- 7 hours ago
Manchester United have finally tried a back four in pursuit of Premier League consistency. Dispensing with Ruben Amorim's usual 3-4-2-1 against Bournemouth they enjoyed their best performance in front of goal for well over a year... but still could only draw after somehow conceding 4 goals. Adam Clery looks at why the draw shouldn't be seen as a bad result, and the manager should persist with this new approach.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the Adam McCleary Football Channel, and it had to happen eventually, didn't it?
00:06Every time we get set to do a Man United video, they have a terrible result, but last night against
00:11Bournemouth,
00:12they had maybe their best performance under Ruben Amorim.
00:17He made a really significant long-awaited change to their system, and for like 80-ish of the 100 minutes
00:25they played,
00:25he looked like he had finally cracked it with this group of players.
00:30So let's have a look at what that change was, and more importantly, why it was more importantly.
00:39Little reminder from the jump here that ACFC is brought to you in proud partnership with FOTMOB.
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00:48The app absolutely rules, so that's my phone. Go download it if you haven't already.
00:53But the big question on everybody's lips before, during, and indeed after that game is,
00:58was this finally a back four? Like, this is how Manchester United normally set up, and these are the players
01:05who started that game,
01:06so it looked on the face of it like no change had been made whatsoever.
01:10But, and I'll just sweep these bums away, these were the average positions all those players took up in that
01:18game.
01:18And it's a little bit weird in terms of player profiling. Like, the back four is a little bit janky,
01:24but regardless, that is clearly a back four.
01:27You've got two midfielders sitting neatly in front of them, wide attackers in wide areas, and Cunha and Mbwemo pretty
01:34much on top of each other,
01:35because they kept taking it in turns to drop off and go beyond each other.
01:39You saw as many examples of Cunha feeding Mbwemo, like, this one is absolutely brilliant and should have made it
01:452-0,
01:46as you did of Mbwemo picking it up in a deeper position to try and supply Cunha.
01:51Combination play at the very top end of the pitch. It's a novel concept, I know, but it did used
01:57to be so much of Man United's attacking identity.
02:01It's almost weird seeing it again after all this time.
02:04But the reason I mentioned the profiles being a little bit weird is that of all the centre-backs on
02:09the pitch here,
02:09I would argue Lenny Yoro is probably the best one. I don't know if you agree with that, that might
02:15just be me,
02:15but I'd say it's probably better than Shaw and Heaven, and yet he ends up being out at right-back.
02:21But the reason for that is this is just how modern 4-2-3-1s function.
02:26They do have a back-3 hidden deep within them, and by having Yoro there, that allowed Dallow to push
02:31right the way up the field to provide a bit of width,
02:33and these three to tuck along into a back-3.
02:36And now Yoro, yes, he is at right-back, but he's also dropping in at centre-back.
02:40And Dallow pushing forward also gives you what you want at the top end of the pitch, which is an
02:45attacking line of five,
02:47and they allowed, finally, Bruno Fernandes to push right up behind that,
02:51and they sort of gave you this kind of shape when Man United were in possession.
02:56Look, you can see it here.
02:57And this lets you get Bruno Fernandes in the area you want him to be in,
03:01with five attackers in front of him to supply chances for,
03:05and also just all your best attacking players in attacking areas with the ability to rotate.
03:11Quite a lot in that first half, Dallow was rotating with Mount,
03:15so one would sit on the touchline and one would come in field.
03:17But if you look at the first goal, Dallow has stayed out wide this time.
03:21Because of the positioning of Mount, that allows him to come in field,
03:24which not only opens the pitch up for him, but enables him to cross on his strong foot.
03:29And if you recall what happens in this goal, you're probably thinking,
03:33well, it was a little bit fortunate that it sort of drops through,
03:37and the goalkeeper sort of panics, and it just kind of bounces in off of Mad.
03:40But just as that ball comes in, right,
03:42that is four Man United players attacking the box in open play really, really early on
03:49with your best creative player here just behind it all.
03:53And yes, I will concede the goal has an element of luck about it,
03:57but situations like this are precisely how you make your own luck.
04:03Man United don't really commit this many bodies forward, so they don't get it usually.
04:07And you could argue that both goals in that first half were a little bit on the soft side,
04:11but the actual performance in that opening 45 was as good as I have ever seen from Man United
04:18under Ruben Amorim, and maybe even a year or two before that as well.
04:22And the thing is, this shape made a lot of sense for them defensively as well,
04:27because Ruben Amorim, like most managers to be fair,
04:30wants to have the ability to have a back five when you're defending.
04:34Like, they normally have it all the time, and that is a problem,
04:38but even when you set up like this, it is a good idea to be able to go into one.
04:43And so when Man United got pushed really deep, again, not all the time,
04:47only when they really did have to sit in,
04:49you would again see Yoro tuck in and Ahmad go and cover at right back,
04:54with Umbermo coming across to cover that space in front of him.
