Where has the notion that ETH isn't a possession manager come from?

[city-puma]

With the keeper there should be two advantages if we're to focus on ball playing ability. And the two advantages the keeper should provide is to have the ability to play short to mid range passes consistently and also have the ability to launch long passes with a degree of accuracy. And then if we also add the potential benefit of cross claiming and sweeping. Then the improvement should be noticeable.

Video below comparing DdG, Costa and Raya.

Exactly.
Passing ability alone might not be the most complete capture of the importance. The control of the ball in order to probe, create, and/or change to alternative passing choices is critically important to disable the opponent’s high press and start the first phase play. DDG almost completely lacks of that. We have to compromise so much with DDG in goal.

 

[Adnan]

Exactly.
Passing ability alone might not be the most complete capture of the importance. The control of the ball in order to probe, create, and/or change to alternative passing choices is critically important to disable the opponent’s high press and start the first phase play. DDG almost completely lacks of that. We have to compromise so much with DDG in goal.

Agreed.

 

[TheRedHearted]

We don’t have to be City and Pep. We don't have to go that far.

But we do need to out pass mid table teams.

Pretty sure we just gotta out score them

 

[Isotope]

The '99 team was not a possession team, but we did dominate games against smaller teams. That's what we did in the past, and I think that's what we do under EtH.

When you have Casemiro with regularly in 80% passing rate as a DM, which I didn't see that when he played for Madrid for years, you just know that is EtH's instruction for him to be more risky.

The notion that Casemiro is playing possession based game is false.

- Casemiro 77.9% passing rate over 19 PL games.

- Bruno 76.6% over 25 PL games.

https://www.whoscored.com/Players/88526/Show/Casemiro


It's interesting that they both had better passing rate in World Cup, albeit in much fewer games:

- Casemiro 83.1% in 4 games.

- Bruno 87.6% in 4 games.

with Bruno had better rate than Casemiro. So the notion that Bruno can't be in possession team more than Casemiro may not be true.

 

[NLunited]

International football and club football are very different.

You're saying that he never had the players, hence had to adapt. But the new breed of manager like Klopp and Pochettino managed to play proactive attacking football at clubs like Mainz and Espanyol with not the best players. And both Klopp and Pochettino applied a vertical approach in possession which allowed them to flood the opponent's defensive third via committing players in attack, with the counter press as the defense mechanism in the event the ball is turned over to the opposition.

And LvG won the league with AZ, not playing possession style football. Does winning with a lesser team make you outdated?

According to you he is a horizontal possession style (does not exist) coach and behind the times, in reality he had his teams play different styles. He was too good to be outdated as he has shown in his career.

Or, as LvG would tell the press: ‚You totally don‘t have a clue‘.

 

[PepG]

And LvG won the league with AZ, not playing possession style football. Does winning with a lesser team make you outdated?

According to you he is a horizontal possession style (does not exist) coach and behind the times, in reality he had his teams play different styles. He was too good to be outdated as he has shown in his career.

Or, as LvG would tell the press: ‚You totally don‘t have a clue‘.

I think what Adnan is trying to tell you is that LVGs approach at the big clubs is outdated. Yes, the way he played at AZ and with the Netherlands the last two times still works because it is his rigid system on the front in those cases not the quality of his teams. Van Gaal failed with the Netherlands the first time and that was quite a good Dutch side at the time, he failed at Barcelona in 2003 pretty bad i might say, and his second season at Bayern was a disaster. His transfer policy at Barca, Bayern and United was terrible and the execution of his possession based ideas was very bad. Actually the only time in his career when he played a dominant style successfully was at Ajax in the 90s..

