August 7 in Manchester at the stadium “Old Trafford” match of the first round of the championship of England: “Man United” took “Brighton”. The guests won with a score of 1:2. The game was divided into two different halves. Why this happened, we will try to explain in this material.
Ten Hag chose the 4-2-3-1 formation he used at Ajax. Plus, this variation was very reminiscent of the variation from the 2018/19 season, when Eric actively used the “false nine”. Today this role was played by Christian Eriksen until the first changes on the field .
Let’s not forget to say about Brighton: Graham Potter’s wards played according to the 3-4-3 scheme. It was the Seagulls that dominated the field in the first half. They qualitatively restrained the draws of Man United (once they even almost caught them on a sawn-off shotgun in the penalty area), depriving the hosts of a good exit from defense to attack.
Brighton succeeded in this due to organized and intense pressing, in which the laterals Leandro Trossar and Pascal Gross occupied very bold positions.
United did a poor job of dealing with Brighton’s attacks. The Seagulls, due to the scheme, managed to create a numerical advantage in the final third, due to which the United defense could not cope with the width of the attacks. In the case of both goals, United lacked a player (or players) to keep the winger on the opposite flank. But these are defensive issues.
Nothing worked on the attack. Eriksen was playing a false nine, but United’s attacking group was actively changing places. Unless the position of Marcus Rashford was fixed.
But lowering Eriksen and Bruno Fernandes into the support zone and rushing into the attack of Scott McTominay. Specifics in the attack was not enough at all. In possession of 63% of the time, Ten Hag’s guys had only five shots on goal, the most dangerous of which was Bruno’s shot from the penalty area.
In the second half, Ten Hag reshuffled. He removed the not very useful Fred from the game by releasing Cristiano Ronaldo . The place of the Brazilian in the support zone was taken by Christian Eriksen, and the Portuguese went on the attack.And the second half turned out fundamentally different. First, “Brighton” got a little hooked. It is impossible to keep such intensity without pauses, and with the score 0:2 in your favor at Old Trafford, it is not really necessary. Secondly, after the transfer of Christian Eriksen to the support zone, control of the ball led to control of the territory. United dominated, created some very big chances and came close to bouncing back.
But what was the pressure? Most primitive. United didn’t show anything of what Ten Hag’s Ajax is remembered for. For the entire time, the “devils” made 24 crosses, 20 of which occurred in the second half of the game. They fed Brighton with crosses (the only goal came from a corner), skillfully using the Ronaldo factor. The Portuguese himself did not mark anything on the field, but his very presence in the penalty area makes the canopies sharp, and the life of the defenders is alarming. United ended the match with Bruno and Eriksen in the support zone (very openly), but no more chances came from crosses, and there was no smell of combinational play even in the opening of the game with a forward more involved in the creation.
The game ended in a minimal defeat for Man United, but we wouldn’t be quick to blame Ten Hag. Firstly, Brighton is a very strong and unpleasant team. Last season, the Seagulls took out the Devils 4-0 at home, beat Tottenham Hotspur on the road, and did not lose in away games with Chelsea and Liverpool. Yes, in the summer, the southerners were left without Yves Bissum (the main defensive midfielder, left for Tottenham) and Mark Cucurella (left and central defender, left for Chelsea), but Bissum is already being replaced by Moises Caicedo , and instead of the Spaniard, the talented Levi has arrived in the center of defense Colville .
Second and foremost, Ten Hag took on a task he had not yet faced. In the first half, we saw that it was difficult for him to build a dominant game in the usual conditions (everyone works without the ball, a smart playmaker in the “false nine” position), and in the second half, we saw the team’s inability to make the game more subtle and combinational. The variant with Ronaldo seemed more attractive, but you need to take into account that the opponent allowed him to dominate, and it didn’t work out. So the adventures of Ten Hag will be even more interesting to watch. There was no easy winning debut.
