Red Devils’ Dead Balls, Part 1
As I’m writing this, Manchester United have just conceded another set-piece goal. “A single goal, that doesn’t sound like a problem?” you say, stupidly. The worry is that this doesn’t narrow it down — this means I could’ve been writing at one of 17 possible times during this season (all comps). To boost this stat into serious trouble territory, you’d have to go back to 2018/19 to find a league season where Man Utd outscored their opposition from dead ball situations — not counting penalties, because let’s remember COVID Martial and his kickable legs. You don’t have to have watched a lot of set-pieces or have done a lot of maths to figure out this is probably a bad thing. Luckily for Man Utd, I’ve done both, and so here I’d like to formally and informally present 2 few-point plans for fixing their woes. In this section, I’ll be focusing on the defensive side, and in Part 2 I’ll be sorting out the attack.
Defending
We’ll start from the back, as I’d say this is the biggest worry area, and the easiest to generally fix. Whilst it’s nice to score set-pieces (boy wouldn’t I know), it’s real good to not feel like every single corner kick is ending up in your net, and Man Utd have relegation level corner defence.
A lot of this is to do with aggregation rather than individual chances, which is already a positive — per The Analyst, Man Utd have conceded 172 shots from set-plays in the PL this season, accumulating for 14.46 xG, and for a fairly okay 0.08 per shot which actually batters Aston Villa’s ~0.14 — but conceding this many shots is a clear negative, and we’ll need to analyse what in the structure is handing out 8% finishes more than 5 times a game. From corners specifically, understat has them at 118 shots and 12.54 xG, giving ~0.11xG per shot, which is worse!
My first point is a little more holistic, but needs to be addressed to give any of this actual weight.
Raise the roof
At its core level, this Man Utd side is not blessed to compete well at corners in elite competition. It’s not as big and bulky as an Arsenal, Everton, Newcastle etc, and this mismatch is a bit of a cap. Harry Maguire and Charlie Casemiro are probably Man Utd’s best corner defenders and have only played 1383 and 1352 minutes respectively in the PL, or 19 and 18 games. Some of this is tactical — Maguire has been in and out of the team as Varane and Martinez has been the preference for “normal football” under EtH (gross), but Casemiro’s absence has been purely injury which is slightly unlucky and slightly ‘hey maybe don’t buy an ageing DM for a hyper-transitional side and no-one else’.
Beyond these two, Varane is a great box-defender, so is pretty good on corners if a bit stiff, and Evans has shocked me in rewatches as being arguably the team’s 3rd best corner asset, but all full-backs are devastatingly bad bar Shaw, who’s just short instead*. AWB’s ability to judge a ball in the air and also understand there are at least 20 other players on the pitch is very questionable, and Dalot (more on him later) is bafflingly poor positionally. You add that Rashford, Bruno, and a cavalcade of other non-defenders are brought back into the box, all of whom aren’t very good in the air, and you have a box full of players who are being aggressively targeted for their weaknesses — it’s slightly self-fulfilling.
*since writing, I’ve since been told Luke Shaw is 6ft1. I refuse to believe this, but in any case, my argument is that he doesn’t defend corners like he’s 6ft1.
A clear point to improve here then is ‘try and get some more big lads in’, or ensure any smaller players that do come in demonstrate ample coachability for, or have sufficient levels of, spatial awareness. The goal vs Liverpool in the most recent league game demonstrates how badly Man Utd need some widespread overhaul here — recent debutant and literal child Kobbie Mainoo is given a core role in defending a Liverpool corner, in the space VVD scored from in the League Cup final. Getting a better foundation in CBs, FBs, and DM will allow for these attacking and youthful players to not be burdened as much, and serve better roles as a result — perhaps improving Utd’s ability to transition from these moments.