As for the horizontal use of the positional play here is what Marti Perarnau has said. He is a close friend of Pep Guardiola and wrote the book Pep Confidential - he spent the first year of Guardiola at Bayern being everyday on the training ground with the staff and during the matches :

'' In Bayern Munich, Guardiola has promoted the Positional Play that Louis van Gaal introduced five years ago. But the one Bayern is practicing right now is a game that is much more oriented to a vertical axis than a horizontal one and this version requires a high degree of technical excellence because it seeks to construct the above mentioned superiorities not based on horizontal but vertical passes. This is an extremely ambitious interpretation of Positional Play. ''

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I think what Adnan is trying to tell you is that LVGs approach at the big clubs is outdated. Yes, the way he played at AZ and with the Netherlands the last two times still works because it is his rigid system on the front in those cases not the quality of his teams. Van Gaal failed with the Netherlands the first time and that was quite a good Dutch side at the time, he failed at Barcelona in 2003 pretty bad i might say, and his second season at Bayern was a disaster. His transfer policy at Barca, Bayern and United was terrible and the execution of his possession based ideas was very bad. Actually the only time in his career when he played a dominant style successfully was at Ajax in the 90s..

As for the horizontal use of the positional play here is what Marti Perarnau has said. He is a close friend of Pep Guardiola and wrote the book Pep Confidential - he spent the first year of Guardiola at Bayern being everyday on the training ground with the staff and during the matches :

'' In Bayern Munich, Guardiola has promoted the Positional Play that Louis van Gaal introduced five years ago. But the one Bayern is practicing right now is a game that is much more oriented to a vertical axis than a horizontal one and this version requires a high degree of technical excellence because it seeks to construct the above mentioned superiorities not based on horizontal but vertical passes. This is an extremely ambitious interpretation of Positional Play. ''

Checkmate for that.

I don't know why he's defending Van Gaal so vehemently in this thread. He's always been a proponent of a horizonal positional play.

Pep and Ten Hag differ from Van Gaal, because they subscribe to a vertical positional play. Van Gaal prefers horizontal passes constantly until the 3rd man is freed up, because of its rigidity and simplicity somewhat.

Presuming Ten Hag is still our manager in 2 seasons, we will see a very different United side in style than the one we see now. There's been some games this season where we've exerted good positional play on teams, but it's not been consistent nor of the utmost highest quality(De Gea and unideal center forwards have limited this).

 

[Pogue Mahone]

With the keeper there should be two advantages if we're to focus on ball playing ability. And the two advantages the keeper should provide is to have the ability to play short to mid range passes consistently and also have the ability to launch long passes with a degree of accuracy. And then if we also add the potential benefit of cross claiming and sweeping. Then the improvement should be noticeable.

Video below comparing DdG, Costa and Raya.

Ugh. Football videos in portrait.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I hope ETH has seen De Gea's limitations and replaces him in the summer.

He limits us so much during the build-up. Like @Adnan said: It's not just the passing. It's being able to quickly shift your feet to create better passing angles and even just pure manipulation with the ball. He's just plainly average or even below average in so many aspects of a sweeper keeper.

I'd argue we need 2 players in midfield who are press-resistant/good ball carries and are capable of line breaking passes, but even 1 would be great. De Jong would be ideal, but I highly doubt he wants to move.

Then obviously a center forward is needed. I'm not sure who ETH would prefer from a choice of Kane vs Osimhen.

Kane's a much better passer, better at linking-up and could help create further numerical superiorities in midfield and in the half-spaces. He's a better finisher and more 2 footed. I think him and Rashford would be great foil to each other. Probably the safer choice.

Osimhen's a better physical presence, presses from the front more, and makes more darting runs. Younger as well, so his best might still be ahead of him.

 

[Adnan]

And LvG won the league with AZ, not playing possession style football. Does winning with a lesser team make you outdated?

According to you he is a horizontal possession style (does not exist) coach and behind the times, in reality he had his teams play different styles. He was too good to be outdated as he has shown in his career.

Or, as LvG would tell the press: ‚You totally don‘t have a clue‘.

His approach (or interpretation) to playing proactive attacking football at the big clubs was outdated. Which was the point I was making and why his approach was very different to the likes of ten Hag and Guardiola who place emphasis on playing forward passes at every possible opportunity whilst Van Gaal's horizontal positional play (yes I coined the phrase) which is a very basic form of positional play due to a lack of risk when it came to ball progression meant his approach lacked both intensity without the ball and purpose on the ball due to a lack of verticality.

