The midweek finally saw Manchester United finally break their run of draws. A relief though it might be for the club and its fans, the performance hardly showed any improvement.
Louis van Gaal’s side continued to look slow, lacklustre and desperately wanting for ideas. For a team that played with attacking verve and at times reckless abandon in search for goals, the pedestrian show hardly inspires.
What van Gaal has done is flip the team over on its head and put more stress on not losing the game. Defensive stability and organisation.
And that part of his job has been rewarded with clean sheets and opposition teams struggling to break them down. But the flip side of it is the rather toothless attack.
A stickler for discipline, his obsession with positional play has curtailed the creativity of his main attacking outlets as the players stick to their positions and even when switching the ball from one flank to another, it comes across slow and laboured, hardly causing the opposition any problems covering.
The lack of pace is another key problem. So much so that even when they make the run in behind the defence, it still comes across as laboured.
With the exception of Antony Martial and Jesse Lingard, the frontline severely lacks pace and the former, who is so much more effective in the centre, is often stuck on the wings to accommodate Wayne Rooney.
Then there is also the use of inverted wingers which has left the team lacking width as both the wide players come inside looking to use their stronger foot. While this frees up the full back to bomb on, even here the problem lies with Luke Shaw’s injury as none of the other, with the exception of Ashley Young to a degree, are particularly strong going forward. The goal in the Champions League in the midweek came after Lingard, a right footer, found Rooney with his cross after being moved to the right wing.
Van Gaal has set up his team not to lose given the slow, measured pace of their game and the positional rigidity means that counter attacking this United side is out of the question as they have four or five players behind the ball at all times. While not conceding is a strong point, perhaps a little more creative freedom and expression would be what the doctor ordered.
