Jose Mourinho’s rough diamond formation could finally see Man Utd’s attack shine

Manchester United beat Burnley 0-2 at the weekend, their second win of the season and their most impressive, too.

José Mourinho’s men beat Leicester on opening night but it was a far-from-convincing win, and then they genuinely impressed for half a match against Spurs only to get slapped silly by a side who never even got out of second gear. Meanwhile, the Brighton match was obviously a catastrophe with no redeeming elements.

But what was it that allowed United to finally put together what Jon Mackenzie would call a Hegelian synthesis of winning while actually playing good football? The short answer is shape. The long answer is shape, but also:

José Mourinho’s primary system of play has nearly always been a 4-3-3. He is on record preferring the positional mismatch the system provides in midfield (whatever you want to say about his style and tactics, he is a Barcelona-educated coach), although sometimes he has switched slightly to play a 4-2-3-1 in order to accommodate certain players (notably Mesut Ozil at Real Madrid).

Firstly, Manchester United have struggled playing 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 under José Mourinho for one simple reason: they don’t have a right-winger. Oh, they have players who can do a job there, but no one who can play the position to anything approaching an elite level. It’s why Mourinho targeted Ivan Perisic last summer and Willian this summer. He wants to play those systems well.

Ed Woodward being what he is, though, Mourinho was left frustrated without the players (or even the player profiles) he had asked for. And after a few chastening defeats, he appears to have finally hit on a shape that lets him combine the best of his previous formations while also hiding the fact that United don’t have a decent right-winger.

Against Spurs, he lined the team up in a 3-5-2. But without centre-backs he really trusts, it’s clear that shape wouldn’t work (though when Marcos Rojo is fit again, you can expect to see it return). So against Burnley, United were ostensibly a 4-3-3 with Jesse Lingard on the right.

In practice, however, Jesse Lingard didn’t play on the right. He drifted well into the middle of the pitch, playing very deliberately as a no. 10; to the point where if you look at 11tegen11’s positions and passing network graph, showing the average positions of each United player throughout the game, you see that the shape very much resembles a rough 4-4-2 diamond, or a 3-5-2, depending on how you want to classify Luke Shaw and Antonio Valencia.

This shape is why United were able to dominate the game as they did. First, it allowed Mourinho to retain the three-man midfield he likes, plus adding Lingard into proceedings and we have a fourth body in the middle to help regain and retain possession. It was harder for Burnley to get the ball off United because they had so many passing options.

This also made them harder to attack when Burnley did have the ball because there were four bodies clogging up the middle, and with Marouane Fellaini at the base of midfield it even neutered Burnley’s aerial threat. The Belgian is a colossal presence and was deliberately put in a deep role to stop Burnley’s long balls affecting the fragile United centre-backs. This was an excellent bit of strategic play from Mourinho.

But simply defending and keeping the ball well is not enough; one has to attack in order to win games. And again this diamond shape helped United do just that. Firstly it gave Alexis Sánchez the kind of vertical and horizontal freedom he wants, playing out of the half-space he has freedom to move wide or come narrow (especially now Luke Shaw is Luke Shaw again, rampaging up and down the left-flank) basically, to do whatever his heart his desires with the ball at his feet, which is exactly how you get the best out of a maverick like Alexis Sánchez.

Lingard excels at supporting players. He doesn’t need the ball a whole lot to thrive. His movement is sublime and he’s pretty effective with only small doses of possession. This makes him a superb counterbalance to Sánchez, but also a wonderful support act to Romelu Lukaku. The Belgian striker often needs dynamic players around him to keep the attack moving quickly so he can do his best stuff.

Lukaku is a tyrannosaurus of a striker. Physically dominant and tactically brilliant. He took up a position as the lead striker, but instead of playing planted in the middle of the field he started a bit wide to the right of Lingard and was always ready to make runs into the middle of the pitch where he could threaten goal.

These outside-to-in runs were complimented by Lingard and put him in spaces where he and Alexis could link-up. It also created a huge space wide on the right for Antonio Valencia to attack, or, in the future, Diogo Dalot.

Essentially this rough diamond shape put three complimentary forwards onto the pitch at the same time and allowed them to work in a system that played to their strengths, rather than trying to squeeze one of them into right-wing. One can see this shape working well with the “back-ups” of Anthony Martial, Juan Mata and Marcus Rashford playing the roles of Alexis, Lingard and Lukaku too.

Obviously, it’s still early for United, and no system is infallible. They will drop points playing like this (one could argue that’s what happened against Spurs). Moreover against teams that aren’t Burnley someone like Andreas Pereira or Ander Herrera would be a better fit at the base of midfield than Marouane Fellaini. And they still need a better right wing-back.

But the bottom line is that this rough diamond, with more practice and a little polish, will put United’s front three in a position to shine and gives the club a serious chance to both play well and win games.

The post Jose Mourinho’s rough diamond formation could finally see Man Utd’s attack shine appeared first on Squawka News.

From Squawka NewsSquawka News https://ift.tt/2MMhYr8