So when one decides to play forward passes at every opportunity, they've by default decided to play with risk. And the risk factor is mitigated by a off the ball counter pressing approach, which LVG never had in his locker. Hence he became very risk averse in his approach to the new breed of manager who was placing heavy emphasis on vertical plays in possession which was backed up by a fail safe through the counter press which allowed them to play with risk.

 

[Skills]

It's hard to say ATM. Ajax are a possession oriented club - how did their possession stats change when ETH took over from Bosz?

 

[Adnan]

I think what Adnan is trying to tell you is that LVGs approach at the big clubs is outdated. Yes, the way he played at AZ and with the Netherlands the last two times still works because it is his rigid system on the front in those cases not the quality of his teams. Van Gaal failed with the Netherlands the first time and that was quite a good Dutch side at the time, he failed at Barcelona in 2003 pretty bad i might say, and his second season at Bayern was a disaster. His transfer policy at Barca, Bayern and United was terrible and the execution of his possession based ideas was very bad. Actually the only time in his career when he played a dominant style successfully was at Ajax in the 90s..

As for the horizontal use of the positional play here is what Marti Perarnau has said. He is a close friend of Pep Guardiola and wrote the book Pep Confidential - he spent the first year of Guardiola at Bayern being everyday on the training ground with the staff and during the matches :

'' In Bayern Munich, Guardiola has promoted the Positional Play that Louis van Gaal introduced five years ago. But the one Bayern is practicing right now is a game that is much more oriented to a vertical axis than a horizontal one and this version requires a high degree of technical excellence because it seeks to construct the above mentioned superiorities not based on horizontal but vertical passes. This is an extremely ambitious interpretation of Positional Play. ''

Completely agree.

 

[DWelbz19]

There are two things that stand out in this regard:
(1) DDG’s distribution.
(2) The use of Rashford at LW and the amount of times we look to find him with passes in behind the D line.

Good post, I agree with all of it but these two points are most pertinent. Our midfielders lack a patient short game pass so their innate idea is to hit Rashford on the break. We are extremely one dimensional in this regard a lot of the times.

 

[Adnan]

The possession stats will shoot up once we have technically strong players in the build up phase (GK, RB, CM)

Klopp wasn't a possession type of manager but his heavy metal approach to football had to change due to how taxing his off the ball pressing and counter pressing was on his players. So he became more possession orientated and the Dutch coach Pep Ljinders is said to have played his part in making Liverpool a more possession based outfit.

And it's not about having a high percentage of possession, but what you do with the possession you have. And all the top teams domestically have a better build up phase than us, and once we make the necessary changes, we'll also be up there.

 

[tomaldinho1]

I don’t think he’s particularly different to most of the Cruyff inspired coaches in dominating possession being his end goal but he’s far less rigid in getting there than someone like LVG.

Currently we just have too many players who can’t really play the way he wants so we’re a more pragmatic and direct team, something that suits players like Rashford and Bruno and hides our weakness in goal and midfield when in possession. He can’t really hide the issue we have at CF but we’re having a good season and for his first 8months or so it’s been a very good season so far.

 

[Real Name]

It came from here among other places. Some posters are claiming he isnt one and we're just a pumped up Ole version of the team. Saying that after 6 months of ETH's tenure is baffling.
As some others said he isnt a posession manager like Pep but he understands we need to have more of possession to create things and we certainly arent a counter attack team. We can make good counters of course but our game isnt based on that. Also we have problems with injuries so controlling the tempo in midfield and having more possession is a problem. Even with all that we have more possession in most games and we mix it up, sometimes build our play slowly, sometimes try to attack with quick fire passes as fast as we can to have an opponent unprepared.
There is a notion that we're garbage at possession too which in itself is garbage. We should of course be better and with few additions we will be but we certainly aren't garbage and to add are a lot, lot better compared to last season.

 

[CM]

He is a brilliant manager and pragmatic coach (but this is an insult nowadays ). Feck, I’m pretty sure even DeZerbi will have to comply and get results the day he lands a top seat.

There's pragmatism and there's pragmatism. Mourinho's version of it was playing 10 men behind the ball in big games, wingers becoming wing-backs and barely getting out of your own half. It became a dirty word and code for playing terrible football.

