Our lack of possession

[The Hilton]

I wouldn't mind that if it was working but 14 goals conceded already, I don't know if we have the players to concede possession as much as we have. Can be a pragmatist in possession too which is what Van Gaal was and took the sting out of games at times.

If you're not going to keep the ball, it helps to be:

1) mad pressers in the attacking half, super quick transitions - Rashford barely presses and we're below average at that in the league I imagine
2) sit back and soak up the pressure with physical players, play defensively and rely on quick forwards in attack - again we don't really sit back either and lack physicality and pace.

We seem caught between styles and player profiles on the pitch, leading to this mess so far this season.

Regarding point 1, we're actually extremely good at winning the ball high, we're top of the league for high turnovers. Unfortunately we're bottom for high turnovers leading to a goal, with 0.

Basically, we're really really good at winning the ball in dangerous areas, but have wasted all of those opportunities we create. If we can start converting those opportunities, we'll be a lot more comfortable, and make opposition teams a lot less comfortable in possession.

 

[Cantonagotmehere]

One reason I like Reguilon so much after 2 games is he has energy and passion out there. Plays with a sense of urgency. Of course he has faults, but he looked like he belonged on the field with a team like Bayern more than most of our players.

 

[JPB]

@roonster09
Told you.

 

[Ekeke]

He doesnt seem to want us to have lots of the ball. He's just interested in having our wingers and attackers man mark defenders

 

[NicolaSacco]

Regarding point 1, we're actually extremely good at winning the ball high, we're top of the league for high turnovers. Unfortunately we're bottom for high turnovers leading to a goal, with 0.

Basically, we're really really good at winning the ball in dangerous areas, but have wasted all of those opportunities we create. If we can start converting those opportunities, we'll be a lot more comfortable, and make opposition teams a lot less comfortable in possession.

I may well be wrong but I think it’s more likely that you’ve played a lot of teams whose game plan involves building from the back. Which leads to multiple chances to win possession high up the pitch. It’s anecdotal I know, but I certainly don’t look at Utd and see the kind of concentrated, organised press (bordering on harassment) that Liverpool had a couple of seasons ago.

 

[JPB]

He doesnt seem to want us to have lots of the ball. He's just interested in having our wingers and attackers man mark defenders

Yeah. All he worries about is what we do when we don't actually have the ball.

 

[The Hilton]

I may well be wrong but I think it’s more likely that you’ve played a lot of teams whose game plan involves building from the back. Which leads to multiple chances to win possession high up the pitch. It’s anecdotal I know, but I certainly don’t look at Utd and see the kind of concentrated, organised press (bordering on harassment) that Liverpool had a couple of seasons ago.

I'm afraid I don't understand your point really. Teams that build from the back and are more comfortable in possession are surely more difficult to win the ball from high up the pitch. Of course if they just lumped long then there wouldn't be any high turnovers, but we'd be able to regain possession a lot more. And opposition building from the back doesn't mean you'll win possession unless you actively try to, otherwise everyone would be winning the ball high loads from the teams we've played.

You use Liverpool of a few seasons ago as an example, and they often terrified teams into rushed clearances, which allowed them to regain possession. We're winning the ball high more than anyone else in the league, but as we're not using the ball well once we've won it, teams aren't feeling that same pressure they would against Liverpool. Not yet anyway, hopefully we can start using those opportunities better.

That Liverpool team does is a pretty accurate blueprint as to what Ten Hag is aiming for. We're set up well to press, and statistically have done it well so far this season, particularly in the first phase. You do have a bit of a point in that, after the first phase is broken, we don't recover as quickly as Liverpool often did in order to get set to press again a little deeper. A few factors are combining; a lack of athleticism in the midfield (Eriksen, to a lesser extent Casemiro), poor decision making (McTominay for Brighton's second goal is a great example, he could have shut the attack down very early, see this video that goes into it), and also a lack of effort and commitment at times (again same video for some great examples).

Hopefully once we get the likes of Mount, Amrabat, and Anthony back - players with the athleticism and off the ball nous to lead the press - we'll see some more solidity when the high press is broken. And with that will come a bit more confidence in the system, which will lead to us looking more like harassing scousers.

 

[NicolaSacco]

I'm afraid I don't understand your point really. Teams that build from the back and are more comfortable in possession are surely more difficult to win the ball from high up the pitch. Of course if they just lumped long then there wouldn't be any high turnovers, but we'd be able to regain possession a lot more. And opposition building from the back doesn't mean you'll win possession unless you actively try to, otherwise everyone would be winning the ball high loads from the teams we've played.

