Our lack of creativity in the attacking third...

Our offense is at least as bad as the defence, dont care that we have the likes of Rooney, RVP, Falcao, Mata there, but there are hardly threatening, creating chances, putting in some shots. We are creating close to nothing. Last season, Januzaj could single handedly create more than they did today or vs Southampton, it's really shocking. Once di Maria comes back it will improve, also if Herrera gets a starting place.
 
Getsme said:
I know some will mention Di Maria missing but it shouldn’t be an issue, look at the attacking players we have, Rooney, Mata, Herrera, Januzaj, RVP, Falcao, Wilson, we should be creating a hell of a lot more chances than we are. Something’s not working up front and LVG has to either sort it fast or drop a big name player for the good of the team.
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That'd be a weak excuse. No other team has Di Maria yet still don't serve up stats like that.
 
Teams just don't bother pressurising our 3 defenders (who cannot pass at all) and mark our midfielders stopping the supply to the suppliers.

This is where you need an Xavi, Pirlo, or Scholes to control the game. Carrick can do it but doesn't take control in every match and I don't think Rooney or Mata are the type so we can't expect it from him on his own. I'd be interested to see a back 4 and then Blind & Carrick in midfield, this would then at least shift some balance allowing for some control and stability so we could let our 4 attackers loose (though it would cause other issues in pace without ADM and if our RB/LB didn't push up).
 
Getsme said:
I know some will mention Di Maria missing but it shouldn’t be an issue, look at the attacking players we have, Rooney, Mata, Herrera, Januzaj, RVP, Falcao, Wilson, we should be creating a hell of a lot more chances than we are. Something’s not working up front and LVG has to either sort it fast or drop a big name player for the good of the team.
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persevere until it clicks seems to be LVGs only approach....3-5-2...RVP form...
 
The obsession of having RvP, Falcao and Rooney all in the side. Rooney even being played in midfield to make sure he plays. Once we have the choice of Di Maria, Herrera, Blind, Carrick, Fellaini etc, maybe he will move Wayne back to where he plays best as a forward.
 
ZIDANE said:
Teams just don't bother pressurising our 3 defenders (who cannot pass at all) and mark our midfielders stopping the supply to the suppliers.

This is where you need an Xavi, Pirlo, or Scholes to control the game. Carrick can do it but doesn't take control in every match and I don't think Rooney or Mata are the type so we can't expect it from him on his own. I'd be interested to see a back 4 and then Blind & Carrick in midfield, this would then at least shift some balance allowing for some control and stability so we could let our 4 attackers loose (though it would cause other issues in pace without ADM and if our RB/LB didn't push up).
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Cahill and Terry are no more adept at passing out than our defenders on the books! People think Hummels is some kind of Pirlo who will pass out like a god make me laugh as well.
 
Sammyjunn said:
Our offense is at least as bad as the defence, dont care that we have the likes of Rooney, RVP, Falcao, Mata there, but there are hardly threatening, creating chances, putting in some shots. We are creating close to nothing. Last season, Januzaj could single handedly create more than they did today or vs Southampton, it's really shocking. Once di Maria comes back it will improve, also if Herrera gets a starting place.
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It didn't when he came on against Villa... Hopefully it will improve when he re-finds match fitness and some form, but I think we'll be disappointed if we assume di Maria is going to come back and solve all our problems. We simply struggle to break down packed defences. The way to beat us seems to be sit back and soak up pressure and catch us on the break.
 
Sied said:
It didn't when he came on against Villa... Hopefully it will improve when he re-finds match fitness and some form, but I think we'll be disappointed if we assume di Maria is going to come back and solve all our problems. We simply struggle to break down packed defences. The way to beat us seems to be sit back and soak up pressure and catch us on the break.
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He wasn't playing ADM where he played him earlier in the season, when he was on fire. Now is it a niggling injury that affected his form or the damn formation? If it is the formation, he might make sod all difference.
 