Ten Hag's version of pragmatism means giving us the best chance of winning a football game. That's what made us go from losing by 4 goals against Brentford to beating Liverpool at Old Trafford in the next game. If a manager is prepared to sacrifice some of his principles in order to win, I think that's the sign of a great coach. You have to have belief in your ideas but not at the expense of the team, and I think a lot of coaches are too firmly married to a set of ideals.

Hopefully in time we will integrate more of ten Hag's ideas and get to a point where we're playing football the way he sees fit, but sometimes if you change too much, too soon, that does more harm than it does good. Give him a few more players who are capable of playing the way he likes next season and I think we'll come on again and improve markedly as a team.

 

[NLunited]

His approach (or interpretation) to playing proactive attacking football at the big clubs was outdated. Which was the point I was making and why his approach was very different to the likes of ten Hag and Guardiola who place emphasis on playing forward passes at every possible opportunity whilst Van Gaal's horizontal positional play (yes I coined the phrase) which is a very basic form of positional play due to a lack of risk when it came to ball progression meant his approach lacked both intensity without the ball and purpose on the ball due to a lack of verticality.

So when one decides to play forward passes at every opportunity, they've by default decided to play with risk. And the risk factor is mitigated by a off the ball counter pressing approach, which LVG never had in his locker. Hence he became very risk averse in his approach to the new breed of manager who was placing heavy emphasis on vertical plays in possession which was backed up by a fail safe through the counter press which allowed them to play with risk.

I believe it had more to do with a failure in execution. Van Gaal could have reverted to a counter attacking style at MU sooner, but he wanted to play dominant attacking football. Winning the ball back quickly is one of the pillars of that.

You are right about the risk factor. Van Gaal‘s possession style is more like Barçelona/City rather than counter pressing trying to force turnovers. In fact transition play was s weakness during Vsn Gaal‘s time here.

He was under the impression MU could buy who they wanted, which was not the case. If you look at our squad in those days, playing a modern pressing system was barely possible, or any possession style really.

There were games were it all came together but there was no consistency. The players weren‘t good enough to do it.

 

[Adnan]

I believe it had more to do with a failure in execution. Van Gaal could have reverted to a counter attacking style at MU sooner, but he wanted to play dominant attacking football. Winning the ball back quickly is one of the pillars of that.

You are right about the risk factor. Van Gaal‘s possession style is more like Barçelona/City rather than counter pressing trying to force turnovers. In fact transition play was s weakness during Vsn Gaal‘s time here.

He was under the impression MU could buy who they wanted, which was not the case. If you look at our squad in those days, playing a modern pressing system was barely possible, or any possession style really.

There were games were it all came together but there was no consistency. The players weren‘t good enough to do it.

He wanted to play dominant football without the risk element and his teams at club level were never coached to apply the counter press because Van Gaal didn't want his teams to play too high up the pitch in defensive transition. The new breed of manager with pressing and counter pressing capabilities would then cause him problems.

Van Gaal's teams never played football like Guardiola's Barca or the current Man City. Because for one, he never emphasised vertical plays through the lines against the press or had the counter press as the fall back option in the event the ball was turned over high up the pitch with numerous players committed in the final third. Guardiola‘s Barcelona were brilliant on the ball and played the game in the opponent's half whilst also being one of the best counter pressing teams in Europe at the time. Van Gaal didn't play like that.

And again, the recruitment being bad during his tenure was his own fault. He wrote in his book that he always had the itch to be the all powerful manager in England where he could play the role of both head coach and DoF. He got his wish and made a mess of recruitment but he also got rid of players for peanuts like Nani, Chicharito, Keane, Rafael etc, prematurely. Those players could've helped with stability and made the club much more money in sales. Michael Keane was let go of for £2m and he was then sold on by Burnley for a fee that had the potential to rise to £30m.

And Van Gaal being under the impression that United could sign any player they wanted to sign was also another reason why he failed. You can't just go to a club like Bayern Munich and sign Muller and Hummels if Bayern weren't going to allow them to leave.

Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho and Ole operated as managers and not head coaches. And that's one of the factors why they failed when it came to recruitment. Any prospective new man coming into the club as head coach must demand there's a DoF with a support structure in place to allow them to develop on pitch performance. None of the aforementioned wanted to operate as head coaches and hence their failure was inevitable imo.

 

[NLunited]

He wanted to play dominant football without the risk element and his teams at club level were never coached to apply the counter press because Van Gaal didn't want his teams to play too high up the pitch in defensive transition. The new breed of manager with pressing and counter pressing capabilities would then cause him problems.

Van Gaal's teams never played football like Guardiola's Barca or the current Man City. Because for one, he never emphasised vertical plays through the lines against the press or had the counter press as the fall back option in the event the ball was turned over high up the pitch with numerous players committed in the final third. Guardiola‘s Barcelona were brilliant on the ball and played the game in the opponent's half whilst also being one of the best counter pressing teams in Europe at the time. Van Gaal didn't play like that.

And again, the recruitment being bad during his tenure was his own fault. He wrote in his book that he always had the itch to be the all powerful manager in England where he could play the role of both head coach and DoF. He got his wish and made a mess of recruitment but he also got rid of players for peanuts like Nani, Chicharito, Keane, Rafael etc, prematurely. Those players could've helped with stability and made the club much more money in sales. Michael Keane was let go of for £2m and he was then sold on by Burnley for a fee that had the potential to rise to £30m.

And Van Gaal being under the impression that United could sign any player they wanted to sign was also another reason why he failed. You can't just go to a club like Bayern Munich and sign Muller and Hummels if Bayern weren't going to allow them to leave.

Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho and Ole operated as managers and not head coaches. And that's one of the factors why they failed when it came to recruitment. Any prospective new man coming into the club as head coach must demand there's a DoF with a support structure in place to allow them to develop on pitch performance. None of the aforementioned wanted to operate as head coaches and hence their failure was inevitable imo.

Load of nonsense: pressing is and always has been essential to Van Gaal tactics.

The last two installments were total pressing in 2021 and provocative pressing at the world cup.

 

[adexkola]

Over the years I've watched around a dozen games of his prior to joining United, and never thought that his Ajax teams seek to dominate possession.

He's more focused on being on the front foot and at the same time, pragmatic. But he definitely leans towards attacking football. Possession is merely a tool in his toolbox. It's football that players and fans alike enjoy.

Can we stop misusing the word pragmatic, please?

 

[adexkola]

Either way, Pep's teams have always been very good at creating chances too.

There's this weird myth on here that possession automatically = sterile football.

All of the best teams in the last decade were excellent at recycling the ball and pinning opponents back.

Going a little back... This was evident in SAF's best teams going back to when he started winning with United. Nowadays you would think he just spammed counters the way people speak about him.

 

[Adnan]

Load of nonsense: pressing is and always has been essential to Van Gaal tactics.

The last two installments were total pressing in 2021 and provocative pressing at the world cup.

You're talking a lot of bollocks. Van Gaal's 'horizontal' positional play isn't similar to the attacking playstyles of ten Hag or Guardiola who emphasise vertical plays with the aim of playing the game in the opponent's half with counter pressing high up the pitch.

Below via @PepG destroys your whole nonsensical defense of Van Gaal.

"As for the horizontal use of the positional play here is what Marti Perarnau has said. He is a close friend of Pep Guardiola and wrote the book Pep Confidential - he spent the first year of Guardiola at Bayern being everyday on the training ground with the staff and during the matches" :

' In Bayern Munich, Guardiola has promoted the Positional Play that Louis van Gaal introduced five years ago. But the one Bayern is practicing right now is a game that is much more oriented to a vertical axis than a horizontal one and this version requires a high degree of technical excellence because it seeks to construct the above mentioned superiorities not based on horizontal but vertical passes. This is an extremely ambitious interpretation of Positional Play. ''

 

[Pronewbie]

Can we stop misusing the word pragmatic, please?

How am I misusing the word? He prefers to be on the front foot and builds his team accordingly but he's not as naive or idealistic as Wenger.

