shipped out despite the heavy loss on him. I don't like this constant lack of workrate from Rashford one little bit so he can move on as well.

I also think the Bruno comparison to Coutinho is very apt because had enough of this team carrying luxury players. He gives the ball away far too much and his constant on pitch moaning is tiresome.

The case for Bruno is that he has the end product and Ten Hag turned Berghuis into a solid 10 and Klassen did well for him and while those are both much less chaotic players than Bruno, it wouldn't be crazy for him to reinvent himself and pick his spots a lot better and still provide a lot of end product.

 

[croadyman]

The case for Bruno is that he has the end product and Ten Hag turned Berghuis into a solid 10 and Klassen did well for him and while those are both much less chaotic players than Bruno, it wouldn't be crazy for him to reinvent himself and pick his spots a lot better and still provide a lot of end product.

Has he got it to reinvent himself

 

[wolvored]

The trouble is we are a mish mash team. I know we got hammered, but finally the first 4 in defence seem decent enough. The problems lie with the rest of the team. If any of the 4 defenders get injured we are fecked again. De Gea cant play out from the back. There is no screen to help the defence. We have Casemiro now and must drop one of mctom Eriksen or Bruno. We have no speed on the LW. Sancho was a bad buy for the money spent and the jurys out with Antony on the right. Hes only just come, so needs this season. The attack is poor as well. Martial and Rashford dont exactly fill you with confidence that they will hit 20 goals together, never mind apiece. Ronaldo isnt the answer either. We need the youth to step up and another 4/5 players in over the next 2 windows.

 

[Arka_BleedingRed]

Yeah Maguire definitely needs to be shipped out despite the heavy loss on him. I don't like this constant lack of workrate from Rashford one little bit so he can move on as well.

I also think the Bruno comparison to Coutinho is very apt because had enough of this team carrying luxury players. He gives the ball away far too much and his constant on pitch moaning is tiresome.

You have made the right point, I think that Maguire, DDG, AWB, Scott/Fred and Bruno need to be moved on and we need suitable replacements for the 1st team. For a possession based team, the midfield and the defence including GK would need to be the priority to suit the manager's style, in order to create chances and utilize the possession in the best way. An attacker like Rashford can be used in such a setup, but if we keep playing Scott, Bruno together with Rashford in the same team, we can expect to see similar games.

Lovro Majer/Caqueret could be a great options for the midfield. We would also need a young CB to replace Maguire and challenge Varane,Martinez and an RB to challenge Dalot.

 

[croadyman]

You have made the right point, I think that Maguire, DDG, AWB, Scott/Fred and Bruno need to be moved on and we need suitable replacements for the 1st team. For a possession based team, the midfield and the defence including GK would need to be the priority to suit the manager's style, in order to create chances and utilize the possession in the best way. An attacker like Rashford can be used in such a setup, but if we keep playing Scott, Bruno together with Rashford in the same team, we can expect to see similar games.

Lovro Majer/Caqueret could be a great options for the midfield. We would also need a young CB to replace Maguire and challenge Varane,Martinez and an RB to challenge Dalot.

So what would be your priority positions for next summer in order then

 

[justsomebloke]

29% possession home vs Liverpool
52% possession away vs Southampton
46% possession away vs Leicester
39% possession home vs Arsenal
46% possession away vs City

46% against City isn't bad tbf.

So, that would implicitly contradict the OPs point about higher possession being a positive takeaway from the opening two. Beacuse it shows us having much less possession in the games we've won than in the games we've lost. In fact, it's very nearly the case that the less possession we've had, the better our overall performance has been.

 

[Cassidy]

Keeping a high possession is good if the team can do something with it. We do not have possession oriented players, rather, we have players much more suited to counter attacking football, who can hardly utilize the ball, use movement or passing effectively, they usually make some silly mistakes and loose possession cheaply. Case in point, Rashford, Scott, Bruno, AWB, Maguire etc.

Until we get more players suited to possession play to replace these players, I would assume ETH wouldn't much a fuss about possession, rather focus on winning.

Sancho Eriksen Antony Martial are posession players. So is Martinez and to an extent Dalot, Shaw and Malacia.

