- 1 year ago
Despite expectations being low, Manchester United shocked Liverpool at Anfield this weekend. But as much as the 2-2 result will have raised eyebrows, it was actually the committed and effective performance of the team that really caught the eye. Adam Clery looks at how Ruben Amorim got so much out of his players after weeks of disappointing displays.
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00:00Right then, hello there everybody, Adam Cleary from 442, happy new year, you remember me.
00:08Apologies for the disruption to your regular scheduled football inside broadcasting but
00:13we're back now and we're back with Manchester United vs Liverpool, possibly still the most
00:19consistently fun and mad fixture in the Premier League.
00:22Now given that Gary Neville was trying to shovel snow back onto the pitch to stop this
00:25game going ahead, expectations for this Man Utd side were incredibly low but so good
00:31was their performance, I toyed with the idea of calling this video How Man Utd Beat Liverpool
00:372-2.
00:38But that's obviously very silly and people might call me a horrible name so instead we're
00:42just going to look at why Liverpool couldn't quite get it going and why Amaram's side,
00:46despite their recent results, were good value for a point and maybe Twiddle's moustache
00:52could have had three.
00:54So let's see if I can remember how you do this.
00:59Alright so first up, no major surprises in either the selections or the formations, Man
01:03Utd are now this 3-4-3 that Amaram has brought over from supporting Lisbon.
01:08Sometimes it looks really good, sometimes it really doesn't and Liverpool have settled
01:11into this nice 4-3-3 with Gravenberch being the single pivot and Mo Salah having the most
01:16Mo Salah season you've ever seen.
01:17And the phrase I have heard slash read an awful lot of since this game finished was
01:21that Liverpool paid this Man Utd team too much respect.
01:26What that means in actual footballing terms is that their press was uncharacteristically
01:31not very aggressive.
01:32They stood off them.
01:33And in reality the reason for that sort of standoffishness is not because they were paying
01:37them too much respect.
01:39Like this is Liverpool, they don't need to do that.
01:40They didn't do it against Real Madrid, they're not going to do it here.
01:44It's just that on a slot, always tweaks the approach, tweaks the tactics on a game-to-game
01:49basis to fit the opposition.
01:50And this is the first time I can really remember this season him appearing to mostly get those
01:56tweaks wrong.
01:57Like if you look at the early exchanges of the game, you can see that it's not that Liverpool
02:01are not pressing Man Utd, they've pretty much gone man-for-man with their front three versus
02:06the back three.
02:07And that problem specifically is that it's sort of fiddly for the full-backs to work
02:11out exactly who to go to.
02:13Like you can see in this bit here, Liverpool have locked on 3-for-3 while Man Utd have
02:17got the ball, but Diogo Dalot is in no danger whatsoever of being pressed by Alexander-Arnold,
02:23who we will be talking about later.
02:26Like it was pretty clear that both him and Robertson were told not to jump all the way
02:31forward and sort of back up the press onto these wing-backs.
02:34And that's actually a pretty sensible decision by Arnold Slot, because it leaves you really
02:39short-handed at the top end.
02:41Like for all Rasmus Heuland is coming for a lot of criticism this season for his perceived
02:45lack of threat in front of goal, he's still a really capable, quite good physical centre-forward,
02:51both in terms of his strength and his movement, and he can very easily occupy the attention
02:56of two centre-backs.
02:57So if your full-backs jump all the way up this end of the pitch to try and back up this
03:02press, then it leaves these big pockets of space for the two number 10s that Man Utd
03:07have to exploit.
03:08And obviously you want to try and avoid that happening, because Man Utd have three centre-backs
03:12who are all very capable with the ball at their feet, who can just skip the entire midfield
03:17press if they find the space, and find players in these areas here.
03:20Like the best chance Man Utd got in that first half was from Martinez doing exactly that.
03:25A little bit of space opened up, he goes straight over the top and gets Rasmus Heuland in.
03:30Ergo, which is a word I hardly ever use, don't know why I've said it now, Slot was basically
03:34happy for Man Utd to have these passes out to Dalot and Maserati, with the understanding
03:39that they've shut off all the options further up the pitch, so when they inevitably come
03:43back into the middle, they've got a 3v2 to contend with.