 

[adexkola]

How am I misusing the word? He prefers to be on the front foot and builds his team accordingly but he's not as naive or idealistic as Wenger.

All managers look to win first and foremost. No manager goes and says, "well parking the bus will give us a better chance of winning but I live life on the edge so yolo"

And annoyingly, "pragmatic" as used on the Caf is not it's dictionary definition. It's moreso: "to play in a cynical manner" or in the case of managers who oversee lesser sides "to park the bus instead of chase the win', because in the minds of most people, to play in that way is the best guarantor of success, when you ignore the facts on ground and stick to pre-conceived notions.

I quoted your post because you contrasted "dominating possession" with being pragmatic. You also do the same with "pragmatic" vs "attacking football". Which doesn't make any sense, unless you mean it would have been counterproductive for his side to try to dominate possession, or be better at "attacking football".

A minor pet peeve of mine.

 

[Pronewbie]

All managers look to win first and foremost. No manager goes and says, "well parking the bus will give us a better chance of winning but I live life on the edge so yolo"

And annoyingly, "pragmatic" as used on the Caf is not it's dictionary definition. It's moreso: "to play in a cynical manner" or in the case of managers who oversee lesser sides "to park the bus instead of chase the win', because in the minds of most people, to play in that way is the best guarantor of success, when you ignore the facts on ground and stick to pre-conceived notions.

I quoted your post because you contrasted "dominating possession" with being pragmatic. You also do the same with "pragmatic" vs "attacking football". Which doesn't make any sense, unless you mean it would have been counterproductive for his side to try to dominate possession, or be better at "attacking football".

A minor pet peeve of mine.

I'm yet to be convinced and I also think you may have misquoted or at least misinterpreted some of my words..

From a squad building perspective ETH showed pragmatism by getting Casemiro instead of getting a De Jong-lite after our 1st 2 matches.

From a playstyle perspective - He prefers to be on the front foot but is pragmatic and adjusts accordingly even during games, unlike managers such as Wenger and LVG who can be too idealistic (IMO).

Doesn't seem to be a caf thing either. Here's a quote from The Times on Wenger:

Wenger has been berated for being too attacking, and not pragmatic enough; ignoring his defence, and for the naivety of a team who get ...

Some articles on Ten Hag:
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ragmatic-approach-to-revive-manchester-united
https://theathletic.com/3651985/2022/10/05/erik-ten-hag-pragmatism-manchester-united/

 

[matt10000]

He is a manager that aims to get the best out of his players first in my opinion.

and as a manager that is his job, same as it is for any managers job inaide or outside football

 

[NLunited]

You're talking a lot of bollocks. Van Gaal's 'horizontal' positional play isn't similar to the attacking playstyles of ten Hag or Guardiola who emphasise vertical plays with the aim of playing the game in the opponent's half with counter pressing high up the pitch.

Below via @PepG destroys your whole nonsensical defense of Van Gaal.

"As for the horizontal use of the positional play here is what Marti Perarnau has said. He is a close friend of Pep Guardiola and wrote the book Pep Confidential - he spent the first year of Guardiola at Bayern being everyday on the training ground with the staff and during the matches" :

' In Bayern Munich, Guardiola has promoted the Positional Play that Louis van Gaal introduced five years ago. But the one Bayern is practicing right now is a game that is much more oriented to a vertical axis than a horizontal one and this version requires a high degree of technical excellence because it seeks to construct the above mentioned superiorities not based on horizontal but vertical passes. This is an extremely ambitious interpretation of Positional Play. ''

Nope, you are confusing apples with oranges. Guardiola applies a different focus but it is mostly the same.

Van Gaal has played a high defensive line most of his career, again you are incorrect.

And what about his total pressing? That was executed in 2021.

 

[Adnan]

Nope, you are confusing apples with oranges. Guardiola applies a different focus but it is mostly the same.

Van Gaal has played a high defensive line most of his career, again you are incorrect.

And what about his total pressing? That was executed in 2021.

How is it mostly the same ?

when did Van Gaal play a high defensive line in the last 12 years? He definitely didn't play a high defensive line at United in his two full seasons at the club.

Explain 'total pressing' and how it's applied?