Manchester United are safe in a Champions League spot now – barring freak results that see them drop six points on Liverpool and suffer a 14 goal swing to level up the goal difference.
But the run that the Red Devils went on recently – a run of three games without scoring – almost let Liverpool back into the race for fourth and seems to have irked Louis Van Gaal somewhat.
In the summer, Van Gaal spent hundreds of millions of pounds on attacking players, and even David Moyes before him signed Juan Mata and Marouane Fellaini. United have one of the most attacking teams in the league and have had to face criticism all season as pundits have commented on the team’s imbalance. United are a little top heavy.
They have a huge amount of world class attackers, so 3 without a goal is just unacceptable for the money they’ve spent over the last year or two.
But that’s not the whole problem. It seems strange to say that United can have spent so much money on their attack and yet be short in that area. But on the evidence of the past few weeks, it’s definitely the case. And Van Gaal must share some of the blame.
Not for his recruitment, but for his tactics.
Over the past few months, United have had success with longer passes. The tactic of throwing a long ball up to Fellaini isn’t quite ‘hit and hope’, but it has left them predictable in the last few games.
Van Gaal was irked again earlier in the season when Sam Allardyce suggested – tongue in cheek – that United were a long ball team. There’s a difference between long balls and long passes – United’s play might have long passes, but they hit their targets. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Or so protested the dutch manager.
The truth is that United work the ball into positions where they can find a cross, and they have to pass the ball a lot to get it there.
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The problem now is that teams have nullified the threat, and United were left trying to pass it through the opposition in the last few games. But Van Gaal’s men have found that just passing in front of the opposition’s defensive line doesn’t work – not unless you diversify the play a bit.
But Van Gaal has looked to address this problem. After the West Brom game he said that they needed to pass it more quickly. That the lack of goals was definitely a concern and one of the reasons was the lack of speed in the build up.
And then he went out fairly swiftly and bought Memphis Depay – a man who’s scored 22 goals this season.
It might sound paradoxical given the ‘long pass’ tactic at the moment, but this signing looks like Van Gaal wants to play even more direct. For LvG, his long ball tactic is too convoluted! It’s funny how Van Gaal can make anything seem sophisticated.
United have to pass the ball around an awful lot in order to give young or valencia etc space to find a cross. Against West Brom, United had 80% of the possession, they had a 90% pass accuracy and Ander Herrera ran the game and made 127 passes – almost 100 more than the West Brom player with the most passes – keeper Boaz Myhill who had 34. And most of those would have been goal kicks and the like. Let’s put Herrera’s volume of passes into perspective – Darren Fletcher, playing in the midfield role for West Brom managed only ten passes and 18 touches of the ball.
Yet United attempted more long balls and crosses than West Brom. Rooney, Carrick, Herrera or whoever Van Gaal uses in the playmaker role, has to spread the play and look for ways to create space. And only then can the ball to Fellaini be played.
But if United are closed down properly as they do this then they need to pass quicker, find space more ably or just change tack. Something they didn’t do against West Brom, Everton or Chelsea. In fact, even when they beat Crystal Palace they were still trying to send it long to Fellaini. Van Gaal might be too sophisticated for hit and hope, but United are the most erudite long ball team in history.
But Memphis Depay will allow them to change their style from time to time. He gives another dimension. He’s direct, he dribbles at defenders and he likes to shoot.
On paper, he looks like an Angel Di Maria replacement, but actually Di Maria isn’t as direct as Depay. The Argentinian midfielder doesn’t shoot too much, and if you look at their relative goal and assist stats you’ll see the whole story – Depay has 22 goals and 4 assists this season, Di Maria has 3 and 10.
Di Maria is the man to play the key passes and Depay is the man to make something happen on his own. And that’s what United have been missing over the last few games – someone to take the responsibility and create something on their own.
The passing has been good – 90% accuracy against West Brom – but it can only get them so far when the defence is well-drilled. Van Gaal’s addition of Depay will give them something extra to counter a good defence, and their passing won’t be in vain. It’s just a shame he couldn’t play a month ago.
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