Nottingham Forrest Review & Preview of Manchester United
Salutations and welcome to a written version of the All Stat’s Aren’t We podcast, we have been struggling with availability of podders for awhile now as you dear listeners will be aware.
We didn’t want you to miss us reviewing the Forest game and we will of course try to get a pod out to you as soon as we can, all we can do is apologise and assure you that this is genuinely down to availability of podders, enthusiasm to record is an issue but that isn’t the overriding reason for us not recording recently.
So, lets crack on. The game against Forest started predictably for Leeds, we had an early chance fall to Luis Sinisterra who managed to create a moment out of nothing but he was stopped thanks to a low save by Keylor Navas.
We put a lot of pressure on during the opening 10 minutes however the team who broke the deadlock was Forest in the 13th minute when Brennan Johnson converted a well struck volley from around the edge of the area in the second phase of a set piece situation.
After the goal we continued to apply pressure to Forest,with chances falling to Gnonto & Ayling with both being well saved by Navas. Generally we were having the majority of the ball with Forest happy to sit back in a low block and allow us to attack, so yes the game state Klaxxon has been rung.
The biggest chance of the game fell to Luis Sinisterra at around 30 minutes, in the second phase of a set piece situation Luke Ayling played Wilfried Gnonto down the line and he cut the ball back to Sinisterra who couldn’t quite convert and got underneath the ball putting it over the bar from quite close range.
The first half ended with the score at 1–0, and the half time break saw Steve Cooper make some changes to his team. Bringing on Jack Colback & Serge Aurier. Not only were personnel changed but Cooper also changed formation from 4–3–1–2 to a 4–4–2 shape.
This change manifested into Forest being in an even more solid shape, they would crowd our efforts on the left flank, trying to prevent Wilfried Gnonto from having options on the ball and generally limiting what he was able to do which made our first half efforts effective.
Then around 55 minutes into the game Marsch made a change, bringing on Weston McKennie for his debut and removing Marc Roca from the field and also taking off Luis Sinisterra and bringing on Crysencio Summerville.
Taking off Sinisterra for Summerville was okay, very much a like for like sub. Both players who will look to get on the ball and try to progress us up the field. But removing Roca from the field for McKennie was a very damaging substitution.
This substitution prevented us from progressing the ball up the field effectively, Roca is best suited to affect the game in deeper areas and is a very good link between deeper midfield and attacking midfield. Whereas McKennie is not a good ball progressor. This led to us only being able to use our CB’s for progression and a lot of times the wrong choice was made, rather than more incisive progressive balls we would just look for a wider option, primarily on the left of the attack.
Overall the second half was very much forgettable, we weren’t able to convert our possession into any kind of chances, during the first half we accumulated 0.98 xG but in the second half we only accrued 0.14 xG, xG figures taken from Understat and the shot map looks like the below.
This match was another example of many this season where an opposition manager was able to very easily nullify everything we did with quite a simple change. In fact in the second half we only managed one shot from inside the opposition box which was a header from a set piece generating only 0.06xG.
It seems this is the straw that broke the camel’s back as today’s news has shown as Leeds United have now parted company with Jesse Marsch and I for one am delighted. It was long overdue.
Manchester United Preview
We are about to head into a double header week where we face one of our biggest historic rivals in Manchester United. We will face them once at Old Trafford on Wednesday and again on Sunday at Elland Road.
Needless to say there is only so much I can say about how we will approach this game until we know who our new manager will be. But I will begin by previewing what we should expect from Erik Ten Hag’s side.
How do Manchester United play these days?
Firstly when it comes to shape we should see a 4–2–3–1, this is the shape Ten Hag has used in nearly every league game this season, using a 4–1–4–1 shape in one game and a 4–3–3 shape in two others according to FBREF.
Below is the lineup I expect they will use. The below is only my guess based on the availability of their players given Casemiro is suspended and injuries to Erikssen, McTominay & Van De Beek.