A large issue here for me too is the goalkeeper, and it’s something Man Utd have struggled with for a longggg time. Utd are in a weird phase of expectation vs reality in their goalkeeper transition. De Gea was known as the line-hugger, and you can probably find comps of him refusing to claim balls that are even 3 yards away from him, and this cost Utd a lot of goals from crosses over his spell. This season though, Utd are conceding set-pieces at a higher rate than ever before, despite the switch to what would be describe as a ‘collective upgrade’ in Onana.
I’ve talked about it briefly when I was discussing my favourite aggro keeper David Raya, but Utd are struggling with Onana not being as proactive as they would hope, but not fixing the system to adjust for this. There’s a couple of goals where Utd seemingly expect Onana to claim — whereas before they knew De Gea wouldn’t — and it ends in a huge chance/goal, as there’s almost an ideological miscommunication. I’m not wholly blaming Onana here; he’s been showing better signs of collection and confidence since AFCON, and there are way more problems than just him not catching or stepping up as quickly. However, Utd need to recognise what their keeper is and is not if they want to actually improve from these situations, and make accommodations in how they operate. Some of this is hurt by the 25 different back 4s Utd have used this year, but given what I’m about to say in the next few sections, I’m unsure this would’ve made a difference.
Teams have already twigged the areas that Utd afford thanks to this keeper and squad disparity, and the learning process needs to be accelerated on Utd’s end this summer if they want to stem this flow longer term.
Plug the hole
As a result of these mismatches, Man Utd have an awful habit of opening up the middle of their box for the opposition to kind of do whatever they want. Under De Gea, teams knew he would refuse to catch anything, so cramped in close and in turn stopped the ability for this space to open up. Take a look at these images from Utd last season and this season, and you can see there is an air of respect for Onana that De Gea didn’t have, as Onana has more box dominance than a toddler.
As I’ve said though, this comes with problems as Utd do not win first contacts, as you can tell by the fact that ~49% of their corners end up in a shot for the opposition (assuming a 1:1 contribution for each corner). This means that Utd sacrifice a large part of their box by virtue of a goalkeeper not quite meeting expectation, and a team not quite understanding how to deal with that.
To say that don’t understand how to deal with it is maybe harsh — they simply haven’t tried. Barring small micro-changes on a game-to-game basis typically induced by the opposition, Utd have ostensibly kept the same defensive corner structure since 2018, shown below. The team in general was taller there, but also had been built around DDG’s deficiencies. This season’s haven’t been catered to squad nor keeper, and it frankly stinks.
This whole problem is doubled by the fact that I’m unsure whether Man Utd and especially Diogo Dalot understand the offside rule. One of the worst quirks that I’ve seen in these corner watches is Dalot’s insistence on dropping to cover the far post when he becomes aware that he cannot win the first touch — and it’s been happening for years. Here’s a corner from Utd’s 2019 win at City, and watch Lindelöf at the back-post doing the same motion — this isn’t Dalot, then, its a full tactical choice.
Take a look at the Wolves corner from this season and you’ll see very simply what I mean. Here Wolves are aiming front post which is flicked on by Bruno Fernandes: this is fine, and nitpicking this would be a bit silly, but considering Arsenal often use 6ft4 Kai Havertz on the front post, you can see the slight limitations of 5ft10 Fernandes in this role here. This ends back post and Utd are in a poor position because guess what — Diogo Dalot’s done a runner and is cover the far post for some reason. Utd lose this header, but as the players are rushing out to meet it, Wolves’ attackers are moving against this motion to sit in the 6-yard. The line move-up is good from Utd, but Dalot completely nullifies this, playing the two central players on and demanding more proactivity from Onana which he promptly doesn’t get. Dalot then doesn’t block the shot on the line, meaning he actively contributes to both the assist, the conceptual assist in the offside, and the goal itself. This is criminal.
Utd should disregard this back-post dropper quickly if they want to limit this sort of opportunity, and rely on the acceleration and want for a counter from those on the front post to ensure a step up. Even if Dalot sits further up it’s still an improvement, as there are very few deliverers in the league that create great shooting opportunities to the back-post areas from corners. This in turn should mean teams come closer to goal, and plug the gap for easier headers, meaning Utd can maximally benefit from their central contesters more, and hopefully get a bit more reach from Onana in net.
