It's worth pointing out Ten Hag has played on the counter as his primary tactic before at Utrecht. He's not an ideologue.
Should we revert back to counter attacking football or do we throw another season?
- Thread starter VidaRed
- Start date
No.
In an ideal world (not our club), we hire a manager after understanding his philosophy and accept that is what we want and provide the manager the means to implement that philosophy. It will be super stupid to ask a manager to come up with something new. Some managers can make that happen, but many managers would find it hard and then we get a football that is neither here nor there.
We don't want a repeat of Jose's tenure.
In an ideal world (not our club), we hire a manager after understanding his philosophy and accept that is what we want and provide the manager the means to implement that philosophy. It will be super stupid to ask a manager to come up with something new. Some managers can make that happen, but many managers would find it hard and then we get a football that is neither here nor there.
We don't want a repeat of Jose's tenure.
I don't mind setting up how we did last night for awhile, which wasn't entirely counter attacking either. The difference between this and Jose/Ole however is that I trust EtH to implement his style on the team eventually whereas I didn't really trust our managers to have us playing as anything more than the plucky underdog or the bus parking team.
Baby steps and all. Last night was the foundation. Possession, dominating games and breaking those low block defences will come (hopefully).
Baby steps and all. Last night was the foundation. Possession, dominating games and breaking those low block defences will come (hopefully).
Wanting to play an attacking style doesn't mean you can't do anything else. He wanted to do what we did last night to Brentford, and he came out and said that the gameplan was to lure them in. The players just effed up the plan and generally stood around with their thumbs in their asses.
Fans need to relax and enjoy having an elite manager. His philosophy will be to attack as much as his players allow him to, but it's not like he doesn't understand how to counterattack or use the speed he has at forward to stretch defenses. In fact last night's game will give our coming opponents second thoughts at trying that midfield press BS that worked so well in the first two games.
Fans need to relax and enjoy having an elite manager. His philosophy will be to attack as much as his players allow him to, but it's not like he doesn't understand how to counterattack or use the speed he has at forward to stretch defenses. In fact last night's game will give our coming opponents second thoughts at trying that midfield press BS that worked so well in the first two games.
Deep down you know the OP is a fake account from Maguire 
The team can learn to play - we’ve been boring for a few years and our wins have been a function of individual brilliance. That brilliance wont get you far. The likes of City and Liverpool have that too. What we need is a game plan that can be executed and it’s not making us drowsy.
fight for top 4 if we can if not build for success rather than reverting to counter attacks. We’re United not Watford.
The team can learn to play - we’ve been boring for a few years and our wins have been a function of individual brilliance. That brilliance wont get you far. The likes of City and Liverpool have that too. What we need is a game plan that can be executed and it’s not making us drowsy.
fight for top 4 if we can if not build for success rather than reverting to counter attacks. We’re United not Watford.
Who even plays counter attacking football as their main approach nowadays?
Spurs.
Let me rephrase, who plays counter attacking football and we would actually look to reach their level and who has the same name and caché as us? Unless we assume that one can just play counter football now to get to the top 4 and then we look to play a more pro active style of football like every team that competes for the CL does.
We could have not signed Ronaldo and kept Ole. We would have finished top-4 with the pressing counter-attacking approach of 2019-21.
Counter-attacking football seems to me like a by-product of what we do off the ball to get possession back. I don't see it as an approach that defines how we play. It is a channel for quick attacks but part of a broader network of styles.
Building a new method and style of football isn't 'throwing a season'. Sticking with a system and players that have proven to be relative failures so we can ... finish 5th instead of 8th or something? seems much more wasteful to me.
Are people under the impression that possession teams don't counter attack or make direct passes? The objective is not to maximize possession per se but to score goals. If the opponent leaves open the opportunity to make long, direct passes, Pep's teams will take advantage. That's part of what makes them able to maintain possession. The aim is to control the ball, using it and the position of the players to move the opponent around the pitch to create opportunities to make direct passes to players moving unmarked toward the goal. When you think about it, the strategy is not that different from dropping deep and trying to score on the counter, as both aim to get the ball to players running into space not occupied by the opponent.
They can definitely make it a gradual move to possession based tactics. It doesn't have to be an overnight change. Playing out from the back is useful because it allows the team to keep possession of the ball more, but the inability to do it doesn't mean other principles can't be implemented, like proper movement and positioning of players while the team is in possession of the ball in midfield. For example:
This is a pretty heavy press that they passed the ball around and created a good scoring chance. As they get better at this stuff it'll back a lot of teams off of pressing so hard, and the possession numbers will increase incrementally. Adding things like playing out from the back, and coordinated pressing high up the pitch will improve the possession statistics but it's going to take a while. Learning it on the fly and implementing it while starting from a counter attacking base is definitely doable though.
Edit: I'll also add that in that clip, Sancho, Dalot and McTominay made a triangle and passed the ball around 4 Liverpool players like they weren't even there.
They can definitely make it a gradual move to possession based tactics. It doesn't have to be an overnight change. Playing out from the back is useful because it allows the team to keep possession of the ball more, but the inability to do it doesn't mean other principles can't be implemented, like proper movement and positioning of players while the team is in possession of the ball in midfield. For example:
This is a pretty heavy press that they passed the ball around and created a good scoring chance. As they get better at this stuff it'll back a lot of teams off of pressing so hard, and the possession numbers will increase incrementally. Adding things like playing out from the back, and coordinated pressing high up the pitch will improve the possession statistics but it's going to take a while. Learning it on the fly and implementing it while starting from a counter attacking base is definitely doable though.
Edit: I'll also add that in that clip, Sancho, Dalot and McTominay made a triangle and passed the ball around 4 Liverpool players like they weren't even there.
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I bet some of those players in the dressing room is thinking the same as OP. That's what their strengths are, and they'd probably be thinking their chances of staying at the club and be on their high wages, are best served in playing the type of football that's different from the manager's preference.
Won't be surprised if articles talking about this topic comes up the next time we hit a sticky patch.
Won't be surprised if articles talking about this topic comes up the next time we hit a sticky patch.