Their pressing structure is pretty fluent, they do press high a lot but do settle into a midblock quite easily depending on the situation, Generally is 4–5 men they use in their forward press using the 4 most advanced attackers as well as one of their deeper CM players.
When their press has been broken they do seem to change shape to resemble more a 4–1–4–1 shape with their wingers giving extra help to their fullbacks.
They are very efficient at attacking in transition with two wide players possessing pace in abundance in Rashford & Antony. Rashford tends to start narrower and deeper with Antony providing a wide out ball to help them spread the transitional attack.
But transition game isn’t their only effective approach, Ten Hag’s football is very nuanced with a lot of rotations on display amongst different positions. The ones I noticed a lot was from both fullback areas.
Fullbacks on both sides like to invert to provide additional passing options in deeper buildup, as well as joining one of the central midfielders while the other CM would move further forward, like below.
This CM likes to get involved in wide areas and this is something I noticed a lot of from Fred especially with Casemiro liking to stay further back to protect his back 4 so you end up with a structure similar to below in consolidated attack. But sometimes this was reversed and Fred would protect with Casemiro getting involved with attacks.
Which gives you healthy options in both attack and a good number of bodies staying back in rest defence, then when you need to commit more men forward you can allow your LB to join the attack also still allowing 3 bodies back to defend against transitions.
However this isn’t a permanent fixture as you can also see both fullbacks holding width at other times in the game, linking up with the more advanced wide player allowing the wide player to underlap.
They also like to rotate their attackers into different areas to try to pull the opposition defence out of position to create spaces to exploit. Below is some images from their recent win over Crystal Palace.
How will we approach this match?
As it has already been confirmed that Michael Skubala, Paco Gallardo and Chris Armas will be managing the game on Wednesday, we can most likely expect to see us continue playing football very similarly to the way Marsch left off.
I would expect our lineup to look something like the below.
I would expect us to not press too high and stick to a midblock like we have seen against other “top 6" sides, I would also expect to see McKennie make his starting debut, I would guess alongside both Adams & Roca to give us a good solid platform in midfield.
The only player I’m unsure of here is Harrison, we could see Sinisterra play or him but I’ve gone for Harrison as think they are most likely to rely on seniority to decide this position.
We will look to try to get the ball quickly to Gnonto and wait for him to perform some magic, crowding him with options to pass to and general congest the areas we attack in, as we are used to with Marschball.
How will Manchester United approach this game?
I expect them to approach this game with a lot of confidence, they are club in form and with a lot of individual players in form too. They will look to keep hold of the ball and will be able to play out of our high press with aid from these wide players inverting to help buildup, as well as some attackers dropping deeper when needed.
They will look to pull our defenders out of position and probably exploit our vulnerabilities in fullback areas more than they would against other sides.
Where are Manchester United going to be vulnerable?
I struggle to see many areas that we can exploit and think these two games will be difficult for us to manage. Especially considering we are without a manager for at least the midweek away match, we will probably still be playing a lot of Marschball. So I think our best hope is to try to not press too high, keep things solid if we can and midblock.
If we can try to isolate their fullbacks against one of our attackers, hopefully Gnonto then we may be able to nick a goal, but this is the only thing I can think of that we can do against them.
They generally protect themselves quite well against transitions, especially early in games so if we can not concede we may be able to draw them out as the game wears on and force them to commit more players to the attack, leaving us more room to exploit.
Where will the game be won or lost?
It will be won by Manchester United if they are able to stay patient and not force their attacks, as we will be able to be picked apart. Also a key area is going to be how well each team manage transitional attacks.
If Manchester United don’t properly manage the way we attack in counter attacking moments they will probably concede to us, whereas we will need to be near perfect due to the mismatch in their attacking talent and our defensive weaknesses.
I hope this filled the void created by the lack of pods and hope this didn’t fill you with as much dread as it did for me writing it.
Thanks for reading
Martin Riley