Rashford is a counter player and so is Bruno.

Bruno is the main problem at the moment along with McTominay and Eriksen not being that mobile (although it wouldn’t be an issue with the right midfield combination)

We are at the beginning of a transition lets see how it plays out

 

[Pogue Mahone]

So, that would implicitly contradict the OPs point about higher possession being a positive takeaway from the opening two. Beacuse it shows us having much less possession in the games we've won than in the games we've lost. In fact, it's very nearly the case that the less possession we've had, the better our overall performance has been.

I think a more positive way you can interpret that is in games where we've gone behind and had to try and get on top we've generally responded this season by getting a hold of the ball and trying to keep it. Trying to create a goal through possession football. Against Liverpool last season we took a hiding and still allowed them have 64% of the possession. When we lost 4-1 to City in March we only managed 30%. 46% possession from us reveals a very different overall pattern of play this season. If you're looking for data which might show a change in our approach under the new manager then that's something to be hopeful about.

 

[DWelbz19]

So, that would implicitly contradict the OPs point about higher possession being a positive takeaway from the opening two. Beacuse it shows us having much less possession in the games we've won than in the games we've lost. In fact, it's very nearly the case that the less possession we've had, the better our overall performance has been.

In all of our wins, we’ve played pretty back-foot counter attacking football. We aren’t controlling midfields, which is an issue (though I think that’s always going to be the case with a few players in there being starters). The hope is that ten Hag is simply just accommodating to what he has available to him.

 

[justsomebloke]

I think a more positive way you can interpret that is in games where we've gone behind and had to try and get on top we've generally responded this season by getting a hold of the ball and trying to keep it. Trying to create a goal through possession football. Against Liverpool last season we took a hiding and still allowed them have 64% of the possession. When we lost 4-1 to City in March we only managed 30%. 46% possession from us reveals a very different overall pattern of play this season. If you're looking for data which might show a change in our approach under the new manager then that's something to be hopeful about.

That's a really good point.

 

[Cascarino]

I think a more positive way you can interpret that is in games where we've gone behind and had to try and get on top we've generally responded this season by getting a hold of the ball and trying to keep it. Trying to create a goal through possession football

The Antony goal against City was an indication of this. Despite having been mauled up until that point, the goal came about from a patient adherence to the blueprint.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

The Antony goal against City was an indication of this. Despite having been mauled up until that point, the goal came about from a patient adherence to the blueprint.

Yeah, the vast majority of our goals have come from that same approach. Yet somehow because we nicked a couple of goals against Arsenal on the break (and every team scores counter-attacking goals when they have their nose in front) there's a false narrative growing on here that Ten Haag has been playing "Oleball" in big games.

 

[Rozay]

A few shots on target would be the most obvious metric. I can’t recall 5 saves made against us all season so far. We had Leicester completely helpless for long periods, but we seemed to be doing all we could to somehow draw the game 1-1 than win it 4 or 5 nil.

Sancho and Antony don’t have the ball often or quickly enough. It’s a feature when you watch City or Arsenal - but the likes of Saka, Martinelli, Foden and co seem to be attacking a full back almost every two minutes. We have regular halves of football where you forget Sancho is playing.

So yea, for me, creating some consistent chances would be the most obvious metric of improvement from where we are now. A lot if our situations have come from counter attacks, and I’m still scared to concede first against anyone because we don’t have a method of breaking anyone down. Individually perhaps, but not a collective method that guarantees us a good chance of scoring 2 or 3 goals in every game, which is what we need.

 

[Rozay]

Yeah, the vast majority of our goals have come from that same approach. Yet somehow because we nicked a couple of goals against Arsenal on the break (and every team scores counter-attacking goals when they have their nose in front) there's a false narrative growing on here that Ten Haag has been playing "Oleball" in big games.

That’s all well and good but we’re generally low-scoring anyway. So if teams score from counters in the process of scoring lots of goals, then fine, but as a percentage, ours looks a little higher than we’d probably want. Certainly prior to Sunday anyway, which was something of an anomaly given that our goals came from 4-0 down so very hard to gauge what type of match that is.