04:57I can't stress this enough, like, I was really impressed with how defensively flexible
05:02Man United were in this game.
05:04Like, the thing we keep criticising them for is when they're on the verge of a really bad result,
05:10like Tottenham in the Europa League final, Grimsby in the Cup,
05:1310 men Everton at home.
05:15They are still rigidly sitting with five defenders when they need to commit some extra bodies forward.
05:22And I am not a Manchester United fan, and I still find myself sitting there screaming at the television,
05:28if you want to change a game, sometimes you have to take a risk.
05:32Not defend opposition goal kicks with four more players than they are committing forwards.
05:37And it's also just such a waste of Ahmad as well.
05:41Like, I think he is such a good player, but constantly putting him in games
05:45and needing him to think like a defender at all times is just such an enormous waste of his ability.
05:52And not just that, it causes problems with the system as well.
05:55Like, this is a goal they conceded the other week because he just gets the most basic defensive positioning wrong.
06:01And that, for me, is not his fault.
06:04Wingback is just such a specialist position that unless you literally grew up playing it during your developmental years,
06:11all of them, not just these ones,
06:13then you're either a defender who does not offer enough in the final third
06:17or an attacker who keeps getting caught out defensively.
06:22It always happens like that.
06:23But here, you've got the best of both worlds.
06:25Like, you are not starting with a back five.
06:28You are not wedded to it, but you are able to get into it when the situation requires it.
06:33And the main benefit we saw last night is that if you get the ball back in the middle of
06:37the pitch or high up,
06:39you're not asking players to have to run the entire length of the pitch to join in.
06:44Or if you lose it, the entire length of the pitch back to try and defend.
06:48And to the former point I've just made there, winning it back high up,
06:52I can't remember seeing Man United this aggressive in the opposition's final third ever.
06:59Credit as ever to Mark Statz.
07:01Follow Mark Statz for the Chesney-Hawk diagram here.
07:05This is every single time Bournemouth lost the ball in the danger zone.
07:10And all the stars, I'll move this so you can see it better,
07:12all the stars show the times Man United turned one of those into a shot.
07:17And in case you're wondering, six is loads.
07:20It's twice as many as Bournemouth had in this game, and those are pretty much Bournemouth's entire thing.
07:26But they've just been crying out for stuff like this for well over a year now.
07:30Bodies around the ball, real intensity in the press.
07:33And when they get it back, players already in advanced positions, ready to break forward.
07:38Not 30 yards behind the play or just walking around.
07:42So the system allows you to be more aggressive.
07:44Great.
07:45And there's clearly some synergy developing with the players they've bought in the summer.
07:49Fantastic.
07:50But what always makes the biggest difference to Man United and the opposition's half
07:54is how high up the pitch you either instruct or are able to get Bruno Fernandes.
08:01And if you're a Manchester United fan, you have no doubt noticed this bad home run that they've been on.
08:07And I'm going to show you Bruno Fernandes' passing map from two of those games.
08:12Because I mean business, right?
08:13This, first of all, is the West Ham United match.
08:17And OK, he's getting on the ball quite a bit in the final third.
08:20But it seems to be more to the left, more to the right.
08:22He's not really getting in this central area.
08:25And how many of these passes find their way into the opposition box?
08:30There are two that I can count in 90 minutes.
08:34And in a game you're not winning, that is not good enough.
08:38And it's obviously not through lack of ability.
08:40He's a fantastic player.
08:41But this system sometimes doesn't allow him to get into impactful areas or find his teammates when he does.
08:48And this is against Everton.
08:50You remember that game, don't you?
08:51They had a million percent possession and still lost it.
08:55And Fernandes is once again not really able to get into these central areas as easy as he goes.
09:01Slightly to the left and slightly to the right.
09:03And how many times does he find a friend in the box?
09:07Again, that's about two.
09:10This is your best player, your most important player, your most creative player.
09:13And you are not providing him a platform with which to be important or create or whatever the third word
09:20I said was.
09:20But this, my friends, is the Bournemouth game.
09:24And first off, you will notice he is on the ball a lot less than those other two matches.
09:28The possession was considerably lower.
09:30But also, he's doing more with it when he is.
09:34His focus is in this central area.
09:36He's not constantly getting pushed out into these left and right half spaces.
09:40He's finding teammates in the box seven, eight, nine times.
09:43I can't actually see them.
09:45And even a lot of these deeper passes, they are forwards through Bournemouth lines.
09:49Not constantly side to side.
09:52And the changes between these two graphs, and to be fair, we saw a little bit of it against Wolves
09:57in the previous fixture as well,
09:59is a mentality shift, not from Fernandes, but from Amorim.
10:04Like, Fernandes, God bless him.
10:06He is not a deep, patient, tempo-setting, 100 touches per game defensive midfielder,
10:13even if he is good enough to be.
10:15He wants to be up here, doing this with this many players in front of him.