Sied said:
It didn't when he came on against Villa... Hopefully it will improve when he re-finds match fitness and some form, but I think we'll be disappointed if we assume di Maria is going to come back and solve all our problems.
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Not to that extent surely, and he hasnt been in his best form for the past couple of months, but it's still miles better than the slow/no penetration football whats going up, up there. He adds pace, ability to pass a defender, and is creative, he also withdraws midfielder who'd like to sit back in defence. But if he plays like vs City or Villa, it will probably still not be solved.
 
We were a midtable team when it came to created chances last season and we are this year too. If we didn't have players to score on the few chances we actually get we would be in serious trouble.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
The obsession of having RvP, Falcao and Rooney all in the side. Rooney even being played in midfield to make sure he plays. Once we have the choice of Di Maria, Herrera, Blind, Carrick, Fellaini etc, maybe he will move Wayne back to where he plays best as a forward.
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Carved in stone truth. RvP and Falcao just aren't working together at all.
 
RedorDead21 said:
Cahill and Terry are no more adept at passing out than our defenders on the books! People think Hummels is some kind of Pirlo who will pass out like a god make me laugh as well.
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They aren't but then they aren't playing in the same style are they? They have Matic sat there and Fabregas to start/join attacks with width & pace infront of them. We have 3 at the back (an extra) so we can play 2 strikers up front with our width coming from wingbacks but this means in that system the guy at the back has to be able to distribute as right now opponents are sitting on our midfielders and wingbacks. A 4-4-2 or even the 4-2-3-1 would provide a different approach. No doubt it is why Bayern have had Lahm and Alonso sat in there as they experimented with their systems.
 
ZIDANE said:
They aren't but then they aren't playing in the same style are they? They have Matic sat there and Fabregas to start/join attacks with width & pace infront of them. We have 3 at the back (an extra) so we can play 2 strikers up front with our width coming from wingbacks but this means in that system the guy at the back has to be able to distribute as right now opponents are sitting on our midfielders and wingbacks. A 4-4-2 or even the 4-2-3-1 would provide a different approach. No doubt it is why Bayern have had Lahm and Alonso sat in there as they experimented with their systems.
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We have Carrick in there, we could have Herrera next to him so pretty much the same as Matic/Fabregas, the latter we decided not to sign when available! Either way its all irrelevant words really and all our own doing....i.e. LVGs doing.
 
The formation I really do not like - more so with our players injured as we have even less suitable players for a 3-5-2 available. Against Spurs we created good chances in the first 45, but that's as good as the 3-5-2 has been imo - excl preseason.

But the biggest contributor is our playing personel - fitting all 3 of the big forwards into the starting lineup is killing our creativity and it kills any sort of pace/unpredictability we have.

AdM, Herrera/Fellaini (more Ander) back should help.....& a 4-4-2 please.

Maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me, but I think we looked our most fluid best in a 4-4-2 diamond with Blind/Herrera/Mata/AdM.
 
RedorDead21 said:
Rooney and RVP as a pair was probably the worst combining pair in PL history.
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Then we have created the problem, RvP was a whim signing of SAF that won him the league. Falcao has been signed on loan with no thought to if he fits our team. He has put all his faith in James Wilson when maybe he isn't ready yet. It might be he has to think about the forward position as well and what he actually wants from them.
 
I think playing two strikers and a CAM behind them is really holding your team down.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
He wasn't playing ADM where he played him earlier in the season, when he was on fire. Now is it a niggling injury that affected his form or the damn formation? If it is the formation, he might make sod all difference.
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I agree, we need to go back to 4-3-3 as soon as possible. If that means dropping a 'name' player then so be it.
 
Ish84045 said:
The formation I really do not like - more so with our players injured as we have even less suitable players for a 3-5-2 available. Against Spurs we created good chances in the first 45, but that's as good as the 3-5-2 has been imo - excl preseason.

But the biggest contributor is our playing personel - fitting all 3 of the big forwards into the starting lineup is killing our creativity and it kills any sort of pace/unpredictability we have.