You use Liverpool of a few seasons ago as an example, and they often terrified teams into rushed clearances, which allowed them to regain possession. We're winning the ball high more than anyone else in the league, but as we're not using the ball well once we've won it, teams aren't feeling that same pressure they would against Liverpool. Not yet anyway, hopefully we can start using those opportunities better.

That Liverpool team does is a pretty accurate blueprint as to what Ten Hag is aiming for. We're set up well to press, and statistically have done it well so far this season, particularly in the first phase. You do have a bit of a point in that, after the first phase is broken, we don't recover as quickly as Liverpool often did in order to get set to press again a little deeper. A few factors are combining; a lack of athleticism in the midfield (Eriksen, to a lesser extent Casemiro), poor decision making (McTominay for Brighton's second goal is a great example, he could have shut the attack down very early, see this video that goes into it), and also a lack of effort and commitment at times (again same video for some great examples).

Hopefully once we get the likes of Mount, Amrabat, and Anthony back - players with the athleticism and off the ball nous to lead the press - we'll see some more solidity when the high press is broken. And with that will come a bit more confidence in the system, which will lead to us looking more like harassing scousers.

Yeah, as I say it’s definitely just an anecdotal thing when I watch Utd. And you are right about what I said about the possession based teams. If you played all 5 games against teams with a keeper who always hits long balls when they get possession you’d probably have some quite skewed stats re centre backs winning headers. It will be interesting to see over the course of the season whether things even out a little, or whether Utd really have become much more adept at winning the ball high up the pitch.

 

[GBBQ]

I call our midfield the "Hot potato" midfield, because everyone in it treats the ball like it(Bruno, Eriksen, Casemiro). Everyone is trying to release the ball as soon as possible like it is lava hot, poisoned, I don't know. Especially Bruno. There is no ball retention, ball carrying, press resistance, ability to evade pressure whatsoever in our current midfield and I'm going to continue to criticize that over and over and over again into oblivion.

That's why we can't control games, and we struggle to keep possession of the ball. We play like a midtable/relegation fodder team.
Why Ten Hag gave up on Frenkie de Jong type of a player(Nunes, Gravenberch, Kovacic, Kone, Thuram(from Nice)...), kept Bruno and brought old Casemiro and Eriksen(no legs anymore) - I don't understand, I'm really puzzled by it.

It will be ETH's undoing, main reason for it(not counting the Glazers and all the catastrophe that they bring here with their incompetence/greed).

It’s maddening. Trying to play killer passes that just aren’t on and then scrambling to defend the counter attack. Rinse and Repeat.

It’s fine to try things every now and then but it seems to be our game plan and it invariably doesn’t work out.

 

[gaffs]

Look at any good team, once a pass it played, the player repositions themselves to make themselves available again. Others will also react and find space to anticipate where they may pick up the ball next.

United players think their job is done once they have made the initial pass. We always look so static and its why we find it hard to move the ball from the defence through midfield.

 

[Telsim]

Amrabat is going to have to work fecking miracles at this rate from what I'm seeing people are expecting from him.

Exactly. The way this forum is talking about him you'd think we are waiting on prime Toni Kroos to return, and seems to get better the longer he doesn't play.

 

[Amadaeus]

Surprising stats. Always taught ETH was a possession based manager. Definitely seem like there is a coaching problem then if even chelsea can have good statistics but we are struggling to get better numbers. But, I believe that the players that ETH is left with may be the cause to why those numbers are not higher than it is. That is the only clutching at straws answer I can give

 

[The Hilton]

Yeah, as I say it’s definitely just an anecdotal thing when I watch Utd. And you are right about what I said about the possession based teams. If you played all 5 games against teams with a keeper who always hits long balls when they get possession you’d probably have some quite skewed stats re centre backs winning headers. It will be interesting to see over the course of the season whether things even out a little, or whether Utd really have become much more adept at winning the ball high up the pitch.

I think to a certain extent you may be seeing teams breaking the press but missing when we're winning the ball high. Take the Wolves game as a perfect example, the narrative around that is that we were torn apart, and that they constantly waltzed through our press, but we had loads of high turnovers against them too, which were wasted usually with poor passes or poor decision making which could and probably should have led to goals.