But wait there’s more! After writing the above I went back and reviewed some more tape, and not only do Utd have Dalot drop on the back post, they also have Bruno drop on the front post in the converse situation. Whilst Bruno is typically quite good at leading the push-out from the front post, this is cancelled out by the insistence to cover the posts and make up for their inability to prevent shots by trying to block them. This is a wider point I’d like to come back to in more detail, as it’s really the core ethos of Man Utd’s corner defence, and this is just a small signal of it. For now though, a quick theory on why Utd do this and why it’s damaging:
For me, Utd are trying to ‘game the system’ by running these line coverers. By not having them there by default, and instead slightly off these positions to then drop and cover, it feels like they are trying to get the benefits of both systems — covering space but also getting the shot-blocking quality of post players. What they’re ignoring though, is that they’re also maximising the negatives here: they don’t cover the space at either post adequately with these single players (3 are needed at the front post for inswingers for example), and they are also forcing an inconsistent sense of set-up following the corner. Utd are reliably getting paddled on second balls within the box for corners, and this self-separation is a huge part of why.
Get rid, I’m begging you.
Cover more ground
Looking deeper into this self-separation, covered well in this video from AJAnalysis, Utd are setting up pretty poorly.
By sitting so close to Onana, Utd are almost penning him in and in turn limiting his area of influence — but are also opening up a lot of space basically everywhere else. Spaces open up in the 6-yard, but also in the near and far post zones, which means if the opposition get beyond one of Utd’s weakly suited blockers, they have a bunch of space to attack. In some ways this is the best case Utd have for their set-pieces and their general play being part of one cohesive game model, given their press has been defined by huge gaps between the lines all season.
What’s more, is that if the opposition entice Utd to become aggressive man-markers, they can hugely exploit the space between zonal and blocking groups thanks to this mismatch problem, meaning the space Utd are meant to be covering thanks to their deep structure is being gifted again. You can see this gap opening up here, in the first game of the season:
Utd are maximising their losses again: by keeping their good headerers (not sure if that’s the word, but its fun to write so it stays) in the 6-yard box, keeping a liability at the back post, cutting off a goalkeeper from even trying to be proactive, and giving either children or OAPs the 1v1 jobs vs the oppositions actual good headerers. Basically the only good thing about the structure currently is positioning Garnacho front post to cover the local pass and offer a transition.
Fun side note — the latest of Utd’s horrendous corner goals conceded came from Cole Palmer collecting from close and having a free shot from the 18. Who was taken off 5 minutes before, opening this lane up? Alejandro Garnacho. Not only was this a fairly terrible in-play sub, it killed Utd vs a genuinely dogshit corner side in Chelsea.
Now the solutions to this aren’t so easy as “stop doing the stupid thing” like before, as its slightly layered within the squad-building challenges and could have nasty caveats. I have some ideas, but I’ve been watching how Brentford set up to see if we can glean any tips. For context, Flekken has approximately the same cross claim % as Onana, and Brentford ship a bunch of corners so it kinda works ish, although Brentford have a 1.83m average squad height compared to 1.81 at Utd — but we’ve hammered that squad point home before.
In this article I’ve linked above, you get some good visuals of structure in the general case (please note this isn’t reflective of standard opposition movements, but moreso of team’s defensive structure):
On inswingers first: a lot of the problem here is quite numerical honestly — Brentford sacrifice a bit of 6-yard control for protection on the edge in both cases, with 4 players around Flekken to Utd’s 5 around Onana. Considering Brentford have conceded 69 shots from 199 corners, I’d say this has been a smart gamble, as it allows them to disrupt opposition runs far easier, whilst not having players wasted in zones easily accessed by others. This latter point is particularly interesting, as Utd’s tightness of the front triangle seems slightly insane to me — barring miraculous deliveries, I am unsure what crosses you are cutting off by having Bruno sitting in front 2 (typically taller) players behind, especially not at the expense of the free runners making their way into the space deeper and in the 6- to 18-yard gap.