AdM, Herrera/Fellaini (more Ander) back should help.....& a 4-4-2 please.

Maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me, but I think we looked our most fluid best in a 4-4-2 diamond with Blind/Herrera/Mata/AdM.
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We certainly looked our best going forward, but I think people are starting to forget how easily we were carved open at times with it. We're more solid with the 352, which is saying something...

That said, we had a lot of defensive injuries at the time so perhaps the diamond will work with our first choice back 4.
 
RedorDead21 said:
Unfortunately results wise its impossible to argue against 3-5-2......
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Results have been good I agree, but we have also been very lucky at times and it’s fair to say at other times we have been unlucky, but overall we are in a better position in the league than we really should be.
To get the best out of the 3-5-3 formation we would need to bring in another 4 or 5 players, unfortunately that would mean a year wasted in terms of developing the team.
 
Sied said:
We certainly looked our best going forward, but I think people are starting to forget how easily we were carved open at times with it. We're more solid with the 352, which is saying something...

That said, we had a lot of defensive injuries at the time so perhaps the diamond will work with our first choice back 4.
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Agreed. But I'd hope having a fit 2 of Smalling/Jones/Rojo to play CB with either of Carrick/Blind protecting them might be a bit better.

Partnerships and consistency will improve our defensive shape. But in all honesty, I'd rather take an entertaining 3-3 then the dull shit we've served up often. We're not creating nearly enough chances.
 
Sied said:
We certainly looked our best going forward, but I think people are starting to forget how easily we were carved open at times with it. We're more solid with the 352, which is saying something...

That said, we had a lot of defensive injuries at the time so perhaps the diamond will work with our first choice back 4.
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To be fair we still look crap at the back and if referees did their job properly and strikers had their shooting boots on we wouldn't have got those results. The 352 might be getting more credit for the results than it deserves.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
To be fair we still look crap at the back and if referees did their job properly and strikers had their shooting boots on we wouldn't have got those results. The 352 might be getting more credit for the results than it deserves.
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If he insists on changing formation over playing makeshift full backs in a back 4 then we really should be buying another 7-8 defenders to add to the 7/8 already on our books.
 
If you want something special up front, you buy Harry Kane. The man is shredding Chelsea's back line to confetti.
 
RedorDead21 said:
If he insists on changing formation over playing makeshift full backs in a back 4 then we really should be buying another 7-8 defenders to add to the 7/8 already on our books.
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The not having proper RB/LB cover is seriously biting us on the backside. If we had them we wouldn't have had to change formation. The fact we failed to qualify for any sort of european football has been a nuisance as it means we are carrying a smaller squad. If we had qualified we would have needed two top quality teams. I was distracted then by Harry Kane scoring again. Sign him up LvG.
 
Ish84045 said:
The formation I really do not like - more so with our players injured as we have even less suitable players for a 3-5-2 available. Against Spurs we created good chances in the first 45, but that's as good as the 3-5-2 has been imo - excl preseason.

But the biggest contributor is our playing personel - fitting all 3 of the big forwards into the starting lineup is killing our creativity and it kills any sort of pace/unpredictability we have.

AdM, Herrera/Fellaini (more Ander) back should help.....& a 4-4-2 please.

Maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me, but I think we looked our most fluid best in a 4-4-2 diamond with Blind/Herrera/Mata/AdM.
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I'm in agreement with you there, we played our best football when we used the diamond. We might have been easy to open up but we were creating plenty of chances but our strikers were either injured or horribly out of form so games that shouldn't have been close became so because of our inability to kill off matches. Defensively our shift to a 3-5-2 hasn't changed much because we are still conceding too many chances to justify negating our attacking threat.
Playing Rooney,RVP, Falcao and Mata in the same team should never have been attempted let alone persisted with. We need more pace in the attack to get the best out of Mata/Rooney and we shouldn't play Van Persie and Falcao in the same line up. I'm afraid the solution to our pace issue is not at Old Trafford so we need to sign a player in that ilk.
 