These counter attacking goals are even in home matches, and aside from them, it’s not as if we were really making the keeper work. Other than his 3 counter-attack goals - when else has Rashford looked close to scoring a goal? All season. And he’s started every game at centre forward for us.

 

[Foxbatt]

I have issues about DeGea not being able to play out from the back. Yes he doesn't have a long kick but he can pass it out.
The main problem starts after he passes it out. The defenders and midfield gets pressed and we lose out. We don't know how to by pass the press.
Against Ajax in the EL final we by passed their press by getting the ball to Fellaini, who murdered the Ajax midfield and press. We have no one in midfield who can hold the ball. We have no one up front who can hold the ball. Bruno is terrible in short passing and Rashford is worse than terrible in holding up the ball or passing. I personally think we will have to replace Bruno with a player who is better than him in these aspects.

 

[Cascarino]

when else has Rashford looked close to scoring a goal? All season. And he’s started every game at centre forward for us.

That's a part of the problem imo.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

That’s all well and good but we’re generally low-scoring anyway. So if teams score from counters in the process of scoring lots of goals, then fine, but as a percentage, ours looks a little higher than we’d probably want. Certainly prior to Sunday anyway, which was something of an anomaly given that our goals came from 4-0 down so very hard to gauge what type of match that is.

These counter attacking goals are even in home matches, and aside from them, it’s not as if we were really making the keeper work. Other than his 3 counter-attack goals - when else has Rashford looked close to scoring a goal? All season. And he’s started every game at centre forward for us.

Rashford’s been shite all season (despite the goals) and we’re desperately in need of a quality number nine. Which explains why we’re so blunt in attack. Just look at how much more potent we look whenever Martial has played instead of him (and he’s a player who we should also be looking to upgrade)

But our piss poor striker options are fairly irrelevant to our overall approach, which is where the % possession tells a story.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

That's a part of the problem imo.

Precisely.

 

[DSG]

Rashford’s been shite all season (despite the goals) and we’re desperately in need of a quality number nine. Which explains why we’re so blunt in attack. Just look at how much more potent we look whenever Martial has played instead of him (and he’s a player who we should also be looking to upgrade)

But our piss poor striker options are fairly irrelevant to our overall approach, which is where the % possession tells a story.

Looked pretty damn good today.

‘I have faith in Rashford. He’s better at LW and is borderline unplayable when he is confident. He does cause problems for the opposition. True, he is abysmal at holding up play is his best position is not striker, but he’s willing to run the channels and is great at getting in behind.

 

[Green Yellow Red]

Turning us into a possession-based side was always going to come with problems, and will take time, but unforgivable mistakes, so sloppy. Puts the weekend into perspective, we are doing all the damage to ourselves at the moment.

 

[andersj]

Lisandro.

 

[croadyman]

A few shots on target would be the most obvious metric. I can’t recall 5 saves made against us all season so far. We had Leicester completely helpless for long periods, but we seemed to be doing all we could to somehow draw the game 1-1 than win it 4 or 5 nil.

Sancho and Antony don’t have the ball often or quickly enough. It’s a feature when you watch City or Arsenal - but the likes of Saka, Martinelli, Foden and co seem to be attacking a full back almost every two minutes. We have regular halves of football where you forget Sancho is playing.

So yea, for me, creating some consistent chances would be the most obvious metric of improvement from where we are now. A lot if our situations have come from counter attacks, and I’m still scared to concede first against anyone because we don’t have a method of breaking anyone down. Individually perhaps, but not a collective method that guarantees us a good chance of scoring 2 or 3 goals in every game, which is what we need.

Yeah hard to have any optimism of us getting back in the game when we concede first goal, second goal feels like curtains with this team at the moment

 

[The Corinthian]

Man Utd Fixtures and Results (First 12 of 22/23 Season):
LLWWWWLWLWW - 12 games, 8 wins, 4 losses

Man Utd Fixtures and Results (Last 12 of 21/22 Season):
LWLDLWLLDWLL - 12 games, 3 wins, 2 draws, 7 losses

Great to see us going from pretty horrific form to some consistency.