One of the weirdest quirks I’ve found (and I’m glad is represented here) is that of the zonal-marker and secondary blocker — denoted here as number 14 (Eriksen) but often Mainoo in reality. It’s, and I say this meaningfully again, insane to have Mainoo out here on an inswinger. You can see Brentford employ this on outswingers, and usually have this man engage in blocking due to the shape and nature of the crosses, but the utilisation on inswingers means that Mainoo can be often found not marking anyone and just holding ground for the sake of it — like in this game away at Villa. Occasionally it can be useful, like vs LFC in the FA cup where can get involved in the general hustle and bustle of ‘helping the small guys stop the big guys’, but even in these moments his presence here means that Utd are short changing themselves in the front-post zone. It feels like again a case of Utd trying to get the best of both systems without properly committing to each, and having a zonal this far out on inswingers is either opening gaps you don’t want, or covering space you don’t need.
Utd are constantly finding teams expose this flaw in design: collecting runners in a queue (similar to that England 2018 one), and then using their own attackers as blockers on defensive trackers to stop the ‘pass-off’. One of these runners splitting off into that front-post gap is a sure-fire way to get a good challenge for the ball, as Nunez found for Diaz’s goal. Fixing this is hard, as it’s a very good routine, but I’d probably suggest setting up a line around the runners, but with your faster and better challenger covering the front-post, and the expendable one covering any back-post runs — AWB is usually rinsed in these and needs help badly. First contact is vital, and corners going deeper are likely easier to shift to stop (and harder to deliver), so ensuring Utd can get this contact or at least disrupt the oppositions would go a huge way to stopping the shot leak. This should be a general ad-hoc solution mind you, and Maguire/Varane/Casemiro’s tightness to Onana should be adjusted team-to-team (further out for someone like Fulham who love to hit this ‘just outside the front 6’ zone, closer in for someone like Everton who love to get the ball right in the mixer).
Inswingers are where Utd concede most of their actual goals from corners, because of these spatial issues — 6 of their 9 conceded have been inswingers — but Utd can sometimes avoid punishment when opposition teams use it as an opportunity to crowd Onana and squish Utd into their 6-yard. In these moments, Utd’s superior box defenders do really well (shout-out Jonny Evans) and it negates a lot of their issues, but this then means Utd’s defensive qualities are largely reliant on the opposition.
This opposition reliance is mirrored in delivery, as this is something Utd are quite blessed with somehow, where opposition deliveries are often just not where the runners are going, bailing out the structural issues. There’s an argument that Utd’s very negative structure means that crosses have to be perfect to be effective, which is fair and maybe I’m confirmation-biasing my way through this, but in my eyes it’s just the mathematics of corners and dead-balls in general, especially considering that Utd are conceding as many shots and as many quality shots as they are.
Looking at outswingers, Utd’s curve of their outfield players is a notable quirk too, with a sharper cut across the box due to the presence of Dalot in the back-post zone. This does help in a way, as it tempts crosses on the outside of that zone, and theoretically should mean that any headers conceded are of worse quality, however the inactivity of Onana and the wrong activity of Dalot and Bruno mean that this 6-yard opens up and allows for this curve to be exploited (at the back post!).
I’d rather give these guys a shallower curve a la Brentford, and move Dalot out into the box to disable runners — or perhaps have him floating as a way to prevent the (very common) opposition player slipping behind the zonal markers to hang out near Onana. We’ve seen before, vs Brentford in fact, how susceptible Onana is to even singular blockers, so perhaps a protective force in Dalot would be good (as well as removing Dalot from the more mobile 1v1s Utd are clearly protecting him from).
Newcastle and Spurs both used players drifting through the block to create good chances for themselves, meanwhile.
