Playing with a midfield of 1 person

Ekeke said:
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As if it needed to be pointed out, we obviously played 2 midfielders as per normal with Bruno in an attacking area in front
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Noodle is just here to stir up shit with his Daily Mail like analysis. Football forum is on the level of a Daily Mail reader these days so it gets lapped up.

If you look at our tactics our problem isn't the midfield on a tactical level. It's the individuals making the mistakes that's costing us the goals and it's a certain number 10 that doesn't fit into any tactic because he's shit. We defend with 9 people like we have Messi on the team..
 
Snow said:
Noodle is just here to stir up shit with his Daily Mail like analysis. Football forum is on the level of a Daily Mail reader these days so it gets lapped up.

If you look at our tactics our problem isn't the midfield on a tactical level. It's the individuals making the mistakes that's costing us the goals and it's a certain number 10 that doesn't fit into any tactic because he's shit. We defend with 9 people like we have Messi on the team..
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Literally everywhere is posting we only have 2 players in midfield, of course it's a midfield problem.
 
Hammondo said:
I don't think you watched the same match, or even the same sport.
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Indeed no one else uses a 316 or 424 build up pattern. Or presses high with the whole midfield. Only United does

The reality is they do we just execute it poorly and thats on the manager
 
tjb said:
Its nothing to do with shape. Whether 433 or 4231 people need to understand that. Liverpool also used a 4231 today. His general tactics are so garbage that it leaves one midfielder open. Its not the shape, but rather his use of the shape.
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The craziest is seeing our midfield getting bypassed and our manager doing feck all to rectify that
 
Snow said:
Noodle is just here to stir up shit with his Daily Mail like analysis. Football forum is on the level of a Daily Mail reader these days so it gets lapped up.

If you look at our tactics our problem isn't the midfield on a tactical level. It's the individuals making the mistakes that's costing us the goals and it's a certain number 10 that doesn't fit into any tactic because he's shit. We defend with 9 people like we have Messi on the team..
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You obviously don't realise why those individiuals keep making mistakes, both attacking and defensive wise.
 
Frosty said:
I don't mind this from any manager. Start to openly admit mistakes to journalists and that's a slippery slope. Nothing wrong with pushing back. Plenty to legitimately criticise him for as it is.
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Pushing back is great, how you do it makes the difference though. ETH is rambling like a man who's lost his sanity
 
Ekeke said:
0c7a156cfaa451f94d7e587d81c72002.png


As if it needed to be pointed out, we obviously played 2 midfielders as per normal with Bruno in an attacking area in front
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Wow. They surely do some post game analysis. Mainoo's and Rashford's position are all over the place. This is like we brought eleven random people together to play for the first time and they started bumping to each other in the right while nobody wanting to play on the left.
 
Ekeke said:
0c7a156cfaa451f94d7e587d81c72002.png


As if it needed to be pointed out, we obviously played 2 midfielders as per normal with Bruno in an attacking area in front
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Would Mainoo’s average position not be heavily affected by playing one half more advanced and the second dropping in to Casemiro’s position? And look at our three midfielders. It’s almost a straight vertical line. That is not how a midfield should set up. Look at Liverpool’s.
 
The construction of our midfield is counterproductive not only in terms of positioning, but just as importantly in terms of player profiles. It offers us very little chance of any control, and is seemingly designed to exclusively have the ball transition through the middle third with one or a maximum of two passes.
 
IMO Bruno should be pushed to one of the flanks, and adittional midfileder should be brought in. You can't expect Casemiro and Mainoo to dictate the play because this is not their way of playing.
It was a mistake not to buy another midfielder in this transfer window, a younger version of Eriksen would improve our play a lot.

Or the way of play needs to be changed to Ole - style counter attacking football, because with current crop of players we will never be able to have a control of the game.

I really can't understand how Ten Hag and his team don't see this.
 
Joao Neves should have been the first player through the door this summer. Especially at the ridiculously discounted price he went for.
 
