Ten Hag's Manchester United proved the ceiling again with the title Will he get a chance to raise the ceiling?

Shepherd who writes balls

2024-05-26 11:26Posted in Inner Mongolia Sports Creators

This is United's last game of the season and possibly the last game of the Ten Hag era.

Before the game began, the British media had collectively released that Ten Hag would leave United at the end of the season, regardless of the outcome of this FA Cup final.

Obviously, this possibility is absolutely possible. With this season's league results not satisfactory and Ten Hag himself the manager chosen by the Glazer family, it is only natural that his departure could be a sign of the launch of a 'new Manchester United' after the era of Ratcliffe's dominance, and even if they win the title, United will not have such precedent.

However, in the aftermath of such a final, the perception of Ten Hag and Manchester United has changed dramatically in a joyous atmosphere, with the voices on social media to retain him as loud as the media to sack him.

After all, he and his team beat Manchester City.

As we expected in the final round of the league against Brighton, United responded with almost the same starting XI and thinking as they approached the FA Cup final:

This idea is actually 4222.

In fact, Ten Hag's idea was already brewing last season.

Last season, United often played Bruno Fernandes on the flanks against strong opponents, with Eriksen playing in a central midfield position and behind McFred to form a four-man approach, while at the end of last season, in the FA Cup semi-finals against Brighton and Manchester City, Ten Hag put on a 442-diamond midfield idea.

In March this year, Manchester United faced Manchester City for the first time with this 4222 idea, and although they were ultimately defeated by a score of 1-3, the process of the first half of the game gave Ten Hag and the players some hope.

After all, in the defensive phase, this idea can effectively limit City's space in the middle of the midfield:

In front of the back four, four midfielders are placed in front of the defensive line, and while there are enough manpower, they can also form a defensive layer at the top of the arc and in the midfield area, so as to effectively limit the operation and attack of Manchester City.

To put it bluntly, it can limit the play of Foden and De Bruyne, as well as the play of Rodri and Kovacic.

Outside of the back four and the midfield, the two wingers are also quite narrow, closer to the middle, blocking the space in the ribs, thus handing over the defensive responsibilities of the wings to the full-backs:

On the whole, the idea of defending the edge is very clear.

So in the first half of the first half, Manchester City barely played any decent attacking shots, because the nearest dangerous passages to the goal were all blocked by Manchester United, and Manchester City could only try direct crosses from the wing to find the top of Haaland's head:

The only attacking threat came in the 25th minute of the game:

It was a time for the attack to work out, starting with Foden's area of activity from the opening left to the middle, and then Kovacic cutting forward to get rid of Bruno and thus play the attack.

And the fact that this offense can be successful actually shows a lot of problems:

First of all, if De Bruyne doesn't play with his team-mates on the flanks in positional battles, he and Haaland can't be linked to each other just by standing on the spot.

If he doesn't run, he's not as useful as Foden.

Secondly, if Haaland's skills allow him to combine effectively with his team-mates in the second line, Kovacic will not have to step in to help attack.

Inserting in the middle of the field is usually an attacking method when the false 9 tactics or the ability of the center forward position is not enough, but Manchester City have Haaland, a center forward who seems to be very capable from the outside, and this says a lot.

Haaland's mistake was not just a mistake:

Just one minute after City's attack in the middle, Rodri also sent a diagonal cross into the area of the right corner of the box, and United cleared it and played such a counter-attack attempt:

Yes, that's the flaw in Manchester United's thinking.

After putting out a back four and a midfield four, Ten Hag's problem is actually how to arrange the remaining two striker positions on the outfield?

The diamond-shaped midfielder against Manchester City in last year's final actually put the two forward positions in front of the four midfielders to ensure depth, but lost the width, and this season's 4222 is to put the two forward positions on both sides of the four midfielders.

So in a way, Ten Hag's meta-idea is still 433, but he needs to give up the ball while using four midfielders to do the job of three midfielders.