03:46You can tell I'm a little bit rusty here, because what is this I'm doing with my hands?
03:50What's that about?
03:51Anyway though, so when the ball does inevitably go to the only two players in space, then
03:54Liverpool can shuffle across and basically go 3 for 3 on that side of the pitch, stop
03:59the runs down that side, and force Man Utd to play into a middle, where they can then
04:04get a 3 on 2.
04:05That was clearly the game plan, nick it off them here, then run at them.
04:08And you can tell, definitely definitely by the way, that this was part of the design
04:12rather than just something that was happening, because on the rare occasions one of the fullbacks
04:15did get sort of baited into pressing the win backs, one of these midfielders would then
04:20cover to make sure it was still a back four.
04:22You can see here, Alexander-Arnold's been drawn out to Dalot, that's a good decision
04:26on his part, in my opinion, but Jones has left the midfield and gone into the right
04:31back area.
04:32They were desperate to stop pockets of spaces in these areas.
04:36But, but, but, but, but, this is why conversations about systems only take you so far, you've
04:40then got to then start talking about the individual performances, because both Mainu and Ugarte,
04:45the things being specifically targeted here, were enormous in this match.
04:49Like if I show you both Dalot and Mazzarari's pass maps from this game, you will see those
04:54balls back into midfield were the thing they were doing most often.
04:58They kept finding themselves somewhere along this flank with very little in front of them,
05:02and then basically falling into the trap that Liverpool were trying to set.
05:06But because of the performances of these two, both on the ball and more importantly off
05:10the ball, that trap never ever really worked.
05:13They were composed when it came to feet, they were playing through Liverpool's press, and
05:17more importantly, they physically won the battle in the midfield.
05:21Like Ugarte in particular I thought was so good in this game, and I'll show you his heat
05:24map right, because it's so spotty and dotted all around, so whenever there was space he
05:29was able to drop into these little pockets and receive it, oops, and then turn play forward.
05:34He wasn't losing the ball in this midfield battle, you can see in fact he had loads of
05:38his touches right in the centre, which is where Liverpool would have been specifically
05:41targeting, like he looked composed, he looked disruptive, it was a perfect sort of battling
05:46performance to win a game like this.
05:48Well obviously not win the game, it was 2-2, I do know how maths works, but it probably
05:53felt like a win.
05:55Between these two, they won the second and third most ground duels in the entire match,
06:00I'm going to tell you who number one was in a second, that's part of a later point, and
06:03at no stage did it ever really feel like Liverpool had a man advantage in this area.
06:09It's probably the least effective I've ever seen Curtis Jones look.
06:12Like between them, this is every single tackle, every single interception, every single ball
06:16recovery they made across the 90 minutes, they stopped Liverpool having any rhythm,
06:21and more importantly, played out of the trap they were trying to set.
06:25Really good.
06:26But the one player who really really caught the eye in this Man United side for me, was
06:31Bruno Fernandes.
06:32Like he does feel a bit of a weird fit for that left-sided number 10 position, because
06:36you can see from his heat map, he gets shunted out onto the touchline a lot more than you
06:40would really like for a player with his capabilities in the middle, but look at all the other little
06:45pockets where he managed to do things.
06:48And the reason I say do things in such a weird voice, is because this wasn't just about
06:51getting on the ball and hurting Liverpool, this was just like Ugarte Amenu, winning tackles,
06:57making interceptions, disrupting Liverpool's rhythm, he had complete control over this
07:01part of the pitch, and it was he who had the most number of ground duels won.
07:07Like it was a fantastic technical performance on the ball, as we'll see when we look at
07:11the goals, but it was also just full of piss and bile and spit.
07:16Like he fought Liverpool for this game, and again, he won.
07:20Like with him sort of free to go wherever and drop into the middle to help these two,
07:24between the three of them, they won the ball back off Liverpool in some capacity nearly
07:3030 times.
07:31Right, so across the whole game, almost once every three minutes, they went and turned
07:37over possession in some capacity, and you can't play against a team that are physically
07:42doing that to you.
07:44And just bearing in mind that Liverpool's strategy here seemed to be force the ball
07:47into the middle, and then when they make the mistake, that's when we'll punish them.