The modern "formation" is poorly understood by football fans. Its not one fixed, pre-defined thing like it perhaps was in the 90s, or even still is at lower levels.

Modern day "formations" are fluid and dynamic and are based on players' understanding multiple game scenarios and reacting according.

This is why coaching is so important. If the plan is overly complex and / or coaches can't convey their ideas in a simple, easy to understand manner, and drill their players effectively, you'll end-up with a huge mess.

We can bang on all we like about a 4-2-2-2 or a 4-2-4 but it's how we move from one shape to another that leaves us massively exposed. We play high risk, low reward football, where the regular turnovers we concede almost always lead to attacking overloads for the opposition because half our team are instructed to bomb forward and get ahead of the ball.

As much as I want to blame some of our players, they're doing what is asked of them. Casemiro and Fernandes are asked to play the ball forward quickly and take risks. Our full backs are asked to recklessly charge forward and get ahead of the ball when we have possession. Rashford and Garnacho are asked to mindlessly run the flanks like wide receivers.

What do we think then happens when we inevitably lose the ball (because, shock, high risk passes are high risk) and we have 6 or 7 players ahead of it and out of position?

It's madness, absolute crazy madness in the extreme. Top teams control games, they don't encourage chaotic, basketball-style, high variance games. Especially because it's so easy for the opposition to say, "good luck with that, you do that, we'll just sit in and pick you off". That's THE easiest way to play football, it's a great leveller, it plays right into their hands and it's why we make teams like Bournemouth and Palace look like world-beaters.
 
Ollie Derbyshire said:
Yes agreed, Bruno is a big problem for us and I don’t care he’s still a bit creative, he messes up as many as he creates anyway. He has no tactical awareness and leaves the midfield wide open and when the double pivot is as non athletic as ours it’s suicide.
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I think it boils down to this, Bruno is tactically useless, he just does whatever it wants.. it’s been said (politely) by two managers who he’s played under now.
but when we take him out of the team we look devoid of any attacking threat,
Catch 22.. we’re sacrificing control to facilitate his strengths because there’s nobody else
 
It boggles the mind why in this day and age where midfield supremacy wins you games, that we would choose to vacate that area.

This stupid 4-5 man press upfront does not work and has never worked. It just leaves us so open through the middle.

Really is elementary stuff, yet somehow our manager doesn't see the issue with fixing it. I'm not saying we'd win the league playing 4-3-3. but at least we wouldn't be so open and be far more compact.

Just gutted that every single season has to start like this.

Its probably going to be yet another lost season for us unless something drastic changes. Really haven't enjoyed watching our football for what has been more than a year now.
 
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Drainy said:
Exactly and it shows that Liverpool were successful in playing the 3-1-6 build up that everyone is saying is suicide tactics :lol:
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Players that regularly make the right decisions to help their team mates goes a long way.
 
big_jeffstar said:
I think it boils down to this, Bruno is tactically useless, he just does whatever it wants.. it’s been said (politely) by two managers who he’s played under now.
but when we take him out of the team we look devoid of any attacking threat,
Catch 22.. we’re sacrificing control to facilitate his strengths because there’s nobody else
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Spot on.
Bruno is like a headless chicken and had zero positional discipline.
Yesterday, there were a number of occasions when the Liverpool defence had to ball and just waited for Bruno to charge up field for no obvious reason. And as soon as he did, he left a huge hole for Liverpool to pass into.

Far too often in big matches, he is either completely anonymous. Or charges around like a maniac leaving huge holes in our formation.
 
Rozay said:
Joao Neves should have been the first player through the door this summer. Especially at the ridiculously discounted price he went for.
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Ofcourse he was. Hopefully we can get someone like Stiller next season.
 
gregor said:
IMO Bruno should be pushed to one of the flanks, and adittional midfileder should be brought in. You can't expect Casemiro and Mainoo to dictate the play because this is not their way of playing.
It was a mistake not to buy another midfielder in this transfer window, a younger version of Eriksen would improve our play a lot.