This structure also comes with another downside that teams are constantly exploiting, with the space just at the right corner of the top of the box. As the Utd players are flatter, and leave their larger headerers for the middle of the box (which makes some sense given the weakness of their blockers and especially AWB), this means this space, which I’ve highlighted here in clip form, is constantly under fire.
Utd concede big challenges and flick-ons in this area most games, and it transforms an arguably safer corner set-up in the outswinger into something probably more dangerous than the inswingers. 32 of Utd’s shots conceded are from outswingers, and they are mostly from this zone — with Fulham especially having an absolute field day in this area, eventually scoring from there. Again, this is partly recruitment, and partly the downsides of poorly placing your best headers so they can rarely get an influential touch. I’m honestly not sure how I’d fix this — maybe having a mobile and physical headerer in this area (maybe McTominay) could work so this area is shutdown — plus having the shallower slant of the outswing defensive structure means he’ll have more momentum to challenge rather than having to shuttle into it.
What’s weird to me is that there’s also been individual cases where this structure has flatten itself out for some reason, primarily in scenarios where they assume the front-post or short delivery is a certainty. This happens very visibly in the away tie at Burnley — and in fact Utd do well on both attacking and defending corners in this game, which to me suggests that Utd are capable of designing good adaptive structures, but have primarily ignored them, chasing the losses of their wider model.
Key takeaways from this comparison then?
1. Remove Mainoo’s zonal role on inswingers and move him into a more reliable blocker as he’s genuinely not horrendous if he’s tight early
2. Move one of the front-post 6-yard defenders out more often to prevent locking Onana in and wasting a player with space covered by others
3. Work on placement solutions to prevent opposition ‘pick and rolls’ at the edge of the 18
4. Move Dalot out of back-post duty and reduce the steepness of the curve to improve Maguire and Varane’s influence in the middle of the box on outswingers
5. Use the shallower curve and a mobile aerial target in the ‘2nd’ role of the diagonal, so they can challenge this front post space better
Get to the fackin second
A nicher issue, but an issue nonetheless, is Utd’s work on second phases. In general, and by in general I mean basically every single time, Utd get absolutely rinsed to the second ball from corners. Given how we’ve framed their depth and specific principles (very deep, post-droppers, at most 1 zonal ‘edge’ sitter), this is really not a surprise and like, yknow, whatever — if anything the negatives of this are reduced by Utd having literally every player between the ball and goal for these seconds.
The issue comes from the speed at which these second balls are challenged i.e. very very fucking slowly.
On countless (and I mean it, my note format makes this really difficult to count) I’ve noted Utd’s inability to cover shots or chance creation from these second balls, and it’s such a killer. Utd are particularly bad at affording continuous corners thanks to this principle, and at times it genuinely feels as if they’re doing a ‘play till we lose’ challenge.
I was going to do multiple clips, but you can probably get the gist — Utd being so negative means players on the edge are afforded a lot of time.
Defensively this is all a large issue, primarily as Utd are frankly dogshit at organising their defence for second phase plays. For shots, players aren’t chasing as aggressively as they need to be, giving opposition chance to shoot at the full 11 players with usually 10+ yards of space — often getting another corner, or a messy panicky situation following a block. For second plays, Utd are all over the place due to the disorganisation of their defenders on corners (desperation to get a touch comes into play here). Have a look at this example, where Utd have maybe their worst set of players left in the box following a corner, as Varane and Lindelöf and McTominay have followed their markers outward:
Or this one, with Dalot doing his favourite hobby of ignoring the offside rule
You’ll be sharp to spot these are both from the same game.
Spaces open up so easily behind the play in the wide zones, and then markers in the middle are often easily run past, in turn boosted by an inconsistently positive Onana. Whilst this can be improved somewhat by the structure before improving, and Onana being a better ‘force for good’ in the middle, this still all stems from the lack of pressure on the second balls which is a far simpler policy to integrate.