Bear in mind, 1 of our losses came at home to Real Sociedad for a penalty that was anything but a penalty, and 1 of them came against a rampant Man City that have hit 15 goals at home in their last 3 games.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

I'll say one thing. If we fire sale a player like Bruno that can get 50 goal / assists a season for 30m and then sack ETH we better bring in a manager with the same philosophy. This is the root of all our issues

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Some good stuff here.


-Bruno Fernandes notched nine key passes – the final pass before a team-mate shoots at goal – against Spurs. That’s a record for one player in a Premier League game this season and as many as Antonio Conte’s men managed collectively.

– Fred registered six shots and five in the first half alone. The Brazilian midfielder managed six shots in total in his eight Premier League appearances this season before last night.

– Man of the match Bruno Fernandes covered 12.37km – the furthest distance of any United player on the pitch.

– United’s 14 shots from outside the box in the first half is the most of any first half since Opta began keeping records in 2003-04. Their 19 (first half) and 28 (total) shot tallies were the most by any side in any Premier League game this season.

– The score reflected United’s superiority. They registered over three times as many shots (28-9) and five times as many shots on target (10-2), which was reflected in 1.5xG to Tottenham’s 0.5xG.

– Lisandro Martinez had a 100% successful tackle rate, registering four tackles, the joint-most in the game alongside Casemiro and Luke Shaw. The Argentinian centre-back also wasn’t dribbled past once, made four clearances and one interception. He completed 44 of the 49 passes he attempted (90%).

– Ten Hag has now led the Red Devils to six wins from their last eight Premier League outings. Only Arsenal have picked up more points since United’s shock 4-0 defeat to Brentford in early August. Turnaround.

– United have won their last four matches against Tottenham. That’s their best winning streak against Spurs since Sir Alex Ferguson and Harry Redknapp were in charge (seven games, 2009-2010).

– Raphael Varane and Lisandro Martinez have seven wins and five clean sheets from the eight games they’ve started together.

– Having beaten Liverpool, Arsenal and now Tottenham, Ten Hag’s men have taken now taken nine points from four matches against fellow ‘big six’ opposition. They only managed 11 points from 10 matches against the rest of the big six in the entirety of last season.

 

[cyberman]

I know last season was shit but we’ve beaten all but City over the last 12 months. Our record v top 7/8 last year was pretty good so I don’t know what beating a lot of those sides again really proves. It’s all in the performances at this stage

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I know last season was shit but we’ve beaten all but City over the last 12 months. Our record v top 7/8 last year was pretty good so I don’t know what beating a lot of those sides again really proves. It’s all in the performances at this stage

See bottom of post immediately above yours.

 

[cyberman]

See bottom of post immediately above yours.

I dunno, all of our top 6 games so far have been identical bar Liverpool at home. I don’t think point return is that much of a point to make.
we have Chelsea next, I’d say we have a good chance of winning but would a draw shock anybody? If we do draw then its 4 out of 5 that mirrors last year

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I dunno, all of our top 6 games so far have been identical bar Liverpool at home. I don’t think point return is that much of a point to make.
we have Chelsea next, I’d say we have a good chance of winning but would a draw shock anybody? If we do draw then its 4 out of 5 that mirrors last year

I mean, it's only the exact same metric that's used to decide who wins the league?

 

[cyberman]

I mean, it's only the exact same metric that's used to decide who wins the league?

Not across a small sample size?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Not across a small sample size?

It's comparing 4 games with 10. That's almost a 50% sample size. Plenty big enough to give you a good idea about trends.

 

[bosnian_red]

I know last season was shit but we’ve beaten all but City over the last 12 months. Our record v top 7/8 last year was pretty good so I don’t know what beating a lot of those sides again really proves. It’s all in the performances at this stage

Pretty big the way these games panned out though. We fluked a low of those wins last year, this year we've actually put in great performances. And as you say, all in the performances, and how we're becoming more and more dominant despite tough fixtures. Great to see.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I was playing around with the Premier League Club Stats today and noticed a marked difference in this season versus our previous five so I thought I'd share here.