Or the way of play needs to be changed to Ole - style counter attacking football, because with current crop of players we will never be able to have a control of the game.

I really can't understand how Ten Hag and his team don't see this.
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I agree with this. We need to find a way to get more bodies into the middle of the pitch to compete.
 
bruno just isnt a modern midfielder. hes still our best player, but cannot be part of a midfield 3. ETH stunning plan to play him as a midfielder in a 4 with Mount is bonkers as well, as it still leaves 2 proper midfielders, wheras most teams play with at least 3.
 
I love Bruno, probably one of my favourite ever United players. But playing him as the third piece of the midfield is a recipe for disaster. It’s basically a midfield 2 with a 50 year old Cas and a young attacking midfielder in Mainoo who is being relied upon far too much at such a young age. Mount has kind of covers the cracks early this season because he runs his ass off but ultimately the system is flaud and we’ll continue to concede a shit ton of goals
 
big_jeffstar said:
I think it boils down to this, Bruno is tactically useless, he just does whatever it wants.. it’s been said (politely) by two managers who he’s played under now.
but when we take him out of the team we look devoid of any attacking threat,
Catch 22.. we’re sacrificing control to facilitate his strengths because there’s nobody else
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I get that but as we aren’t winning games regularly for a while now with him in, I’d take him out and go with a functioning midfield so we stop getting embarrassed.
 
I think it's clear at this point that the manager just doesn't have a clue. He tries the same thing every game with the midfield completely overrun and the attackers completely ineffective. It'll continue until we finally get sick of him.
 
Ten Hag wants us to play in a very vertical transitional way, get the ball and immediately ping it forward. And when you dont have the ball, press high with lots of energy.

Ugarte does the latter, but not the former, its not his game.Neither Casemiro nor Ugarte play the way Ten Hag really wants us to, so when it doesnt work out, people will blame the players, but its not their fault. Infact none of our midfielders fit this profile.

Its bad recruitment/coaching issue. Either recruit players who fit your style, or play the style that suits your players. We are doing neither.
 
Highfather_24 said:
Ten Hag wants us to play in a very vertical transitional way, get the ball and immediately ping it forward. And when you dont have the ball, press high with lots of energy.

Ugarte does the latter, but not the former, its not his game.Neither Casemiro nor Ugarte play the way Ten Hag really wants us to, so when it doesnt work out, people will blame the players, but its not their fault. Infact none of our midfielders fit this profile.

Its bad recruitment/coaching issue. Either recruit players who fit your style, or play the style that suits your players. We are doing neither.
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When he says transitional play he just means the ability to win the ball pressing and immediately go on the attack. “ping it forward” is a poor choice of words. Makes it sound like hood ball, when it’s not.

Basically what pool did to us, win it in the final 3rd, then get forward. A lot stil needs to be done to fix this tactic as surely he can’t have both Maz and Dalot flooding forward just emptying everything.

I do think he needs to do something with midfield because it’s just a mess. Needs to either drop Bruno or find somewhere else to put him and go with Cas, Ugarte and Mainoo. Cas takes risks and can be an attacking threat so him having the cover of Ugarte probably gets the most out of him at this point in his career. Next summer the transfer push surely has to be in midfield. Bye bye Cas, hello 2-3 new Midfielders

We need someone who can play like Eriksen could. He gave us so much and people didn’t even realise it till he was no longer in the picture. He took care of the ball and gave people options. Something we severely lack.
 
Andersons Dietician said:
When he says transitional play he just means the ability to win the ball pressing and immediately go on the attack. “ping it forward” is a poor choice of words. Makes it sound like hood ball, when it’s not.

Basically what pool did to us, win it in the final 3rd, then get forward. A lot stil needs to be done to fix this tactic as surely he can’t have both Maz and Dalot flooding forward just emptying everything.

