This is the biggest issue when we have a terrible game, they don’t move at all. They pass and then expect the person to just go the other way.
Press Resistant Midfielder
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It's been an issue for a very long time and under many coaches. There's an old thread on here from 2009ish called "zombie passing". When everyone talks about being press resistant they all seem to think you have to be able to play on the turn and be able to dribble through people. Our most press resistant player ever (probably) was Scholes who never played like that, but what he was a master of is the pass and move. Simple 1-2's will defeat the press every time.
As does Roy Keane.
An often overlooked ability of his was just how good he really was on the ball.
Thankfully ETH won’t go this far in tinkering his line up. Positional adjustments are needed and that what we’ll see against spurs.
I remember seeing it from ole and Ragnick, Mourinho I cant remember but the team was a lot more physical then and tough.
Is it by instruction?
Would that be possible? Would Ten Hag really tell them that? And I’ve seen it for long as well- how is it not addressed
Honestly, why not? The other way around might work as well.
It's the inability to break down two banks of four when the opposition sits back, usually at OT. Of course Ten Hag would never intend this, but we saw it in the first half against Wolves because the players didn't know what to do. We looked much better against Brighton last year, despite the contrasting result.
It's been an issue since Fergie. Maybe alleviated a bit under LVG. I highly doubt Ten Hag would instruct the players to not move off the ball. You need players to be constantly on the move creating passing angles and options. When you watch City play they do exactly that.
Whilst breaking down two deep banks of four is very difficult, its moreso an issue of our lack of movement. You can see the issues by looking at Pep's Barca when playing against deep defenses. They would struggle at times to break down the defense but with movement off the ball and runners in behind they would score. Our issue is players don't play the simple 1-2 enough and particularly on Monday losing the ball 81 times. The 1-2 is far more reliable than trying to beat the press with dribbling. That's the whole reason teams practice the rondo and emphasize triangle's in the game.
We don’t play with triangles, when Antony lays the ball back to a midfielder he doesn’t push the line, we constantly isolate our players by other players not giving help.
When Onana passes to a defender a midfielder is no where in sight, past the half way line even, it’s like they want to push up high for a transition but too far, too disjointed.
I’ve feared how slow we are for too long, I don’t see Bruno beating guys like he use to, rashford will click I believe but Antony doesn’t scare any defense down the line, then to make matters worse Bissaka doesn’t either. Our right side is way too no threatening
Pogba had no consistency in it, he would sometimes do it in a flashy way and then completely feck up another time doing it. In fact I would say that was one of the weaknesses of his game and he was targeted by teams because of it.
Pogba is weird. He's very strong and can hold off other midfielders quite easily, but he also got caught on the ball a lot, too. The biggest issue with Pogba was how long he wanted on the ball. He would take too many touches and get it taken away in dangerous areas. Given time on the ball, there weren't many better at playing long passes from deep. Either foot. I loved watching him for France when he was given time to play. I know a lot of the fanbase hates him, but I enjoyed watching him play.
United refuse to buy a midfielder that is press resistant and good in the first phase. It's so damn frustrating. We've tried buying Kroos, Fabregas, and de Jong over the years. We never get who we want and abandon that profile after missing out on the main target.
Scholes was our best, but it was more so that he was fast at making decisions on the ball. He wasn't holding people off through physicality. Anderson was also quite good in his first couple years. His physicality and ball carrying ability was a huge shock to me. Our best right now is McTominay. He can hold off other midfielders, turn, and ball carry up the field. It's too bad he's not that good at much else.
United refuse to buy a midfielder that is press resistant and good in the first phase. It's so damn frustrating. We've tried buying Kroos, Fabregas, and de Jong over the years. We never get who we want and abandon that profile after missing out on the main target.
Scholes was our best, but it was more so that he was fast at making decisions on the ball. He wasn't holding people off through physicality. Anderson was also quite good in his first couple years. His physicality and ball carrying ability was a huge shock to me. Our best right now is McTominay. He can hold off other midfielders, turn, and ball carry up the field. It's too bad he's not that good at much else.
Maybe he can do it sometimes but far too often McTominay takes the cowards option and just passes it back or sideways from that position. Scholes even posted on social media in frustration at it.
I agree. McTominay isn't confident at passing the ball forward, but he is good at ball carrying through the midfield. His lack of progressive passing ability holds him back a lot.
Modric and Kovacic. Kovacic should have been our no1 target this year.
Whatever Spanish side we face at CL or EL, all their midfielders seem press resistant as soon as they play against us - so buy La Liga!