However, he is not an Italian coach and can naturally play an asymmetrical layout with a central striker on one side and a wide forward position but no dead defense, so that he can only cut the center forward position when the width must be guaranteed.

Therefore, this 4222 is the product of Manchester United's pre-match situation, strength comparison and past experience, which is by no means Ten Hag's intention, but only a stopgap measure after he made various trade-offs in order to win the title.

However, it was precisely this stopgap measure that allowed Manchester United, who finished eighth in the league this season, to knock Manchester City in a single game.

Without the natural position of a centre-forward to capture depth, United will need their players to compensate for it with movement, so in the first half of the first half, the intention was very certain to play from two wings:

That's why Marcus Rashford is not in good shape and has limited performances, but Ten Hag still has to put him in the starting line-up.

And in the first half, Manchester United also took advantage of City's problems in the layout.

In this game, Manchester City's initial idea was to have two full-backs up front, so in the early stages of the game, Gvardiol and Walker were quite high up the pitch when they had the ball:

During this time, Walker can still get stuck with Rashford in the back-and-forth, which can ensure both offense and defense, and Manchester City has not yet felt the pressure on the defensive end.

At 20 minutes, Walker was still up front, so Bernardo Silva picked up the right side of midfield:

It was when United got a throw-in at the back that Walker returned to the back line:

But in the 21st minute, Marcus Rashford's chaos up front allowed United to play into the area of Stones:

This is the area of Manchester City's defensive weakness in this game.

In fact, in the 9th minute of the game, the reason why Manchester United was able to smoothly move the attack to the right side in this attack, thus forming Garnacho's attack, was that Stones was still behind Rodri:

From the end of this attack, Walker did not move forward, but stayed at the back, focusing on protecting Stones, and the task of opening up the width on the right was handed over to Bernardo Silva:

As a result, City were left with only Gvardiol's wing-backs up front, and Bernardo Silva's position was changed from the centre to the wing, which affected City's ability to control midfield.

So in the 30th minute, Rodri lost the ball and United's first attack did not move forward, and Dalot hit the area behind Gvardiol with a long diagonal pass:

In this goal, Manchester City's mistake was Ortega's choice.

Before the ball entered the big penalty area, an offensive and defensive battle was formed, if Ortega chose to attack, then he could only use his head, but he obviously did not have much confidence in his header clearance, so his footsteps attacked, but when he finally needed to fight for the top, he found that the trajectory was wrong, and temporarily retreated, so that Gvardiol, who did not realize that Ortega was attacking, made a mistake.

From an offensive point of view, what Manchester United did well in this goal was the accuracy of Dalot's diagonal long passes, and he played at left-back in this game, with a low error rate, and used his right foot to play a line that made Manchester City players very awkward, this is not the first time:

With the first goal, Manchester United naturally took the lead, and Manchester City will also increase the intensity and tempo, so in the 31st minute, Manchester City pounced on the middle, Lisandro Martine and Varane cleared the ball:

And during this time, Manchester United was able to withstand, and Lisandro Martinez contributed a lot:

His back-to-back sweeps in those few minutes are proof of why United have had so many problems defensively without him this season.

Moreover, Lisandro Martinez is credited not only for his performance in those minutes, but also because after 30 minutes, Rashford, who was responsible for seizing depth, was tired.

In the 32nd minute, Rashford had a rare opportunity to compete with Stones, but his body could already feel the heaviness clearly:

In the 34th minute, Rashford neither sprinted to the back post nor settled in time after the conversion of possession:

So after being involved in this offside attack in the 37th minute:

In the 39th minute, Rashford did not choose to play the ball alone, but chose to transfer a long pass, which is exactly the usual choice when he is not in good physical condition and low self-confidence, but it was precisely this choice that allowed United to score the second goal:

In the defensive process of this goal, Manchester City is left with a non-layered back line, and the back area has long been unable to return to help:

With two goals down before the end of the first half, City tried to pull back the intensity at the end of the first half, but United kept Haaland and De Bruyne at bay:

And in the meantime, United still have a chance to attack:

This is the most important lifeline for Manchester United, as long as they can play counter-attacks and wear down the defensive weaknesses of Rodri and Stones, they will not have to worry about maintaining the lead for longer.