I do think he needs to do something with midfield because it’s just a mess. Needs to either drop Bruno or find somewhere else to put him and go with Cas, Ugarte and Mainoo. Cas takes risks and can be an attacking threat so him having the cover of Ugarte probably gets the most out of him at this point in his career. Next summer the transfer push surely has to be in midfield. Bye bye Cas, hello 2-3 new Midfielders

We need someone who can play like Eriksen could. He gave us so much and people didn’t even realise it till he was no longer in the picture. He took care of the ball and gave people options. Something we severely lack.
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I'm not talking about hoofball, more like play a forward pass as soon as you can, getting the ball quickly from back to front. That's how Ten Hag wants us to play.

Ugarte is a retention based player, that's not his game at all. Its not Casemiro's strong suit either.

I do agree we need someone like Eriksen, but who can also cover the ground. Very hard to find a profile like that though. Someone like Fofana would have been a better fit this summer for the style we wanna play. Gravenberch and McAllister are the profile Ten hag needs, high energy progressive passers.

But considering Ten Hag is on borrowed time, I can see why the recruitment team didnt do that. Which also weakens Ten Hag's hand, and means he is setup to fail. INEOS should have just sacked him in the summer.
 
Last season we certainly played with a one man midfield. It was obvious right from preseason up until the last four games of the season when ETH finally switched to a more compact system. It was utter incompetence from ETH; there's really no other way to spin it.

This season is a bit harder to pick. During preseason it was definitely a two man midfield. Since the actual competitive games started it's become a bit more open again, but probably not to the extent that it was last season. It's also a bit more difficult since we basically haven't had a striker most of the games, so we've been rotating formations a bit depending on who is on the field. Sometimes it seems we've had two in midfield, other times we've gone back to leaving one by himself again.

It's the main thing I'm curious to see over the next 5-6 games. Just how are we going to line up and how are we setting up the midfield.
 
I wonder how long it will be before football returns to 4-4-2?

I could just see Shankly, Busby and Bobby Robson all looking down...

Shankly: "look at the state of this double pivot nonsense..."
Robson: "it's a joke Shanks...and don't get me started on inverted wing backs...eh Matt?"
Busby: "aye....I didn't survive a bloody plane crash to watch this one man midfield shite...get back to 4-4-2..."
Shankly: "..aye.."
Robson: " You tell em Matt..."
 
The obvious solution is to instruct the 2 (4-2-3-1) to stay home and don't venture forward. This is how we should play until we have more structure and success. For whatever reason, ETH gives Casemiro and Mainoo license to go forward pretty much anytime they want. He thinks the tucked in FB, Dalot, solves the middle but it doesn't.

Replacing Cas will help a lot, but I would still like to see Mainoo stay defensive for the most part. Our 3-1 with help from FBs should be enough to score 1 or 2 goals each match while keeping a shutout or giving up one goal.

I wish ETH had been fired in the summer as it's going to be a long few months until he is.
 
Chelsea Dubbing said:
I wonder how long it will be before football returns to 4-4-2?

I could just see Shankly, Busby and Bobby Robson all looking down...

Shankly: "look at the state of this double pivot nonsense..."
Robson: "it's a joke Shanks...and don't get me started on inverted wing backs...eh Matt?"
Busby: "aye....I didn't survive a bloody plane crash to watch this one man midfield shite...get back to 4-4-2..."
Shankly: "..aye.."
Robson: " You tell em Matt..."
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Did you mean to join RAWK but got mixed up?
 
The build up player used to be Eriksen and was supposed to be De Jong. If he wants to play this high risk system then why force players into the most key position that are not suitable for it. That applies to our whole new back room staff. They must have seen this is an issue. Ugarte doesn't seem to be the answer. And even if he is where us the back up. We need 2 DLPs. 600 mill plus and we are still shoehorning platers into critical positions. It's madness.
 
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