The knives were out for Pep Guardiola in December 2016 as he was laughed out of his post-match press conference at the King Power Stadium for claiming that he “doesn’t train tackles” after his porous Manchester City side were beaten 4-2 by Leicester City.
The Catalan had been found out, and his myriad of medals acquired at Barcelona was down to Lionel Messi after all. Or so the naysayers thought.
As City went on to win the Premier League the following season, amassing 100 points and conceding a league-low 27 goals, Guardiola created a defensive setup the envy of Europe – pressing from the front.
On Saturday, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Manchester United emerged from the King Power on the end of an identical defeat to that of Guardiola’s City, in another defensive quandary. The difference is, this time around, the Norwegian is showing no sign of coming up with the panacea.
Once his debut was out of the way, and 75,000 United fans had been able to declare their undying love for their returning hero, the pitfalls of having Cristiano Ronaldo front and centre of everything has already reared its head.
When stats emerged before United’s trip to Leicester that no forward in the Premier League had pressed on fewer occasions that Ronaldo this season, his loyal fanbase had a quick and perfectly valid riposte – they would rather have the goals.
But on Saturday, while United did score twice, the effect of not having that first press, against an opponent who is the grandmaster of the pastime – Jamie Vardy – made such a rebuttal looked somewhat churlish.
Over the past few seasons, Solskjaer’s team have prided themselves on taking the game to their opponents – the antithesis of the Louis van Gaal or Jose Mourinho United way – and it has paid dividends as the sleeping giant took baby steps on the road to recovery.
With Ronaldo leading the way, the final stretch of that path looks simply unnavigable. The problem Solskjaer has, with a near non-existent midfield presence and no pressure from the front, teams like Leicester will carve United open time and again in their current guise. A half-fit Harry Maguire stood no chance in a game he should never have been playing in on Saturday.
“Their central players weren’t pressing so we could be patient and work the ball through the pitch,” Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers somewhat reluctantly confessed after the match.
“We got into some really good areas and put pressure on their backline.”
It was simply all too easy for Leicester. While City have Bernardo Silva snarling in the face of defenders as soon as they even go near the ball, or Liverpool apply pressure as one, heavy-breathing beast, United had Ronaldo at walking pace at the King Power, and then it was through to an out-of-position Paul Pogba and ageing Nemanja Matic.
“We need to look at the whole set-up of the team,” Solskjaer said. “The whole balance of the team – maybe something has to give.”
So how do you solve a problem like Cristiano? Solskjaer tried dropping him once, something Sir Alex Ferguson, who some feel still pulls more strings that most retired directors do, disagreed with.
If Ronaldo isn’t going to press, and you don’t feel brave enough to drop him again, as the overlord will take his extra parking space back, then you must set up your team to accommodate for that.
What Solskjaer did on Saturday is what he has been doing throughout his near three-year tenure at the club – hope a moment of magic from one of his supremely talented individuals would drag his unconvincing and under-prepared team through.
Mason Greenwood did his part with his rasping effort to open the scoring in the first half, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough, not with what Solskjaer had put in place behind him.
The Norwegian is now left with two options. If he wants United to keep up their high-octane approach – they ranked fifth last season in pressures in the final third in the Premier League – he either needs to go with the lung-busting Edinson Cavani over Ronaldo as the first line of that press or provide more cover for his most famous asset further back.
If things stay as they are, Ronaldo will still score goals and United will still win games as they did earlier this season thanks to those Portuguese superstar’s strikes. But enough to win a title? Almost certainly not.
It will take a brave man to drop Ronaldo on a consistent basis, or reshuffle the system ahead of United’s upcoming daunting run of fixtures, but as Solskjaer admitted himself, something has to give, and sending out a side setup to be flogged like he did on Saturday against Liverpool next weekend could ensure that something could be the beleaguered Norwegian himself.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3lRcj2R
Post a Comment