On the attack, the issue is a completely compounding one, beyond just losing a single loose ball. In addition to adding another visual loss to their game as their players amble over to the ball an opponent is dying to get to and score from, Utd are capping a core part of their philosophy: the transition. With Utd’s positioning they desperately need pressure on the second ball to induce transitions that suit their game and their players — corners are the best opportunity for doing this as the ball is usually coming out towards the opposition players, meaning Utd can attack with the ball’s momentum. Vs Luton a few of these popped up rather nicely, and of course we have the counter vs Liverpool recently.
This seems weird right? Utd are a fast team, with an ethos of transitional attacking football, and yet this prime opportunity is being framed as a way to minimise opponents scoring value (badly) rather than maximise their own strength? Well, I think the reason why is not in intention, it’s that their all fucking knackered.
In watching through these, since approximately November, the moments I’ve found where the player on the edge has pressed furiously and induced a transition, it has basically always been someone who’s played less than 500 minutes this season, or at very least hasn’t played recently. Omari Forson does it in his debut vs Fulham, Luke Shaw does it away at Luton, there’s one away at Chelsea, and very notably Amad Diallo does it vs Liverpool. It’s a small sample size, sure, but this comes with the caveat of the much larger sample size where the same 14 players do not do this ever — doubly so following the winter break, when the physical weight of ten Hag tax comes into fruition.
Beyond fixing the exhaustion (I can certainly think of one way to help with that, Erik), there’s some structural tweaks I’d make here that could help Utd. A key thing here is that in general, it’s incredibly easy to toy with them when the ball falls outside of the area; inside the area, Utd are far more comfortable due to the sheer volume of players (Garnacho is the only one who comes ‘outside’ as we see in the diagrams above). To help this, and to avoid the ‘short + cross’ or ‘short -> shot’ chances that appear fairly often* to take advantage of Utd’s God awful second phase stuff, I’d be moving Bruno far more aggressively towards the taker when the short option is there. Behind him he usually has Casemiro and Varane, which means 5ft10 Bruno isn’t helping much, and Bruno’s pressure would be brilliantly helpful to prevent the plays dominating Garnacho right now.
*Notable set-piece nerds Brentford and Villa tried this 7 times in their games vs Utd in 2024
If the opposition hold 3 players on this side to combat Bruno shifting up, then this strategy has worked in my eyes, as it then allows the team more widely to move up and out accordingly, as the ideal crosser is forced out too. This also increases the chance of Utd forcing a transition — another positive. Mainoo has actually already showed the value of this more mobile approach to the role in the away tie vs Liverpool. It’s nothing special, but his work to close down a 2-man combination on the edge actively harms the chance Liverpool can earn.
This would also require Mainoo to be more aggressive in his current role, as zonal-marker/quasi-blocker — if Utd are going to continue with it, and frankly even if they shift him into a blocker role I’ve suggested above. For most teams it’s fairly easy to tell when their going short by proximity of their man (or like ~5 minutes of Wyscout searching), so Mainoo just needs to prepare to jump to these edge players lining up half-space crosses or shots. A fairly small mentality shift, and whilst he’s not fast, he’s faster than Casemiro et al who we really want in the middle.
I see this as the easiest fix for Utd; it fits naturally with a wider ideal whilst best suiting the squad, and stops the self-created cycle of ‘corner->blocked longshot->corner’, alleviating some pressure and letting Utd reset. It’s just whether their legs can handle it at this point.
Stop, don’t block
This tiredness issue is something that I feel translates into the squad at a core level in how they approach defending corners at all. Looping back round to my issue I talked about before with the post-droppers, Utd have a really fundamental issue in attitude which destroys their ability to stop haemorrhaging shots and goals from corners: There’s a prevailing attitude to block shots rather than prevent them even happening, worsened by the wider fitness of the squad.
This naturally follows when you consider the post-ers, and the volume of shots Man Utd concede from their corners, as well as their low xG, but I’ll chuck in some more examples to really get the point over.
Watch Utd vs Brentford here, and how these second balls aren’t challenged with the intent of stopping the ball, the entire team instead drops to the line and gives Brentford a chance to shoot (and miss, sigh).
