With the goals of B Fee and Rashford, Manchester United scored 2 in the second round of the derby
-1 reversed Manchester City and avenged their loss in the first round.
B Fee’s goal has a certain “public opinion controversy”, but it cannot erase the discussion value brought by the tactical game between the two sides and the hard output of the players.
Ten Hag once again resorted to high pressure and carried out a strict man-to-man strategy in the midfield.
Guardiola uses the width of the backcourt to bring about a moderate breakthrough, and uses the flexible attack of the full-back and Harland’s retreat to support him to create openings and seek the opportunities they want for the ribs.
Manchester United, which is more offensively threatening, made a better deep impact in the second half after finding good opportunities in the first half through better deep impact.
This is a derby with a lot of tactical content. Due to space limitations, the focus of this replay is Manchester United’s oppression and Manchester City’s means of breaking the game, as well as Manchester United’s reversal by relying on depth.
[Man-to-man supports high pressure, after being broken, the Red Devils use the width of the striker to make up for it]
Manchester United’s high pressure situation in this game is more obvious, and Casemiro, Fred, Eriksson directly carried out a strict man-to-man defense.
The direct effect of this oppressive situation is that the Manchester City midfielder has a poor receiving environment.
Even with De Bruyne and the B seat who has excellent dribbling ability retreating sharply, he is still trapped in Manchester United’s peripheral blockade.
Figure 1: Man-marking in Manchester United’s midfield three
As can be seen from the picture above, Manchester United’s three midfielders have a very clear man-to-man positioning, aiming at Manchester City’s midfield trio.
The most obvious manifestation is Fred’s follow-up defense against De Bruyne.
However, Manchester United’s high pressure still has certain “problems”: the space for Manchester City’s full-backs to receive the ball.
Under the organizational pressure of Guardiola’s team, the full-backs retracted very little at the beginning. The purpose is to widen the width of the backcourt, and then gain space for support and impact.
Picture 2 3: Manchester City uses width to continuously create ball-holding impact of full-backs.
In this situation, B Fee and Rashford will be extremely “embarrassed”, because they need to alternate “1 defense 2”, and it is very easy for Manchester City to gain space on the side or behind through the lateral transfer of the backcourt.
Therefore, both Cancelo and Walker got several chances to attack with the ball in the opening stage, which is very detrimental to Manchester United.
How to adjust it?
Figure 4: Manchester United gradually changed the frontcourt pressing formation to 424, increasing the width
Considering that Manchester City’s 433 formation has width in the frontcourt and sideways, the premise of Manchester United’s full-backs should not be too large.
The strategy given by Ten Hag is to change the oppression of 4231 to 424, and form an oppression by increasing the width of the striker.
[Haaland retreats and the full-backs attack flexibly, Guashuai’s goal is still to advance and go to the ribs]
In the “physical bottleneck period” of about 25 minutes, Manchester City showed Walker’s premise, Cancelo increased adduction, and Harland retreated more.
The purpose of this adjustment is to seize Manchester United’s 424 formation, with only 2 midfielders left in the midfield, and then complete the rib cooperation through direct advancement.
Figure 5 6: Harland’s retreat created Manchester United’s man-to-man defense problem, and Walker began to increase the impact
We can see that under Manchester City’s targeted adjustments, Manchester United’s oppression began to loosen and there were problems with personnel assistance. Manchester City gradually began to gain the greatest reliance on their tactics: after the ball is in control, complete the split and play in the ribs
Make a fit.
This was most evident after they increased their strength in the second half.
Especially after Glarish came on the stage, he and Mahrez were able to “extremely pull the side”, bringing a certain amount of ball holding and support.
For Manchester United, the tacit cooperation of the ribs is the most important, but it is also the most prone to problems.
The most important manifestation of the problem is that Fred cannot always guard against De Bruyne.
Picture 7: Fred’s mobility is very good, assisting De Bruyne
Picture 8: Fred leaves Tintin after Manchester City stretches width, Manchester United’s ribs are finally broken
Guardiola has recently arranged for Glarish and Mahrez to appear together. The core idea is still to widen the width, bring the ball on the side, support the improvement of footwork, and strengthen the rib work they want.
[Deep impact against Manchester City is an important means, and the deep-seated reasons for the reversal are revealed again]
Putting B Fee on the right, there are certain problems with Manchester United’s offensive width.
Because, the key to B Fee’s offensive effectiveness is his wide-ranging interspersed running support, and sending the last pass and one shot.
Martial started halftime and did not bring continuous confrontation support, so Rashford became the biggest reliance on Manchester United’s offensive depth.
Figure 9 10: Rashford’s two deep impacts in the first half
The two opportunities in the first half were not grasped, and Rashford was injured in the confrontation, which had a great impact on Manchester United.
Ten Hag did not replace Rashford at halftime. The core purpose is to put substitute players with deep impact ability such as Ganacho and Elanga at the last moment of the game.
However, with Anthony’s debut, Rashford gradually came to the middle, so that he can avoid the lack of mobility and impact brought about by his injury.
But judging from the game, Rashford was affected by the injury visible to the naked eye, but he was still able to run and rush, which was moving.
With the debut of Ganacho, Manchester United’s offensive formation finally brought a wide open.
Although Anthony on the right performed