10:20And if you let him do that, your team will be better as a result.
10:26And yes, you're right.
10:27The way I am going on about this Man United setup and the structure and the team and the changes,
10:31you would think they had gone and won this game and won it well, which, of course, they didn't.
10:38So, why didn't they?
10:40Well, I think this is great and it's exciting and it makes them a threat at the top end of
10:45the pitch
10:45and they're really good to watch if they play this way,
10:47but it does not enable them to control games very well yet.
10:52So, neither side had any real, it's the word I want, stability in this match.
10:57And in games such as that, it comes down to individual moments.
11:01And a type of individual moment is an individual mistake.
11:05Now, I am about to single out Aidan Heaven for two of these goals here,
11:11but just before I do so, I would like to point out that when you are 19 years old
11:16with less than 10 senior starts in the league to your name,
11:21you are there to make mistakes.
11:23You're allowed to do that.
11:25It's quite literally the only way you're ever going to learn.
11:27So, this is not me digging him out.
11:29It's merely an arrangement of some facts.
11:32First, Man United have a loose touch that Semenyo jumps all over
11:36and Heaven sticks to his responsibility here
11:39instead of assessing the situation correctly and covering a cross.
11:43Like, you can see Mason Mount telling him both before and after the goal
11:47that he needs to come over here and not let him get the shot away so easily.
11:51And then, for the second goal, it goes back a fair old while
11:55and is considerably more complicated than this,
11:57but what it comes down to is that at the crucial moment,
11:59he is just not quite on the same page and thus the same line
12:03as the rest of that defence.
12:06Bournemouth get a small opening, they get into it and they finish.
12:09And to be entirely fair to this Manchester United performance
12:12and the result as a consequence,
12:14all of Bournemouth's goals in this game are astonishingly ruthless.
12:20If you are in any way asked about the mathematical power of expected goals,
12:25right, then those first three that Bournemouth get come off an XG combined of 0.4.
12:33That is an overperformance in front of goal of about 750%, which is a lot.
12:40And while the fourth goal is about as good a chance as all the others combined,
12:43it's only an insane first touch that kills this ball dead
12:48and lets him get that shot away in the fraction of a second he's got.
12:52And just, if you are going to let me give Aiden Heaven a pass for those first two goals
12:57because of a lack of experience,
12:59then there is no excuse for Martinez on this one.
13:02He does have experience and he doesn't recognise that this gap is too big.
13:07He needs to close that off as the move develops,
13:10but let's put it down to ring rust, shall we?
13:13He just doesn't.
13:14Wait, hang on.
13:15Is ring rust a thing normal people say?
13:17Like, that's wrestling to...
13:19If you're not wrestled in a while and you're a wrestler, you have a bit of ring rust.
13:23You're slower in there than you normally are.
13:24I've just realised if that's not a term in real life, it sounds incredibly weird.
13:29So, that's what it means.
13:31But yes, anyway, Manchester United should have run away with this game.
13:35It is the best I think they have played under Ruben Amorim.
13:39And if they persist with it, when they get their senior defenders back,
13:43it could be a very good season.
13:46Or at the very least, a very entertaining one.
13:48Or at the very, very least, a very entertaining one for the rest of us.
13:52But yes, that's all the things I think.
13:55And I do dearly like hearing about all the things you think.
13:57So, get them in the comments down below so I can read them over the Christmas break I'm allegedly going
14:03to have.
14:03One thing I really want to do before the end of the year, I would love the social channels to
14:08have hit 10k on Instagram and TikTok.
14:12Because that's the one target I got set this year that we haven't quite got yet.
14:16So, if you do like Instagram and you do like TikTok and you like your content in short form,
14:21you can subscribe to those.
14:23We're really near there.
14:25That would be...
14:26You don't have to get me anything for Christmas.
14:27But if you wanted to, that would be...
14:29That's what I'm asking for.
14:30And hey, I mean, if you're new here entirely, you can also subscribe to the Adam Cleary Football Channel on
14:34YouTube.
14:35Which is literally where you're watching this.
14:37We're really close to 200k subs there.
14:40Which is what I would really like for Christmas.
14:42But I think we've left it a little bit too late to hit.
14:44Oh well, my birthday's in January.
14:46We can do it for that.
14:47So, click the little button there.
14:49And you can also get me across all the social medias.
14:51At Adam Cleary.
14:52C-L-E-R-Y.
14:55If I don't see you before Christmas, because we'll be doing other videos and might not be of any interest
14:59to you,
14:59have a very nice one.
15:01However you celebrate, whatever you do, whether you love it or you hate it,
15:05just get a little time for yourself.
15:06Have a little break.
15:07Sit down.
15:08A couple of quality streets.
15:09Call the midwife.
15:10I don't know what's on telly.
15:11Just enjoy yourself.
15:12You do you.
15:13You look after you.
15:14You're great.
15:15And I mean that.
15:16Goodbye.
15:16Goodbye.
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