07:51The mentality involved in this Man United performance is worthy of note, I think, because
07:56they looked so calm on the ball, they didn't make silly little mistakes, they didn't get
08:01broken under pressure, like they looked like a really, really good team that knew they
08:07could play through this.
08:08And if that sounds like a really weird thing to praise, like bear in mind, that's the same
08:12midfield setup that Man United had against Bournemouth when they got more or less passed
08:16off the pitch and completely run around.
08:19So the step up in attitude, the step up in aggression, the step up in execution is really
08:25worthy of note.
08:26Like given all the talk before the match that this could be 4-0, it could be 5-0, it could
08:29be absolutely anything, Man United turned up here to win this game, and we're going
08:34to get to the goals in a second, right, but I just want to show you one pass in this match
08:38that typifies what they were trying to do.
08:41The 96th minute of the game, you're running back towards your own goal.
08:44It is 2-2 at Anfield, you have a point.
08:49Every single ounce of common sense should tell Manuel Lugate to just roll this back
08:54to Andre Onana and then just take the whistle and be happy with your day's work.
08:59But instead, having very quickly scanned over his shoulder, you can see him doing it here
09:04just before he gets to the ball, he plays a 40-yard blind left-to-right diagonal pass.
09:13Given that Liverpool are all over the place, they're moving up the pitch, they're completely
09:16disorganised, that's, if you can pull it off, the best thing in the world you can possibly
09:22do and it puts Man United immediately in this situation.
09:27And let's be entirely real about this, from here, this pass then happens and they should,
09:33in the very last seconds, win this game of football.
09:37And that all comes because one of your defensive midfielders, who should be playing it simple
09:41and just lowering all the risks, decides, nah, do you know what, we're here to win,
09:46I'm going to try and win.
09:48But the thing is, you see, any team could actually do this.
09:51Like Southampton could turn up at Anfield with a really sort of aggressive mindset and
09:54be combative and win all of their duels, right?
09:57But what Man United also did on top of this, like this gave them the foundation to go and
10:02do was correctly identify a weakness in this Liverpool side and then target it and do things
10:10with it.
10:11And do you know what, I am slightly sorry to say it because I do feel like occasionally
10:14the criticism of them gets blown out of proportion, but it was so clear here that Man United's
10:19entire game plan was to target Trent Alexander-Arnold.
10:23Now, first up, a little bit of context, right?
10:26These are Liverpool's average positions, which yes, only tell you so much, but what they
10:30do show you is that they are not, as a team, particularly well set up to defend that side.
10:36Now, if you look over on this side, Gakpo and Diaz are sort of in a similar position
10:39because they do a lot of interchanging, they do a lot of covering over, they do a lot of
10:42work off the ball, they help out over here, but Mo Salah is Mo Salah.
10:47He is too good at all the other things to ask him to do that as well.
10:51So he's far further up the pitch in terms of his average contributions, virtually no
10:56attempt to track back or to win the ball or anything like that.
11:00He's your goal scorer.
11:01And thus, in a game like this, where the fullbacks have been asked to sit a little bit deeper
11:04because of the threat offered by these two 10s, it creates an enormous disconnect between
11:09your right back and your right-sided forward.
11:12So what you need then is whoever is on this side of your midfield three to basically act
11:15as the bridge between the two, do the tracking back for Mo Salah, but also help do the ball
11:19progression that Alexander-Arnold's too deep to do.
11:23And as we've already discussed, this was a pretty bad performance from Curtis Jones
11:26as well.
11:27So that left this entire side vulnerable, vulnerable, there's an L in that, isn't there?
11:34Vulnerable.
11:35In fact, this is actually a really old school graph.
11:37I've never used this before, but this is the concentration of Manchester United's attacking
11:42play.
11:43And look how overly weighted onto that left-hand side it is.
11:48They barely bothered going through the middle.
11:51They hardly ever went down the right.
11:53Every time they had a chance to get the ball in or to run with it or to create a passing
11:56angle, it was over here.
11:59And as a result, I'm going to show you every single pass Man Utd made into the box, successful
12:03or otherwise.
12:04Look how many times they got into that space behind the fullback.
12:09Liverpool could not stop the crosses coming from this side of the pitch.
12:13Now, whether that's a system issue or a bad performance, because this man's head is in
12:18Madrid or on Mars or whatever, I will leave for you to decide.