 

[NicolaSacco]

I think to a certain extent you may be seeing teams breaking the press but missing when we're winning the ball high. Take the Wolves game as a perfect example, the narrative around that is that we were torn apart, and that they constantly waltzed through our press, but we had loads of high turnovers against them too, which were wasted usually with poor passes or poor decision making which could and probably should have led to goals.

Cheers, I’ll look out for it the next match I watch!

 

[redIndianDevil]

For all the whining about our forwards, Onana and defenders, the main problem with our team at the moment is clearly our midfield. It’s the reason why we struggle to impose ourself on games, and why teams can just stroll right down the middle of the pitch unchallenged, and also why we concede so many cutback goals. Casemiro and Eriksen can’t hack it at this level any more, which is leaving gaping hole in our team.

Maybe things will improve once Mount is back and Amrabat is introduced. Hannibal probably deserves a chance too - not sure how we can make things worse.

It's clearly not IMO. Of course we could have better players in midfield but I don't think our current midfielders are the reason we are so bad at possession. The players seem to have no clue how to play as a team. Every player has to look up to find where to pass, it makes every so slow and predictable.

 

[Borys]

Our ability to retain the ball is terrible, we can barely string 3 passes together at times. I’m hoping Amrabat will help improve us in this area.

Do you think Amrabat will be better at retainig possession than Eriksen?

 

[berbatrick]

it's been very chaotic so it's hard to figure out, but i don't think we are set up to retain the ball. it's everybody going forward all the time.

 

[Powderfinger]

Its a combination of personnel and management. Many of the players aren't well suited to possession-based football but ETH has chosen to lean into a counter-attacking approach rather than making selection and transfer decisions that would enable possession-based football.

Spurs spent the last four years with counter-attacking, negative managers who didn't value possession at all and shaped the squad accordingly. That squad was definitely no better positioned to be a possession-based side than the squad that ETH inherited. But Postecoglou committed to a possession-based approach from day one and his side have 60% and are fifth in the league in that regard. Maybe that is the difference between taking on a job where you can have a bad year and still keep your job or not. But I don't think its quite correct to claim that ETH's hands have been tied by the players he inherited. He has tied his own hands to a certain degree.

 

[JPB]

It's clearly not IMO. Of course we could have better players in midfield but I don't think our current midfielders are the reason we are so bad at possession. The players seem to have no clue how to play as a team. Every player has to look up to find where to pass, it makes every so slow and predictable.

Casemiro and Eriksen are diabolical. Bruno doesn't move like a dinosaur but always gives the ball away. The other two are so slow and take ages to make a pass and constantly let people rob the ball off them because they move like senior citizens when trying to pass. The whole midfield needs replacing. I'd be tempted to play Mainoo Amrabat and Mount and just replace the whole lot of them.

 

[Sandikan]

Can we ever hope to be a possession team when you have Bruno, who is so wild with the ball, and Rashy who is the ultimate push and run merchant as our main players?

Probably not.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Can we ever hope to be a possession team when you have Bruno, who is so wild with the ball, and Rashy who is the ultimate push and run merchant as our main players?

Probably not.

We actually can if we get standard central midfielders who are good on the ball and are also great at pressing the shit out of opponents. You play a 40 year old Eriksen and you get nothing. You play a useless midfielder like McTominay who can't even control a pass, you get nothing.

 

[astracrazy]

I agree. Tbh, Casemiro’s main value at the moment seems to be as a goal threat, particularly at set pieces, ie someone we can throw on as an extra attacker if we’re chasing a goal. As a DM, he’s less than useless right now.

Didn't EtH say something about this, that Amrabat will be able to sit behind Casemiro? Maybe he would prefer Casemiro to push up in future.

 

[Gordon Godot]

Didn't EtH say something about this, that Amrabat will be able to sit behind Casemiro? Maybe he would prefer Casemiro to push up in future.

Classic Utd mess. Hes a DM whose legs have gone. He's not an attacking midfielder even if he poaches the odd goal, his passing and control are not good enough. Another bad signing.

 

[giggs-beckham]

Look at any good team, once a pass it played, the player repositions themselves to make themselves available again. Others will also react and find space to anticipate where they may pick up the ball next.

United players think their job is done once they have made the initial pass. We always look so static and its why we find it hard to move the ball from the defence through midfield.

There's no pass and move trained into them. If Fellaini and young can do it then so can our lot.

