The Mailbox is firmly TeamETH while Cristiano Ronaldo torches his bridges at Man Utd. Also: Steven Gerrard’s replacement, and cooling down Darwin.
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ETH > OGS
My biggest gripe with Ole was the obvious lack of direct coaching. So often that team looked lost, devoid of any composure, and clueless of how to deal with opponents effectively. It’s hard to believe that was only a year ago, and that it only started to improve a few months back.
Against Spurs this United team were thoroughly prepared to beat their opponent. The forwards pressed together as a unit with as many as 6 players high in Spurs half when out of possession. When moving from defence to attack the midfield players knew exactly where they should be to receive a pass and where to play it next. This may sound trivial but effectively and repeatedly transitioning to attack against a well organised team is massive for United. The fullbacks knew when to tuck inside and when to overlap, Fred knew when he should move out of the pivot and when to stay back. On top of all that we won second balls, tackled hard, and didn’t let up for nearly the full 90 minutes.
The coaching and preparation became even more evident in the post match interview with Bruno where he explained how the movement of other players, in this case Antony running through midfield with the ball, affected his responsibilities and his positioning. It was like a student reciting his professor. He also talked about how in some games he won’t see much of the ball because Ten Hag has tasked him to create space and stretch the play with dummy runs. Can you imagine Ole ever telling Bruno to stay away from the ball?
If this is a prelude to where United are headed under Erik then I’m 100% on board for the journey. To think that in a year or two this kind of display might have become the norm is unreal, I cannot wait.
Finally big shout out to Amazon for their excellent coverage. The pundit team especially were great with Henry and Evra joking around, Gabby Logan being utterly charming as always, and especially Roberto Martinez who actually asked interesting tactical questions and raised the level of debate.
Dave, Manchester
Ronaldo sussed
I’m finding it difficult to understand in this age of amateur psychologists, armchair pundits and folks being quite knowledgeable about footy in general that few have twigged that Cristiano Ronaldo has always been like this.
He’s never been a…
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