12:23But regardless, it worked.
12:25Like take the first goal, for example, right to start the second half, Man Utd have done
12:28really well.
12:29It's nil-nil.
12:30You would forgive them for sort of sitting back a little bit and trying to protect what
12:33they've got.
12:34But no, they're really aggressive in their press.
12:36They force Alexander-Arnold into a rushed, some would say thoughtless clearance.
12:42And from there, Martinez steps all the way forward, backs up that press, which is what
12:46Liverpool weren't doing, and nicks the ball back.
12:48It goes out to Fernandes on the left-hand side, and there's just, there's no aggression
12:53here from Alexander-Arnold.
12:55Like I know he's getting loads and loads of stick, but I'll try and just stick to the
12:58facts with this.
12:59He is not stopping Fernandes doing anything.
13:02In fact, he allows him to come in field and then just lets him walk past him.
13:07And once he gets into this area of the pitch, that's where he's at his most dangerous.
13:10Like the damage is done by this point.
13:12You've allowed him the opportunity to do something.
13:14So he slides in Martinez, and it's only at this moment here do we see any sort of reaction
13:20from Alexander-Arnold.
13:21He makes half a sprint to get back to him, but it's gone.
13:24It's happened.
13:25Incidentally, he then scores my favourite kind of goal.
13:30Just, you're not meant to be there.
13:32Don't look at where it is.
13:33Just get your head down, lash it, and put it in the roof of the net.
13:35You don't see enough of them.
13:36And then for the equaliser, and this is just a weird one to me, because the ball's sort
13:41of like hopefully punted forward, and there's no need or reason or imperative whatsoever
13:47for him to then get drawn into the middle of the pitch.
13:51That's not where his man goes.
13:52So when Canarte heads it clear, Alexander-Arnold's now drifted inside of him, like between him
13:57and Van Dijk.
13:58So when it comes straight back, the impetus is now on Canarte to go out and close down
14:03Garnaccio.
14:04So Liverpool are with this sort of back four, with these two completely the wrong way around.
14:08And this is why I said before, by the way, that I do think occasionally Alexander-Arnold
14:12gets more criticism than he's due.
14:14Like Canarte should do better here.
14:17He's got really good pace.
14:18He should be able to stop this cross coming in.
14:20And when it does come in, Alexander-Arnold, who is also not in good form by any stretch
14:24of the imagination, just loses where Dalot is, takes his eyes off him, gets drawn towards
14:30the back post.
14:31That allows him in to then score.
14:33But the reality is, this whole mess, which really did wind Virgil van Dijk up, comes
14:38from this small decision, this small thoughtless act by Alexander-Arnold that completely disrupts
14:44the shape of the defence.
14:45It's an odd one.
14:46Like, don't get me wrong here.
14:48This game does not finish 2-2 purely because Trent Alexander-Arnold has a bad game.
14:53Boo him, et cetera, et cetera.
14:55But his performance was of a sufficiently low calibre that it opened the door for Manchester
15:01United.
15:02And they were sufficiently well set up, cleverly I thought, to then...
15:06How do I finish that?
15:08Walk through it?
15:09That doesn't sound very exciting, but you know what I mean.
15:12I don't know why I'm struggling with that so much.
15:14I have used a door before.
15:15I'm not going to keep banging on about him because this video for me is more about why
15:18Man United were good and got it right as opposed to one individual error.
15:22But Alexander-Arnold being forced this far back because of the tweak Slott had made in
15:26the system just really seemed to mess his game up.
15:29If you look at all his successful passes, a lot of them are in field and all the ones
15:33that are forward feel like they're quite short.
15:36Liverpool clearly have good possession.
15:38He's giving it to Salah or somebody in front of him.
15:39There's not really any of his trademark incision between the lines or into the box.
15:45But then you look at all his unsuccessful passes and a lot of these are long.
15:49A lot of these are him trying to be incisive.
15:51And so many of them come from a much deeper position than he's been getting on the ball
15:55this season.
15:56So he had time and stuff to do things, but he just wasn't at it.
16:00But anyway, yes, it's not about him.
16:02It's about how Man United were good.
16:03And if you've not seen the game or the score and you've watched this, then you may be forgiven
16:07for thinking they won 2-0, but there was small downsides to this performance that's probably
16:13worth highlighting.
