Failures of the System
Predictable, unbalanced, lacking legs in midfield and attacking thrust, the Manchester United misery goes on. And they can't defend corners either.
It’s too early to panic. The season is only two games in. There is a very long way to go. But Manchester United have taken a single point. They lie sixteenth in the nascent league table. Their manager has just seen his win percentage at the club dip below that of Frank O’Farrell and Wilf McGuinness; by that metric he’s currently their worst manager since Herbert Bamlett, who got United relegated in 1931. And they’ve achieved a worse result from their two games than in the equivalent fixtures last season. On a campaign-by-campaign comparison, they’re on minus-3 points, which given how few they won last season is a remarkable achievement.
But the draw at Fulham was worse than that. It was less the score than the performance, and less the performance than the fact that it went wrong in such a predictable way as United were overrun in midfield. “We knew that we would be able to get behind their two midfielders and that their centre-backs would want to jump,” Fulham’s Alex Iwobi said. “We exploited that today.” Marco Silva spoke of knowing how the wing-backs would behave and planning accordingly. This was a failure of Ruben Amorim’s system – and that represents a major worry.
Worse still, the gloom follows a game in which United got the benefit of two major decisions. First, the penalty, which seemed a direct result of the edict to crack down on holding in the box at set plays and exposed all the problems of that regulation, however well-intentioned and necessary it may be. Mason Mount tried to block Calvin Bassey, who flung him to the ground. It was a foul and in that sense Fulham cannot quibble with the award of a penalty.
But at the same time as they were grappling, six feet behind them, Luke Shaw was wrestling Rodrigo Muniz to the ground. Was that not also a foul? Which takes precedence? This is where the fact that VAR can only intervene for certain offences comes into play. It can check if something is a penalty, but cannot check for a foul on a defender in the box unless a goal has been scored. Which means that forwards can block, provoke and wrestle with defenders, but defenders are at risk if they do the same back.
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Postcards from the Past continues with Episode 3 from Copenhagen, telling the story of Allan Simonsen. Episode 4 follows on Wednesday.
Copenhagen: Allan Simonsen at Parken
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20 Aug
Allan Simonsen is one the greatest Danish players of all time, Ballon d’Or winner in 1977 and the only man ever to score in the finals of European Cup, the Uefa Cup and the Cup Winners’ Cup. He also played an unusual role in a dystopian thriller.
For the full archive of Postcards from the Past, go here
My history of the World Cup, The Power and the Glory, is out in September. Order here. Or, for those who dislike Amazon, here.
On It Was What It Was, the football history podcast, we look at the creation of Mohamed Salah as a player and how he got to Liverpool. Listen here.
On Libero, we discuss the Alexander Isak situation and make people very upset by acknowledging there is a food chain. Listen here.
A new project with Tifo: an animation charting the entire history of football. Episode Three is here.
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As it turned out, Bruno Fernandes missed the penalty anyway, blaming the referee Chris Kavanagh for disrupting his process after an accidental minor collision as both walked backwards. “It upset me because the referee didn’t apologise,” Fernandes said. Fernandes is a 30-year-old professional footballer. As Amorim said, there is a real need for United to “grow up” as a team.
United also got fortunate with their goal, less in the fact that Leny Yoro’s header was heading wide when it cannoned in off Muniz, than for the fact he gave Bassey a two-handed shove as he jumped for the corner. It wasn’t just a foul, it was an obvious one; not two players grappling but one shoving another in the back.
And yet even with those benefits, even at a ground where they haven’t lost since 2009, United failed to win. The optimism after their 1-0 defeat to Arsenal on the opening weekend always seemed a little excessive, the wish-fulfilment of a desperate fanbase. They probably will climb to mid-table this season, perhaps even better than that. Weight of resources and the absence of European football should be a guarantee. But major problems remain.
Amorim will always play 3-4-2-1; the squad he inherited was not built for anything much, but the thing it was least suited to was 3-4-2-1. The overhaul has begun. Patrick Dorgu has impressed at left-wing-back. Mateus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo showed promise against Arsenal, although less so at Fulham. Leny Yoro, who Amorim inherited, looks at home in a back three. But £200m splashed on forwards will not solve the obvious shortfall in midfield, the one Iwobi was happy to announce that Fulham had targeted. Casemiro – highlighted by Jim Ratcliffe as the sort of player United should not be signing even before his partial takeover, and criticised again by him in March – no longer has the engine to cope in a Premier League midfield, certainly not as part of a central two. Which makes it baffling that Amorim should pair him with Bruno Fernandes in the middle.
Fernandes has been United’s best player since he signed in January 2020. But he is a creator. Perhaps, at 30, he could be converted into a deep-lying playmaker, but only with players alongside him to. Win the ball back, to break up play, to run the defensive yards. Casemiro is not that. One, perhaps even both, could work alongside a more aggressive, harder-running presence, which is why United have been linked with both Carlos Baleba and Eduardo Camavinga over the past few days. A better-run club, of course, would have acted rather quicker, sold off some of the forests of dead wood to raise funds and brought in a holding player so he could learn Amorim’s system at the beginning of pre-season.
But why move Fernandes at all? Why not let him create? Why, for that matter, convert Amad Diallo into a right wing-back? When there are such glaring holes elsewhere, why would United focus their spending on players whose inclusion has meant two of the few players who did seem able to operate in Amorim’s system last seasons have had to adjust to new roles. Would it have been so bad if United had started this season with Fernandes and Diallo operating off a centre-forward with a rebuild central midfield behind them?
Where does Kobbie Mainoo fit? Are United, this creak agglomeration of unconvincing spare parts really able to sideline a brilliant 20 year old who only last summer started a major final for England? If he does not work in an Amorim system, and if United really are committed to their coach and this way of playing, why not sell him before his value falls?
United don’t create. No United player has scored against 11 men in the past six games. They get overrun in midfield and are getting exposed on the flanks. And they panic at every set-play they have to face. If there are green shoots, they’re very well-hidden by a very thick layer of frost.
None of it makes sense. Nothing at United has done for a long time. Amid the chaos, there is only one certainty, which is that Amorim will play a 3-4-2-1 no matter the cost. In a time of such doubt, that is the only article of faith they have.