So in the second half, this was the most important thing for United, just like against Brighton, Ten Hag needs to keep an eye on the number of counter-attacks and the level of threat up front, and once the momentum drops, he will have to make changes immediately to maintain the vitality of the front.

This is the basis for Manchester United to be able to defeat the strong with the weak.

After all, Guardiola will definitely be furious after this half.

So at the beginning of the second half, Pep Guardiola brought on Akanji and Doku, but still retained Stones, changing his thinking to the premise of central defenders at the end of last season, trying to regain control in the middle of the midfield.

At the start of the second half, United's counter-performance was not bad:

But with Pep Guardiola replacing De Bruyne with Alvarez, who is more adept at interspersing with Haaland, the pressure on Manchester United at the back has increased, and not only has it begun to be squashed:

And it also allowed Manchester City to create a number of good chances to score:

The kind of space that allowed City to get off the ground was not seen in the first half:

In fact, United should have made adjustments at this point, but as a manager, Ten Hag must be more confident that his starting XI can last a little longer.

Thankfully, United were able to play some attacking content during this period, but the threat level was much lower than in the first half:

Heading into the 70-minute range, it was only after Lisandro Martinez and Marcus Rashford were completely exhausted that Ten Hag brought on Evans and Hjlen.

This made Manchester City's threat attack during this period of time, and only Walker's long-range shot was this one:

can only play a long-range shot, which also shows that Manchester City's substitutions at the beginning of the second half have attenuated, Manchester United should actually continue to make substitutions at this time, continue to renew the vitality on the periphery of the defensive line, but Ten Hag, who was late in the first wave of substitutions, naturally did not act like this, so in the 87th minute, Doku scored a goal:

It was a goal that revived suspense at the end of the game, with Ten Hag bringing on Victor Lindelof and Mason Mount at this point, but Hjlen played his part in the most critical moments:

After spelling out the set-piece, United waited for the final whistle to blow and officially ended the season with a gold medal.

It must be said that Manchester United did well in this game, including the end of the season. After being beaten by Crystal Palace, he lost to Arsenal and won consecutive opponents such as Newcastle and Brighton, including this FA Cup final, and performed very well.

One of the hallmarks was Amrabat's return to midfield.

Amrabat returned to the starting line-up and used his duels to share a lot of pressure with the stormy centre-back, which was one of his characteristics, but he was forced to make a lot of mistakes, almost conceded a penalty against Newcastle and underperformed against Brighton, which is something Ten Hag could not accept.

But in the last few games, Ten Hag tolerated that.

So, like this 4222 with no depth for various reasons, the expediency that Ten Hag has been forced to accept will always make United perform better.

He was the one who won the FA Cup today, and he was the one who lost 4-0 to Crystal Palace.

Ten Hag is not incapable, otherwise he would not have led Ajax to the Europa League final and the Champions League semi-finals, but Ten Hag also has his own faults, he often makes mistakes in judgment about the environment of the Premier League and the intensity of the Premier League's away games.

So, he knows how to protect the backfield and how to play his own attack with the line against Manchester City today, but he will also be in front of Evans and Casemiro in front of Evans and Casemiro in midfield for Crystal Palace, so as to be blown up by the opponents.

At that time, he thought that his players were strong and could brush off opponents just by performing on the ball.

So, if Manchester United change their minds after this final and opt to keep Ten Hag this summer, they could even offer him a new contract.

Manchester United, then, must be able to help Ten Hag and make the young manager, who is only in his second year in the top five leagues, see the true level of himself and his opponents.

Either help him build a real steel defence, get Lisandro Martinez injured and the back line loses the ability to sweep high posts again, or let him accept that his tactical philosophy needs to change, at least not as aggressively as in this second year, so that United can move forward on the basis of protecting the backfield first.

If neither of these can be done, then it is still an option to end everyone's cooperation with the beauty of the night.

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