16:14Now, first off, I thought the penalty was quite unlucky, like, yes, it's the correct
16:18interpretation of the law.
16:19I'm not saying it's not not a penalty, but just seems like at some point we're going
16:23to have to really think about the handball rule because I don't get why that should
16:27pretty much gift the other team a goal.
16:29However, the equaliser for Liverpool simply carries no defence with it.
16:33In fact, I think Matthias de Ligt was having such a good game that either his brains or
16:37his balls swelled to the wrong size.
16:41By which I mean either his balls got too big or his brain got too small.
16:45I'll let you decide which or both.
16:47Like, because Man United were winning so many of their duels and putting in so many good
16:51tackles, I think he gets a false sense of either confidence or ability, because in this
16:56position here, we'll just freeze it on the spot like I can because I'm the one who edits
17:01these.
17:02There's no reason whatsoever for him to go to ground here.
17:04Cody Gakpo is at an extremely silly angle and on his wrong foot.
17:09You just you have to stand that up.
17:11And if the cross comes in behind you, you've just got to trust other people can deal with
17:15that.
17:16And he goes to the shops and for a hot dog and for a paper.
17:20And I imagine in his head, heard a comedy whoops noise as he did this.
17:25So a big daft individual mistake on that goal, one on possibly another day you might get
17:30away with.
17:31But this is Liverpool.
17:32And if you open the door for them, they're going to walk through it.
17:37That's never going to stick, is it?
17:39But anyway, yes, overall, Manchester United, in my opinion, very, very, very good value
17:42for the 2-2 and probably should have won it.
17:46Because I imagine Harry Maguire is going to be seeing this chance back a lot in both his
17:50dreams and his nightmares, which is a mad thing to say, really.
17:54Not the Harry Maguire point.
17:55That's definitely true.
17:56The point about them being really good value for a point or possibly three, because this
18:00is the same Man United side that have just looked so devoid of intensity and structure
18:06and a game plan the last couple of weeks.
18:08So to see it working so well here.
18:10Wow.
18:11But if I may, I don't know why I keep picking these up, just be permitted to end on a more
18:14philosophical point, right?
18:16It's all well and good upping these levels against Liverpool and getting a really good
18:20result and thinking you're good.
18:21The next two games they have are Southampton and Brighton.
18:25Now, they are both at home and the Man United side we've seen previously this season and
18:30indeed for most of the last one, would turn up to those fixtures, labour to a really
18:35uninspiring win against Southampton after going behind and getting a scare and then
18:40get their pants pulled down by Brighton.
18:42So this is good, but what needs to happen now is two quite good performances and good
18:48wins immediately as a result, because that's when you'll know they've actually turned
18:52a corner, not here.
18:54But which Manchester United will we get?
18:56Well, your guess is as good as mine.
18:59Probably better.
19:00But yes, that's the video.
19:01Quite liked what I saw from Manchester United, but I'm not going to get carried away just
19:04yet and quite concerned by what I saw from Liverpool, but not going to get carried away
19:09just yet.
19:10But what are your feelings?
19:11What did you think about it?
19:12Did you hate it?
19:13Did you think they should have won?
19:14Did you think it was one of the maddest sort of bad first half, good second half you've
19:17ever seen?
19:18All feelings, thoughts, commentary, verse, poetry, everything welcome in the comments
19:22below.
19:23I do really like reading it.
19:24You can, of course, get me across all of the socials at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
19:27I didn't even really look at my phone over Christmas, which is really nice.
19:30I highly recommend it.
19:31But don't worry.
19:32I'm back to doom scrolling and staring into the void and letting my brain ooze gently
19:36out of the corner of my ears now.
19:38So come be friends.
19:40I need more friends.
19:41Until next time, though, the 442 socials are in the corner of the video.
19:43The latest issue of the magazine, which I'm 99% sure has Ruben Amorim on the cover, that's
19:47nicely timed, is available now from all good retailers and the crap ones as well.
19:52And until next time, which there's a lot of football this week.
19:57There's a lot of football this week.
19:58So it won't be long.
19:59I've been Adam Cleary.
20:00It's 442.
20:01That was 2-2.
20:03And I'll see you soon, 2.
20:05Bye.
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