 

[IRONTUSK]

Most of our possession is passing it across the backline anyway....even if we added an extra 5 or 10% to our possession stats you get bet that all that extra possession would be passing from CB to GK to CB to CB

 

[Idxomer]

Kroos used to have as many touches in the defensive 3rd as both Bruno and Eriksen combined when playing with Casemiro. Modric the more attacking midfielder in that trio also had more defensive 3rd touches than either Eriksen or Bruno.

This issue gets even worse with someone like Mount who was never a player to participate much in the buildup phase. There's not a chance Ten Hag's midfield plan with the type of players he has would ever solve our problems with possession.

 

[RuudTom83]

Yesterday and most games this season, we've not held the ball at the right times and that is on the captain - those little flicks or pump up field are a problem.

Spent most of yesterday's game shouting: keep the ball and keep the fecker on the ground.

Zombie passing is needed at times and we used to do it under SAF

Yeah for so many years now United just have 1 mode. Which is this chaos-ball approach where it's pinball football trying desperately to release Rashford on the break.

The team has no one to control the tempo...it's even more of a problem after they concede a goal, when you just need to kill the oppositions momentum for 5 mins.

In-game management is severely lacking.

 

[Glorio]

Need to take into consideration the teams we've played so far.

Brighton, Bayern, and Arsenal are heavily possession based - and Arsenal would usually have more possession against us even in our glory days. Pretty sure as we play more teams, it would start to lean the other way.

You could say having less possession away to Spurs (ignoring their odd forays trialling negative managers like Conte, Jose) isn't that surprising either.

 

[BluesJr]

Need to take into consideration the teams we've played so far.

Brighton, Bayern, and Arsenal are heavily possession based - and Arsenal would usually have more possession against us even in our glory days. Pretty sure as we play more teams, it would start to lean the other way.

You could say having less possession away to Spurs (ignoring their odd forays trialling negative managers like Conte, Jose) isn't that surprising either.

We need to be heavily possession based too. We won’t be successful until that is the case. The penny will drop for all fans and for our footballing department eventually. Might take another 100 years.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

Need to take into consideration the teams we've played so far.

Brighton, Bayern, and Arsenal are heavily possession based - and Arsenal would usually have more possession against us even in our glory days. Pretty sure as we play more teams, it would start to lean the other way.

You could say having less possession away to Spurs (ignoring their odd forays trialling negative managers like Conte, Jose) isn't that surprising either.

But it's kind of like a point of status that if we have less possession than those four teams, plus Man City obviously as well as Liverpool and Chelsea, how are we going to beat those teams when they dominate the ball? The net result of those four games we had less of the ball was we lost all 4 games. So playing with less possession is hardly working a treat. It's fine to be counter attacking if you have the players and that's the plan but it looks like we're stuck between styles and identity and don't really offer anything at the moment.

 

[M16Red]

Yeah for so many years now United just have 1 mode. Which is this chaos-ball approach where it's pinball football trying desperately to release Rashford on the break.

The team has no one to control the tempo...it's even more of a problem after they concede a goal, when you just need to kill the oppositions momentum for 5 mins.

In-game management is severely lacking.

That's on the player's for me

 

[Snow]

ETH does care cos if he did he would go buy a player to help run the team in possession.

Like De Jong? We failed getting Bellingham and the board didn't want to pursue Rice because of the cost.

 

[justsomebloke]

Fair enough, maybe it was the assumption from Ajax and their dominant style of play and results. But for example last season United actually had less average possession than one of Ole's seasons and Ole was criticised for not controlling the games enough.

Yup, people keep missing this and go on about how we played a pure counterattack style under Ole. We really didn't, except for his first few months.

 

[saivet]

There's no pass and move trained into them. If Fellaini and young can do it then so can our lot.

Smalling too. That said, LVG also had the likes of Carrick, Herrera, Mata and Blind but that squad generally was not made up of possession players but he pulled it off...in terms of possession but lacked many other things.

Don't think ETH cares about possession anywhere near as much as LVG though.

 

[Baneofthegame]

In the six games so far this season, we have had significantly more possession than the other team only once. Although we have not had the easiest fixtures, WhoScored rates United as having the 10th most possession in the league at under 50% behind Fulham. Chelsea an outlier aside, the other top 6 teams for possession are unsurprisingly also the top 5 in the league table.

51% possession at home to Wolves - you would expect this to be 60% given the team's standings (Liverpool had 66%).
44% possession against Spurs - away from home but you'd expect to match them and gave the ball away too easily.
67% possession against Forest - just because they sat back and were 2-0 down, in the first half I imagine it wasn't that.
45% possession against Arsenal - again away from home, would hardly expect to dominate, but another 5% possession might have held Arsenal off.
43% possession against Brighton - even if De Zerbi likes possession, that's what Ten Hag was supposed to be when he arrived and United are at home chasing the game.
40% possession against Bayern Munich - another tough game but could be better considering we were supposed to be chasing the game.

