2014 - 2015 Football Thread - Page 163

On August 31 2014 07:37 Pantagruel wrote:


Part of the problem with a back 3 is that there is less angles to get a ball into midfield then when you have a back 4. On top of this, all 3 of United's CB are too afraid to carry the ball forward themselves. This leads to passing around the back or trying to force a ball into midfield when he's under pressure. That's the second issue, midfield. They don't present themselves for the defense to pass effectively too and they are not good enough the small spaces to turn a pressing opponent and continue to move the ball forward, so inevitably the ball goes back to defense. Then it's hoofed forward.

LvG seems hellbent on the 3-5-2 to be able to incorporate his star trio of Mata, Rooney and Robin van Persie but it's all pointless if they can never be adequately supplied with the ball.

I think as the defense gets more comfortable with the system the schoolboy errors will eventually dissipate, but the lack of service to the attacking players, won't. The simple truth is that Fletcher/Cleverley, the back 3, Young and Valencia are not good enough. These players are responsible for providing good service for the attacking players, but they are not good enough to do so. I think the system LvG is trying to instill puts an even heavier burden on them to create and that's just not smart.

With that said, when they do get the ball the front 3 have been really poor and slow. Part of that is because the center is so congested because United play without much width but Rooney, Robin van Persie and Mata in particular were absolutely too slow. They need to have much quicker speed of thought to create chances in what are going to be small spaces.

The only positive is that Di Maria looked quite good in my opinion, he was the only player that created anything in an extremely limited team today.

On August 31 2014 08:27 Pandemona wrote:


Wonder who he will choose ^_^

On August 31 2014 11:53 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
He'll choose Chelsea as it is a safer bet and $$$ rather than Arsenal.

On August 31 2014 10:31 zulu_nation8 wrote:
But the best chances all came from Di Maria running or getting the ball up the middle. I don't know what role he played in RM but I always thought he was just a pure winger from the WC games. Definitely faster than I thought and sees the field well. Had a few rough touches but so did everyone.

On August 31 2014 16:03 Maenander wrote:

Di Maria is very versatile. With Ronaldo and Bale on the wings he was very successful in a more central role.

On August 31 2014 09:12 owenose wrote:


Kind of reminds me of LvG's time in Germany, coaching Bayern. In that period Bayern had also problems with passing the ball around in their half of the pitch, so i wont put it all on the back of United's CB's, i would also call out LvG for that. On the other hand, he was quite successful at Bayern, he did need a quarter of a season to get the team play "his" football though.

-> 1 Player getting kicked out of United may be Kagawa, the german press is all about him returning to BVB. I cant wait for that to get confirmed :D

On August 31 2014 17:45 haitike wrote:
Premier League matches are always so tactically bad compared with other leagues, but It is awesome to watch as a spectator