itso 7 said:
I'm in agreement with you there, we played our best football when we used the diamond. We might have been easy to open up but we were creating plenty of chances but our strikers were either injured or horribly out of form so games that shouldn't have been close became so because of our inability to kill off matches. Defensively our shift to a 3-5-2 hasn't changed much because we are still conceding too many chances to justify negating our attacking threat.
Playing Rooney,RVP, Falcao and Mata in the same team should never have been attempted let alone persisted with. We need more pace in the attack to get the best out of Mata/Rooney and we shouldn't play Van Persie and Falcao in the same line up. I'm afraid the solution to our pace issue is not at Old Trafford so we need to sign a player in that ilk.
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Sounds about correct. We need some more pace/creativity to compliment AdM and the rest of the attackers.

If we look at all the top teams in the world....one thing they all have in common is pace up front or on the wings.
Madrid, Barca, Bayern, Chelsea, City, PSG. Juve is probably the only team with limited pace - but they struggle against Europes elite.
 
gaucho_10 said:
I think playing two strikers and a CAM behind them is really holding your team down.
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Exactly. What we need is more players with "midfielder" brain (Herrera, Blind) and Di Maria to drive with the ball through opposition midfield. Carrick alone is not enough.

Mata and Rooney are no playmakers, they usually will look for a forward pass but if there is no option available for a killer pass, they will do the simple pass backwards or sideways. Currently we don't have those players available so I'm not that bothered, van Gaal is playing his cards really.
 
The 3-5-2 requires a central defender to push up to add numbers going forward and disrupt the opposing team's shape. This allows the attacking players to be freed up and become dangerous, and this allows the strikers to be given a supply. However, we are doing two things wrong that are preventing us from creating many chances:
  1. Our central defenders don't really push up, leaving us with 4 at the back, 6 pushed up, and no one in between to link the two together. In order to create this link between the defensive and attacking unit, one of the four need to push up by either carrying the ball forward or playing it forward into the feet of the attacking players. We've started doing this in our recent matches, but we do it quite slowly and, as a result, often enough, the opposition are settled enough to shut us down. If we play with pace whilst going forward, we get good attacking spells like we would with a diamond formation (think of our performances at home with the 3-5-2 and Spurs in the first half).

    You see Jones do a good job going forward and disrupting the opposition, and I like that, but Evans is quite slow and negative, always looking to release the ball quickly rather than carry it forward. He seems like he's not suited to a back 3 at all even though his style of play suits that system. Ironic, isn't it? We badly miss Rojo at the moment who isn't defensively worse than Evans but understands how to play in a back 3 better than Evans does.

  2. Whenever the ball goes out wide, the players frequently tend to drift into the box hoping for a good delivery from the wing back. That is absolutely stupid from our players. In such a system, you cannot leave your wing backs isolated. The wide areas need to be outnumbered in order to create havoc for the opposition, yet our players don't get this! This is a fundamental part of van Gaal's philosophy, yet our players seem to ignore this! Whenever a wing back receives the ball, the central midfielder and wide central defender at the same side need to support the wing back in order to cause problems and be better at creating chances. However, we've rarely done this. As a result, we struggle to create good chances overall and are overly reliant on the wing backs to put in good deliveries or create space on their own. This current approach would work if we had a back 4 with full backs supporting our wide players, but we don't.
The two problems outlined above are the reason why we struggle to create good chances in a 3-5-2 in several matches. Yes, we have good spells, but that's only when we are doing the right things or when our wing backs are performing very well. Otherwise, I think we're better off shaping up with a diamond as we at least have someone from the back 3 pushed up with players supporting each other better than they do in a 3-5-2.
 
Sunny Jim said:
Lets give him a seaon or two before we start wanking. Remeber Michu??
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A man must be allowed his wank!

Seriously, Kane is a young England player, not a journeyman Spaniard. Big difference right there. I'm not saying Kane is the next Sheaerer, but if he can tear up the league's top back line he's one to keep very close tabs on.