When Ten Hag arrived, I feel he was heavily marketed as a possession-based manager but it simply isn't happening. And if we're a counter attacking team, then should we have players like Onana and Martinez that are better suited to possession? Are there too many players in the team that ruin a team's chance of keeping possession (Bruno's risky passes for example)? For a team with less possession to work you need pace and dynamism or a defensive and physical set-up (which has been lacking also). Is it Ten Hag's instructions or are the players not good enough? Whatever way it seem to be killing us atm as the stats back up what the eye sees that we cannot control a game to save our lives.

I feel like the four games quoted we were away from home for three and apart from the Spurs game we weren’t likely to dominate possession as the players at our disposal currently aren’t suited to it.

 

[Zed is not dead]

I don’t really care about possession to be honest, because you can have all the ball you want, it’s of no use if you don’t control the tempo of the game.
Our main issue is that we can’t seem to be able to absorb pressure.
A football game works in periods. You’ll dominate in periods, you’ll get dominated in periods. Our issue is that we fail to score when we dominate, hell, we even concede when we dominate, and then when we’re dominated we’re forced to be even more open because we’re chasing the score.

We’re simply not scoring enough as a team. Last season we were underperforming our xG by a margin of 10-13 goals (depending on the source) but we were also conceding less than expected.
This season we’re still underperforming our xG while conceding more than expected.

Possession might be a solution, but I’m not sure it’s THE solution. It won’t change the fact that the opposition always scored almost on their first attempts against us since the beginning of the seasons

 

[giggs-beckham]

Smalling too. That said, LVG also had the likes of Carrick, Herrera, Mata and Blind but that squad generally was not made up of possession players but he pulled it off...in terms of possession but lacked many other things.

Don't think ETH cares about possession anywhere near as much as LVG though.

Agreed, and I liked Blind. We need a possession based manager to be honest and maybe that directive should come from the DOF but yea. Don't think these things are on our radar, maybe once the cnuts are gone.

 

[Rozay]

…. has been conveniently dismissed as ‘deliberate’ and ‘the manager’s tactics’ for a few years now. It’s an excuse to mask lack of capabilities. It’s harder to build a team that isn’t reliant upon physical advantages to win football matches. It’s harder to build a team that can constructively command the lions share of the ball, and still manage to be a dangerous offensive team and a secure defensive one. But hard or not, the reward is the greatest. It’s not for everyone as a result, and typically only the very best sides can dominate the ball on the ground and score 3+ goals per match.

We’ve deluded ourselves, or tried to delude others, that it’s simply ‘not our style’, meanwhile whatever our style is has been easy to defend against, score against and yields little to no trophies. Building a dangerous passing side takes time, it takes complete reprogramming, and will undoubtedly be more challenging for players and coaches than just telling your men to ‘go out and play without fear’ and ‘put in a shift’. We keep coming up against organised teams where we can’t find a plan to break through them, and keep conceding chances in end to end games with average sides.

We need to accept that we have to do the ‘right’ thing, and stop pretending we easily could if we wanted to, but have just opted to ‘play direct’. How’s that been working out for us?

 

[DJ_21]

Fair enough, maybe it was the assumption from Ajax and their dominant style of play and results. But for example last season United actually had less average possession than one of Ole's seasons and Ole was criticised for not controlling the games enough.

I think with Ole we created tons of chances but just couldn’t finish them, we also had lots of possession under him so we wasn’t just a counter attacking team under him. The only problem we had with Ole was he didn’t have the midfield that ETH now has. He was stuck with Mctominay and Fred which sometimes we played our best football with them 2. Be interesting to see how we play when Casemiro lines up with Amrabat.

 

[R'hllor]

I think with Ole we created tons of chances but just couldn’t finish them, we also had lots of possession under him so we wasn’t just a counter attacking team under him. The only problem we had with Ole was he didn’t have the midfield that ETH now has. He was stuck with Mctominay and Fred which sometimes we played our best football with them 2. Be interesting to see how we play when Casemiro lines up with Amrabat.

Under Ole if we couldnt counter attack we looked clueless, one of worst and most lost teams in final third, lets not rewrite history, there are plenty of logs on this forum about it.