Here's a selection I thought was pretty telling as to the impact our newer players and ETH have had:

Season	Touches	Passes	Dispossessed
17/18	27,572 (6th)	20,064 (6th)	399 (14th)
18/19	26,476 (6th)	19,202 (6th)	424 (6th)
19/20	27,360 (5th)	20,059 (5th)	396 (6th)
20/21	28,040 (4th)	20,998 (4th)	360 (5th)
21/22	25,893 (6th)	19,035 (5th)	333 (13th)
22/23	6466 (10th)	4753 (9th)	73 (20th) <---- WUT?!?

At first, I was totally blown away by where we were on the dispossessed table. I guess I've gotten so used to our appalling recent history that I hadn't really noticed that we really don't lose the ball any more. Even when we do, we're typically much faster to recover and win it back. In fact, if you extrapolate out this number for the rest of the season, we're talking about an improvement of around ~30%! That is mad, especially given our recent run of games against the top clubs.

We also seem to be taking fewer touches and making fewer passes than usual. At first this surprised me as I felt we had more possession recently, but then I was thinking that we actually feel much faster and more fluid and we're doing more WITH our possession. Even when we play backwards, it seems to be to get it back up the pitch rapidly and we're not just hanging around knocking the ball around the back because we don't know what to do with it.

In fact, thinking as I'm typing, this is the first time since a Fergie team that I can remember us intentionally making decisions to play backwards to draw defensive teams out to create more space for ourselves. We're no longer passing around endlessly in front of a bus, we're actually getting back to being an intelligent attacking team again.

10 games does not a season make, but these numbers are very encouraging from a position of building foundations. Thoughts?

Quality post from one of the noobs. If this isn’t a positive metric of change I don’t know what is?!

 

[sullydnl]

Not sure what you can draw from these good or bad but they're interesting graphics I think.

 

[Adam-Utd]

Not sure what you can draw from these good or bad but they're interesting graphics I think.

Apparently our 'buildup' is dogshit which really doesn't make sense considering we've had great build up from defence passing through the lines. So not sure exactly what they're trying to say with that.

 

[Dion]

In a few games, including recently. But we have De Gea, have conceded a few goals playing out from the back, plus multiple games where we've played directly. It's going to show on the stats.

 

[sullydnl]

Apparently our 'buildup' is dogshit which really doesn't make sense considering we've had great build up from defence passing through the lines. So not sure exactly what they're trying to say with that.

Not sure.

Looking at how the guy who did the graphics has analysed build-up before, he seems to look at a mix of a) the percentage of possessions beginning in your own third that reach the opposition third, b) pass completion percentage outside the final third and c) the average length of the passes in those build up sequences.

From those perspectives it's worth noting that of the teams mentioned we've had the second lowest average possession, attempted the fewest passes per game and had the second highest percentage of long passes (30+ yards). I also wonder if we have a tendency to build from defence into midfield only to then play the ball back into defence again before we break into the opposition third.

At a guess I would think those must be the sort of factors that would drag that rating down. Plus you have to keep in mind that we've been better in recent games than we were earlier in the season, so those early games could be dragging us down somewhat.

 

[sullydnl]

On the plus side those stats also seem to suggest above average high press, above average transition defence and quite good set-piece defence.

Taking that on face value, those are probably areas we'd have described as weaknesses in recent years? We were certainly getting ripped apart in transitions a lot last year and I can't imagine our pressing was above average. So maybe those are signs of positive change.

 

[Dominos]

Apparently our 'buildup' is dogshit which really doesn't make sense considering we've had great build up from defence passing through the lines. So not sure exactly what they're trying to say with that.

Are these stats for all our league games? The issue is we've been a mishmash of styles, performance levels and personnel in the first 11 games. The way we played in the opening 2 games vs Brighton/Brentford is different to how we played against Liverpool/Arsenal and Southampton/Leicester, and finally they're all different to how we've played against Everton/Newcastle/Spurs/Chelsea.

It's too small a sample size at the minute because we've not really settled on who we are as a team yet. We've gone through several phases already, we didn't have all our signings in the opening couple of games and the players barely looked arsed, so those first 2 games were pretty much a write off but they still effect our stats. Then we switched to a defence-first approach to try grind out some ugly wins. And maybe since Everton/Newcastle/Spurs/Chelsea we've started to see a little bit of a ETH system with the possession numbers looking better, pressing looking better, playing from the back and through midfield much better.