What does the Manchester United team need to improve

What a weird season we have had, yesterday’s good result (in context of the season) felt slightly disappointing, which is surprising as many had us down for a pasting.

I’ve seen many times people have asked what EtH’s style or plan is, and I admit it is not the easiest to decern due to him both being pragmatic at times and due to the injuries/ unbalanced makeup of this squad of players. So, I thought I’d try and break things down here.

His preferred approach is to play a vertical game, he wants to play out from the back quickly and move up the pitch with quick short and vertical passes to retain possession and to unsettle the opposition. He wants to play with a higher defensive line and use a high press to win the ball and create high quality chances. It’s a style that requires both technical quality and physical ability.

His in-possession shape to achieve this is a 3-1-3-3, this gives lots of forward (vertical) passing options and means that if we lose the ball, we are compact in the middle, forcing teams to go wide. This acts as a pressing trigger, where the wide players and midfielders can press using the touchline to win the ball back. With the aim to then play one or two quick passes to create a shooting opportunity before the opposition can settle into their defensive shape.

While EtH is known for his time at Bayern with Pep, his style of play is closer to Klopp’s than it is Pep’s as he predominately looks to use a high press to create chances and plays with more energy than composure. Although his build up play from the back (albeit it very vertical) does share more with Pep’s philosophy than Klopp’s. It’s a style that when done well can be very exciting and entertaining to watch as well as being successful.

So, what has happened at United and why are we struggling to see this. Going back to the very start of EtH’s time at United you could see he immediately tried to implement this style. But after defeats to Brighton and Brentford he resigned himself to the understanding that the squad he had didn’t have either the technical quality of the physicality to play that style.

DDG in goal couldn’t be relied upon to play out from the back, while we lacked the technical ability beyond Martinez and Shaw to play out from the back, only had Eriksen who could progress the ball through midfield and lacked the forwards to press high, make off the ball runs and create chances. The whole team also lacked the physicality to play this style, especially in the…