How Ten Hag set Manchester United Up to Beat Liverpool
So, Manchester United have beaten Liverpool against the odds. Both teams have had a slow start to the season with United looking particularly poor after a heavy 4–0 defeat at Brentford and a loss to Brighton. Liverpool on the other hand have simply been underwhelming.
Klopp’s men were expected to start the season quickly after challenging for the title last time out; yet this season they have drawn two and now lost one to teams they were originally expected to beat without too many issues.
This fixture at Old Trafford seemed to be the perfect chance for Liverpool to kickstart their season- away against an old rival in Manchester United who couldn’t have had a worse start to their campaign. But Erik Ten Hag came up trumps. Let’s take a look at how he did it.
Firstly, I think in this game it is important to take a look at what went wrong for Liverpool as it was certainly an important element in the final result.
Liverpool started with a weaker 11 than usual due to a number of injuries to key players such as Thiago, Joel Matip and Fabinho. Because of this, the Liverpool midfield 3 was set up with Henderson in the deeper lying role that Fabinho normally occupies with Harvey Elliot and James Milner ahead of him.
This three just couldn’t make it work. Milner and Henderson seemed unfamiliar with their roles and would constantly lose the ball in key areas in the middle of the park often just through sloppy passes. Jordan Henderson only had a 79.1% pass accuracy while Milner was even lower with 77.3% (Courtesy of whoscored.com). These numbers are considerably low for two midfielders in a team with the quality of Liverpool’s.
Another issue was the combination of Joe Gomez and Trent Alexander-Arnold on the right side of Liverpool’s defence. The two didn’t seem to be confident in their partnership which was only exacerbated by Trent’s lacklustre defensive ability.
Manchester United on the other hand were well drilled and knew exactly what they were doing which led to them getting the better of Liverpool in front of a roaring Old Trafford.
Ten Hag set his team up in a 4–2–3–1 as shown below with the tactical idea in mind being one of intense pressing but only at certain times and in key areas.
One of these key pressing areas was out wide. Manchester united were clearly instructed to pin back the Liverpool full backs, Trent and Robertson. Ten Hag will have known that these two players normally pose a lot of threat when they get further forward so stopping this made sense- this move left a lot of space in the wide areas for United to attack.
This press is how United scored their second goal.
Here we see Trent is forced to hit a very early long ball/cross forward due to Bruno Fernandes pressing him and stopping him from getting into a more dangerous area.
This pass goes straight to Varane who heads the ball clear and up the field. The ball lands with Jordan Henderson who takes a poor touch, pretty much handing the ball to half-time substitute, Anthony Martial.
Martial dribbles away from Henderson well, opening up the space left by Trent for Rashford to bolt into. After an inch perfect run and through ball, Rashford beats Alisson, making it 2–0 to Manchester United all in a very short sequence triggered by the forced turnover of possession.
Manchester United’s first goal came about in a different manner however. Ten Hag focused the majority of his team’s attacks down the left hand side in order to expose the Trent-Gomez partnership’s fragility. In fact, 41% of United’s attacks came down this side as shown below.
For the first goal, United created an overload on this side when in possession, drawing Trent and then Gomez out of position in order for Sancho to eventually score.
Elanga draws Trent out before playing a neat one-two with Eriksen which puts Elanga in a threatening position inside the box before he pulls the ball back to Sancho who goes on to score with real composure and skill.
This result also wouldn’t have been possible without United’s good defending. Their back four all defended impressively, coming forward at the right times and staying disciplined in their positioning. Personally, I thought Malacia looked particularly exciting.
One of the big changes for United was how De Gea was instructed to kick. Ten Hag scrapped the build-up from the back for long passes from the Spanish keeper which worked out quite well, especially the ones that went to the left hand side where Trent and Gomez struggled to deal with them. 30 of De Gea’s 31 passes this game were long balls compared to just 7 of 14 against Brentford (Courtesy of whoscored.com).
Something intriguing to note is that if Ten Hag chooses to continue with this style of play, Casemiro coming in should go swimmingly. Casemiro can hold down the midfield better than nearly anyone in world football and so if he were to come into that starting 11 for McTominay, United could become very sound defensively. Certainly an interesting avenue for Ten Hag to explore.
So, an important win against old foes for Manchester United sets the tone for their next few games, can they turn this into a positive run? Or will they continue to underperform despite glimpses of hope? And for Liverpool, will they finally get their act together and start playing their usual football- or will they be held back from another race to the title?