Besides, I hope no one here expects us to sign both RvP and Falcao to new long term contracts at the end of this season. Ain't gonna happen. It's going to be one or the other and they both know that, which is why we see no link up play between the two. Wilson is still a teenager and Henriquez is a maybe in Louis's plans, at best.
 
Gannicus said:
A man must be allowed his wank!

Seriously, Kane is a young England player, not a journeyman Spaniard. Big difference right there. I'm not saying Kane is the next Sheaerer, but if he can tear up the league's top back line he's one to keep very close tabs on.

Besides, I hope no one here expects us to sign both RvP and Falcao to new long term contracts at the end of this season. Ain't gonna happen. It's going to be one or the other and they both know that, which is why we see no link up play between the two. Wilson is still a teenager and Henriquez is a maybe in Louis's plans, at best.
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Aren't you a fine detective ?
 
Gannicus said:
A man must be allowed his wank!

Seriously, Kane is a young England player, not a journeyman Spaniard. Big difference right there. I'm not saying Kane is the next Sheaerer, but if he can tear up the league's top back line he's one to keep very close tabs on.

Besides, I hope no one here expects us to sign both RvP and Falcao to new long term contracts at the end of this season. Ain't gonna happen. It's going to be one or the other and they both know that, which is why we see no link up play between the two. Wilson is still a teenager and Henriquez is a maybe in Louis's plans, at best.
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Ah is that why? I wonder in Loui knows?
 
DomesticTadpole said:
The not having proper RB/LB cover is seriously biting us on the backside. If we had them we wouldn't have had to change formation. The fact we failed to qualify for any sort of european football has been a nuisance as it means we are carrying a smaller squad. If we had qualified we would have needed two top quality teams. I was distracted then by Harry Kane scoring again. Sign him up LvG.
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I actually think 3-5-2 is his preferred formation and he's hoping results back him up on this.....he's never been in any rush whatsoever to revert to a 4.....I mean after choosing to have rafael as the recognised right back at the club are you telling me he did not expect to play the majority of the season using 3-5-2 due to the injury proneness of Rafael......
 
Our biggest issue is no variety in the attack, we have 2 #9's and 2 second strikers, no real string pulling AM/#10 and not width or pace if Di Maria is out.
 
kouroux said:
Aren't you a fine detective ?
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You don't have to be named Sherlock to figure this one out. The facts are well-known: Falcao wants a contract; RvP is looking for a contract extension. We're not going to splash huge cash for both players...possibly even neither. Most likely only one. One stays and one goes, probably to a club of lesser stature and a less generous contract than whoever stays. Only those who are not paying attention would fail to realize this.

In the three matches they've played together recently I seriously doubt one has passed the ball to the other more than 10 times and my quasi official count is 7. In three matches. On two occasions you can see RvP clearly being frustrated with Falcao's choice not to pass the ball to him.

It could just be that they're functionally identical players, both 9s who want to be at the end of a final ball and score, and nothing else. That's perhaps even the most plausible assessment. But if you watch the two closely neither is looking for the other at all. And that's a problem, whatever the explanation.
 
Gannicus said:
You don't have to be named Sherlock to figure this one out. The facts are well-known: Falcao wants a contract; RvP is looking for a contract extension. We're not going to splash huge cash for both players...possibly even neither. Most likely only one. One stays and one goes, probably to a club of lesser stature and a less generous contract than whoever stays. Only those who are not paying attention would fail to realize this.

In the three matches they've played together recently I seriously doubt one has passed the ball to the other more than 10 times and my quasi official count is 7. In three matches. On two occasions you can see RvP clearly being frustrated with Falcao's choice not to pass the ball to him.

It could just be that they're functionally identical players, both 9s who want to be at the end of a final ball and score, and nothing else. That's perhaps even the most plausible assessment. But if you watch the two closely neither is looking for the other at all. And that's a problem, whatever the explanation.
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What about all those rumors saying that the Falcao deal is already agreed and basically signed ? When Rooney and RVP play together up top, they rarely pass the ball to each other too.
 
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