The turnaround at Manchester United since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took the reins has been well documented and remarkable.
The likes of Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba are playing like dogs off a leash since Jose Mourinho was replaced by the Norwegian, taking the game to their opponents and attacking with style and pace.
One player whose improvement has gone under the radar, however, has been that of Nemanja Matic.
The Serbian giant has gone from looking like a busted flush to the dominant enforcer that we all remember so fondly in the space of a couple of months.
So, what is Matic doing differently under Solskjaer when compared to his performances under Mourinho?
We’ve taken a look at the three key improvements the 30-year-old has made to his game to reinstate himself as one of the best holding midfielders in the Premier League.
Nasty streak
At 6 ft 4 in, Matic is one of the biggest players in the Premier League and an extremely imposing figure at the heart of the Man Utd midfield.
With that size and physical power, Matic has the ability to dominate his opponents and bully them into submission; something he simply wasn’t doing under Mourinho.
During the Portuguese’s time in charge this season, Matic made just 0.8 fouls per 90 minutes in the Premier League and only won 0.59 fouls himself.
Under Solskjaer, though, Matic has rediscovered his nasty streak, making 1.12 fouls per 90 minutes and breaking up opposition play and counter-attacks far more effectively.
This was a key feature of his success at Chelsea, as well as his first year at Old Trafford, and is once again coming to the fore.
Manchester United in the Premier League since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took charge:
Most wins (8)
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Positive passing
One of the main gripes about Mourinho’s style of play at Man Utd was the amount of negative and sideways passes his side made, endlessly recycling possession with hardly any ambition to take a risk or split a defence.
Given his deep-lying role, Matic was inevitably a victim of this ‘crab football’ and seemed happy enough to just knock it around with the defenders.
Solskjaer has changed all of that and even in the dressing room, Matic has hailed the Norwegian’s mindset.
“He’s always positive,” Matic said (via the Manchester Evening News) when asked about Solskjaer’s persona.
“Of course when we don’t play well, of course he needs to shout a little bit. But he’s the same – always positive. The same when I see him in the press conference, he’s like this with us also in the changing room.”
This positivity has had a huge knock-on effect on the former Benfica man’s game, with Matic making an average of 9.37 passes into the opposition’s final third per 90 minutes since Solskjaer’s arrival, compared to just 6.88 this season under Mourinho.
United are now a much more dynamic, vibrant and positive side and Matic is playing his part to suit this new ethos.
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Balance
United’s midfield often lacked balance under Mourinho: Pogba would be shackled and played far deeper than he would like, the likes of Ander Herrera, Fred and Scott McTominay were relentlessly rotated and poor old Matic was left to chase shadows and plug the gaps in an incredibly porous defence.
Solskjaer hasn’t made any radical tactical changes since he moved into the Old Trafford dugout in December but what he has done is deploy his star players in their favoured positions and formed some consistent partnerships in key areas of the pitch.
One of those partnerships is the Matic/Herrera/Pogba trident in midfield; Matic and Pogba have started every league game under Solskjaer, while Herrera has already got more league minutes (648) under his belt during that time than since the start of the season under Mourinho (545).
Herrera’s non-compromising, lung-busting approach makes the Red Devils combative in midfield and alleviates a lot of the pressure on Matic to cover ground in front of the back four.
However, Matic caveats that with his tough tackling, expert positioning and supreme composure on the ball, ensuring United have both defensive cover and a platform on which they can build attacks.
All of this, of course, plays into Pogba’s hands and allows the Frenchman to do the things he does best: charge forward with the ball and lead counter-attacks, pick up the ball in the half-space and deliver a missile into the top corner and spearhead United’s forward movement with his expressive, care-free approach.
Each part of this system would fall apart without the other and each part also serves to accentuate its counterpart.
The post Three ways Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has reinvigorated Nemanja Matic appeared first on Squawka News.
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