What’s Gone Wrong With United’s Football?
What has gone wrong with United’s football this season?
Hands will shoot up to put forward the crippling absence of Saha, Ronaldo and Rooney and the need to bed in the new players as a neat answer.
Surely, that is a little too easy. Saha is a fitful contributor to United whilst Ferguson’s team did not become champions by relying on the magic woven by Rooney and Ronaldo alone.
Something is amiss even though United sit in eighth position in the league just two points off the pace-setters. The summer’s recruitment was supposed to inject a new dimension to United’s football not make it unrecognisable.
Carlos Tevez is an international striker of some reputation who was playing in the bear pit of the Copa America just one month ago. His current form has allowed unsung defenders like Nosworthy and Duberry to appear as latter day Cannavaros. Will he need six months to settle in at United as he required at West Ham?
Paul Scholes played a blinder last season and has an assassin’s eye for the target too. Nani has served notice already that he will emerge soon enough as a top talent and Anderson is supposedly destined for greatness according to the estimable Felipe Scolari, coach to Portugal and formerly Brazil.
Throw in the veteran master Giggs, the midfield tiger Hargreaves, now a thoroughly convincing performer and Michael Carrick, rated as very good by nearly everyone and United should have the personnel and the weaponry to steam-roller any side.
Yet the 90 minutes against Reading and patches against Portsmouth and City notwithstanding, United’s football has gone from exhilarating to sterile in quick time.
United did everything right against Reading but did not receive a just reward. The team was very good in the first half against Portsmouth but got turned over in the second period. The City game was slow but one way traffic, undone by a monstrous slice of bad luck and some heroic defending. Against Spurs and Sunderland, United escaped by the skin of their teeth.
Nevertheless, the manager projects a certain calm. “Over the years I have always considered it’s those nerve-jangling 1-0 wins that are the most important aspect of winning the league,” Ferguson told the Sun newspaper.
Sure, but so soon into the season?
Nervousness appears to have set into United’s play. There is a creeping pedestrian nature to the work on the flanks which gives the midfielders fewer options and outlets.
Stewart Robson, the former Arsenal midfielder turned football analyst, was persuasive when he wrote in the Telegraph last month: “For a team who usually thrive on crosses, their delivery hasn’t been as good as normal.
“They have been under-hit, over-hit or the players have chosen the wrong option. United haven’t got physical presence in the box, but height is not needed when crosses are being hit from the corner of the penalty box rather than from the touchlines.
“Even when they have played decent balls into the danger area, they have squandered the opportunities or been thwarted by inspired defending. They have also missed the injured Gary Neville because Wes Brown has not provided the same quality of service into the box from right-back.”
Hence the rise of the square ball, an empty gesture but appropriate when there is nothing more to be done. Has the spirit of Ray Wilkins returned to haunt the current side?
United enjoyed the lion’s share of possession on Saturday against Sunderland but more often than not, the ball was swung from left to right and back again. There was a dearth of forward momentum, encouraging the risky high ball into the centre, which everyone acknowledges is not inch-high Tevez’s strong suit.
Playing with one man up front is not helping United’s cause. The Guardian summed up Saturday’s game succinctly. “Sunderland had Jones on his own up front most of the time, while rather weirdly United had no one.
“Tevez and Anderson were merely a notional front pairing. In practice Anderson spent more time in midfield, partly because Paul Scholes stationed himself almost as deep as Owen Hargreaves, while Tevez, who is even less happy with his back to goal than Rooney, took up forward positions without seeing enough of the ball.”
The Telegraph was far less charitable. “United appeared so tactically confused that Keane would have backed his players to hold out to the finish.”
Sir Alex conceded that United were sluggish and lacked bite until Saha entered the fray. “Carlos is far better playing behind someone,” he admitted. “We passed the ball too slowly in the first half and there was a lack of understanding. Louis gives us penetration and strength, and a good target to play up to.”
In theory, the return of Saha is the perfect remedy. United now have a target man to ‘hit.’ The reappearance of Ronaldo should bring back the devil to United’s wing craft too. For all the talents of the United squad, it is Ronaldo who has shown that he has the pace to beat his opponent and make space for others. Without this unpredictable quality, United look a far more obvious proposition.
It has been said that United have morphed into Arsenal. Regular watchers of the Wenger boys will not recognise the comparison. Arsenal may take 10 passes where six would do but there is a real threat whenever the team moves forward. Now that Fabregas has found his shooting boots, Arsenal’s football is expansive, alert and very dangerous.
What is becoming increasingly obvious is that United are capable of the sublime when Ronaldo and/ or Rooney are on top form. Equally true is the fact that the team looks to these players for wit, invention and confidence.
The pair may be the brightest young talents in Europe but a team of great ambition needs other sparks if it is to triumph repeatedly.