Kovacic was "too old" though, but not too old for the Champions League winners.
We should scout players with high xPR
It really baffles me as he was available for a good price and yet everyone had said that he's too old. At the same team people want press resistent, game controlling, defensively solid MFs. I don't know how good he will be for City, but he'd surely complement our MF much better than Mount will ever do.
We could have had Kroos (at least in 2014; in summer 2013 Moyes apparently enquired but wasn't available then). It's pretty well documented that Van Gaal vetoed the 2014 Moyes-agreed deal in early June or whenever in favour of... I guess, Herrera, though given the money that was spent, we could have just signed them both and not blown 60+ on Di Maria, after which point Madrid came in.
Buying Kroos would have been huge for this team. Van Gaal did a tonne of damage to the squad. I really liked Herrera, but the vast majority of players he bought were awful. Di Maria was obviously a good player, but he didn't really want to be here. That was a stupid Galactico signing for the sake of it.
Martial and Shaw were pretty good signings
Mount is in no way press resistant
How sure are you of this statement? This club has a habit of slagging former managers off to cover for their incompetence.
Remember the signing of Shaw and Herrera were agreed before LVG and Giggs met in Holland. LVG himself was also interested in Kroos, contrary to what is being thrown out there. Hiring a manager going to WC and letting him believe our house is in order was the problem that summer.
How about straight from horses mouth Kroos .
That was more of an issue with us having 0 structure building up from the back than anything so he had to basically make magic while often being doubled up on. Watch him early on at Juve or with France, he's extremely press resistant.
Which mouth said LVG vetoed the transfer?
Well Kroos basically said this during an Interview
David Moyes had come to see me, and the contract had basically been done.
"But then Moyes was fired and Louis van Gaal came in, which complicated matters.
"Louis wanted time to build his own project. I didn't hear anything from United for a while and started having doubts.
"Then the World Cup started and Carlo Ancelotti called. And that was it.
Make of it what you will .
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We're so well run that if EtH asked for a press-resistant midfielder, Murtaugh would end up with a midfielder who shy'd away from press conference duties.
I’ve already seen this interview. Whatever rocks your boat.
Shaw is true. Martial is hit and miss. This is his 8th season and he hasn't reached the level we would hope.
Out of his 13 signings, I'd say only Shaw, Herrera and Romero performed at the levels we would expect. I like Martial, but he's had too many disappointing spells.
Herrera..
Spanish Van de Beek. No way in hell was he any better than the rest of the dross we had.I was a fan, but it may have been more about his mentality that I liked. The cult hero type players that seem like they understand what it means to be a United player. I definitely think he was a lot better than VDB. VDB is mostly a ghost on the pitch. I definitely can't say that about Herrera.Herrera..
Either way, my point still stands. A lot of the players Van Gaal brought in were not good and set us back by quite a bit.
I don't know. He's a 29 year old player who's missed ~30% of matches in the past 8 seasons. On his injury history you've got a bad patella, Achilles and adductor injuries, all of which are at risk for recurring and given the number of small injuries in his history which are labeled as knocks I wouldn't be surprised if they are somewhat recurring.
A player missing 30% of games for City is fine. They have a big squad and money isn't a problem.
He was before he started eating toe nails.
Yes, he does have his injury issues but he cost less than half of what Mount did and I think we could have rotated him and Eriksen and got away with it, whilst blooding in Mainoo over the next couple of seasons, to eventually take over that role in a couple of years' time.
Martial was an excellent signing by Van Gaal. How managers used him after he left is not in question.
We don't need a press resistant midfielder. With the right movement, a midfielder can always be in space to receive the ball and play a pass. Our midfielders just have rubbish movement. Maybe because they're both 10's
I'm pretty sure I read Kovacic only wanted to go to City, once he knew of their interest. In the same way it was pointless trying to go after Gundogan, who only wanted to go to Barca. The one we could have tried for was maybe Tonali, who was similarly priced as Mount iirc.
Barella is the one i'd love but i don't think Inter would sell him unless its a crazy offer.
Eriksen and Casemiro are both very good at playing on half turn and avoiding the press. Scholes is probably one of the best ever at it. Do people just not watch our games?
Not sure what is meant/expected by press resistant if it isn't the ability to both keep the ball and play forwards when pressed.
Not sure what is meant/expected by press resistant if it isn't the ability to both keep the ball and play forwards when pressed.
Er, I wouldn't say "press resistant" is the first phrase that come to mind when I think about Paul Pogba. Rather the contrary in fact.