Will Ten Hag's system ever work (once everyone is fit)?

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I'm no expert, but what I can't get my amateurish mind around is how this is supposed to work when combined with such a strong emphasis on transition and directness? Pretty much everyone else who plays 4141 of some sort seems to combine it with an emphasis on control, City in particular, Arsenal too I would say.
 
A single pivot like this can work, as long as all (or at least a significant majority) of the other surrounding players step up and contribute to helping the midfield. If we ever get Shaw, Martinez and Dalot all on the field at once then that's most of the backline who are capable of playing their part. We'd still need a right centreback who can have more of an impact on the ball than what we have, but the backline as a whole isn't too far off theoretically working the way it should.

The big issue is the players we have ahead of the pivot. Bruno gets involved quite a lot, but he's obviously not the safest on the ball and his pressing is chaotic (which sometimes works in our favour and sometimes works against us). The player in the second #10 / attacking #8 (whichever you want to call it) is a much bigger problem though. Scott's obviously the one who's played it most and he abandons the midfield far more than what someone in that position should be doing (while also regularly being lazy at getting back defensively), while Mount wasn't any better in the few games he was fit for. Combine that with our wingers also not helping out (Antony holds onto the ball more but doesn't do much with it, while Rashford and Garnacho basically just attack the fullback every time) and we just end up with a very bad shape.
 
I’d imagine the line-up would be:

————————Onana
AWB——Varane——Martinez——Shaw
————Casemiro—Mainoo
Garnacho———Bruno———Rashford
————————Hojlund

Some clear weaknesses remain.
 
If you could pick from all players in the world then yeah, maybe you could have Rodri as your DM and Gundogan breaking from next to him to support the attack.

But we dont have those players. And we havent bought very similar players. So with these players no it doesnt work. Change the players and theres a chance

Edit - And no, we absolutely dont play with 1 CM and then 2 players in AM. The 2nd CM starts next to the other CM/DM and then gets forward in front of the ball during moves
 
AFC NimbleThumb said:
We were never a striker away. Many derided me for saying so at the time but anyone that believed this squad + striker with no injuries is bonkers.

We certainly were more cohesive last year but it was rather clear there were many issues aside no.9.

There’s a tendency for this fanbase to feed into personality & think one person will fix things. This squad was never a player away even at its best last year.
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I didn't say we were a striker away though, just that it looked as if it would make a huge difference. When we were playing well last season, with weghorst up front as often as he was, we were all wishing we had some real quality up there. It would have made a huge difference to what was a pretty cohesive set up, as you say.
 
The whole point of a system is that it is bigger than the players and can be tweaked accordingly. We have evidence the system doesn’t work.
 
His plan was revealed in the summer to utilize Rashford and Bruno, build a high attacking team, best transition team in the world. Mount was probably a key part in the vision if you see his performances in the Dutch league and wanted Mount to be an all action midfielder that can also deliver balls, press and score. I don't see it working as he's more in Bruno's position or inside wide player that's difficult to use. Not only that, high turnovers don't generate goals, no plan b if one or two players aren't available.

It's a fair to say the fans want attacking football over dull possession. A balance can be struck of attack and control with strong technical players that can break well. Bayern's 2013 side is probably what the club should be aiming for. I think we can accommodate one limited player, we've looked to maximize multiple limited players and have an awful squad.

Would be nice to see a fully fit Case/Martinez Varane Shaw Mount Bruno and an inform Rashford with Hojlund attacking and growing as a player well. A flower blooming for one day a year.
 
SER19 said:
I didn't say we were a striker away though, just that it looked as if it would make a huge difference. When we were playing well last season, with weghorst up front as often as he was, we were all wishing we had some real quality up there. It would have made a huge difference to what was a pretty cohesive set up, as you say.
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Ok. I will reword. No striker was making a huge difference.

I didn’t expect the team to fall off as it has but I was arguing that the midfield was going to be a massive issue which it has actually been worse than & that even Kame would struggle here.

We were cohesive for about 20 games. The issues were far more than a top striker for me.

Implant Kane for those 20 games then yes we’d have been better but around the good run we were awful.
 
No, it’s a glaring issue and to say it will all come good when the injured players are together, what about the rest of the season?
 
It's evident that the 4-2-3-1 formation is not effective. Is he incapable of trying something new despite holding numerous coaching badges? It seems peculiar, given his qualifications. Is he so entrenched in his beliefs that he'd rather face termination than adapt his tactics? Alternatively, could it be that he is eager to leave?

It's baffling to me. Why not experiment with something, anything, rather than sticking to the same plan? I've been following insights from reputable football journalists who analyze tactics and gameplay, and it's clear that the United team is not performing well. Can't he recognize that?
 
It seems to me that we aren’t executing the pressing very well. We had a medium pressing line yesterday, but still holes behind it.

This could have to do with Spurs countering our tactics and our players not adapting fast enough.

The same was happening with playing out the back: we have clear patterns to do it but Spurs was on top of it.

Basically we weren’t good enough tactically yesterday and we didn’t win enough 2nd balls either.

On the positive side: we were very threatening on the attack: Spurs couldn’t stop our long passes in behind; we should have taken more advantage.
 
There are more than enough ETH threads already. We don't need another one every time someone has a vaguely different ETH related thought.
 
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