Then, watch Utd vs Villa with the “round the back” goal that sparked The Athletic’s great piece on it all. Once they realise they’ve lost the first ball, look at where every player sprints to, including Dalot — the focus is on line coverage and acting as second goalkeepers than actual defenders, and it’s kind of baffling?
Then, watch Utd vs Everton, where Rashford is given DCL to mark (despite DCL smoking him for 2/3 chances in the reverse tie), with the entire Utd team focusing on the 6-yard box again.
Every single part of Utd’s gameplan is to try and lower shot value rather than stop the shot itself, and so it’s perhaps no wonder why they concede so many. They play a game of percentages on every kick, and ten Hag’s wider systematic problems mean that you’re rolling the dice nearly 250 times a season. It’s a good principle to try and reduce losses, but the ‘handiness’ of this goes out the window when you’re relying on miracle saves, open net misses, and self-decided last ditch defending nearly every kick.
I’m not even saying Utd are being successful (Casemiro does however have an astonishing 56 blocks in 15 90s), they’re just autopiloting into training cone mode and usually on the line, as if they don’t trust Onana to make the save. Trust your damn goalkeeper guys, funnel these shots and stop making it into a training drill for attackers.
If Utd really want to improve their record from these set-pieces, they need to be more readily covering the ball from close rather than procrastinating goal prevention. Like I said about pressing the players on the edge, being more active in these moments prevents a lot of moments seeping through out of self-generated luck. Against Villa, in a game Utd somehow won 2–1, the only goal Utd let in comes from the second phase of corner, won from a deflected shot from the edge, which comes from a second phase of a first corner. If you shut this shit down, none of it runs, none of it flies.
I appreciate it’s very “man who’s never played football before tells pros how to” (I have played, I am quite shit), but genuinely, this is so baffling to watch, let alone 200 times in a row.
Utd should use their fast and agile players on the edge to ensure these situations are forced out, and if they really want to insist on using Charlie Miro’s blocking qualities, then keep the older bodies behind until a stable position is earned.
Recap
So, to TLDR this defensive section:
1. Improve the general squad height to replace outgoers and generally improve physicality vs blockers/runners — AWB especially needs help, and should be removed or put out of the way (maybe front post?)
2. Stop these stupid line-dropping players immediately and pressure the second ball faster
3. Support Garnacho faster with short plays, removing his workload and preventing ‘second phase’ issues as the team alignment is off
4. On inswingers, remove Mainoo’s zonal role and move him into a more reliable blocker as he’s genuinely not horrendous if he’s tight early
5. On inswingers, move one of the front-post 6-yard defenders out more often to prevent locking Onana in and wasting a player with space covered by others
6. On outswingers, Move Dalot out of back-post duty and reduce the steepness of the curve to improve Maguire and Varane’s influence in the middle of the box on outswingers
7. On outswingers, Use the shallower curve and a mobile aerial target in the ‘2nd’ role of the diagonal, so they can challenge this front post space better
8. On both, work on placement solutions to prevent opposition ‘pick and rolls’ at the edge of the 18
9. Close down the ball and prevent shots — to prevent accumulation issues, and to induce counters
10. I’m saying this again, please stop these line-droppers, it drove me insane
For a visual explanation, my system would probably look a bit like this:
Utd are caught in a mental transition of being quite a reactive defensive team to trying to become a more proactive one, and this mirrors in the corner structure: half of them want to stay deep and comfortable, and the other half are being aggressive, and it means the opposition don’t have to do much to take advantage. Utd need to allow corners to become a core part of their game model, in denying shots early, in inducing counters, in setting the tone. Right now, all they’re doing is letting them pass them by, and praying someone will give them a little bit of a break.
Now, no conclusions here, there’s an attack to disect. The link to Part 2 and some final thoughts are below — it’s a lot shorter, as there’s only so much you can do without giving them full routines, but it’s still more than Utd probably do on the training ground.
https://medium.com/@jakewfox98/red-devils-dead-balls-part-2-bfa797103fbd