Erik ten Hag is a clever, clever football manager. He will be well aware of the glaring problem that has lost many Manchester United fans a lot of sleep over the past two years.
It’s been one of the biggest talking points of the club in recent memory, the role of the central-defensive midfielder – the position that fans feel needs an upgrade or at least reinforcements.
For the beginning of last season before it all collapsed, it was still talk of the town. United had signed Raphael Varane, Jadon Sancho and even Cristiano Ronaldo, but still no holding midfielder.
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During the COVID-inflicted days of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s reign, Manchester United thrived as agents of chaos rolling with the punches, and it was seen as the position that needed filling to take United to the next level: A defensive midfielder who could break attacks up and transition the ball from defence to attack in a smooth manner.
‘McFred’, the midfield combination of Scott McTominay and Fred, born out of the 6-1 drubbing vs Tottenham Hotspur at the beginning of the 2020-21 season, forced Solskjær to realise there was nowhere near enough protection in the Pogba-Matic combo.
It is a double act that has gone from being highly lambasted to an acceptance that it isn’t the worst, but United could and also should be aiming for much better.
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Fred, who at points drew the ire of most Manchester United supporters as the root cause of all the club’s problems, showed his capabilities magnificently last season.
In something of a breakout season for the Brazilian midfielder, his flair matched with turbulent energy shone as one of the very very few silver linings of the Ralf Rangnick era playing as an advanced number eight.
With all of Fred’s improvements though, last season made a case for him being in midfield as a player who could perform box to box duties and not the midfield destroyer everyone feels United needs.
McTominay, on the other hand, is seen as the calmer of the two but negatively the less forward thinking and safer when it comes to ball progression from deep. Though the Scotsman is privy to get stuck in, similarly to his Brazilian counterpart he’s also shown glimpses that maybe being a box to box midfielder might suit him better.
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In essence, United have two players who can sort of do the things necessary to be a defensive midfielder but could still iron out some edges to be the finished article.
With Nemanja Matic hanging up his Carrington boots to re-join old manager Jose Mourinho to conquer Rome, and the Paul Pogba saga finally over, it should mean United are searching high, low and in every corner for a defensive midfielder, right?
Wrong. It does not look that way at all, United have spent the summer trying to obtain a very specific batch of players. Namely ones that have been previously linked with or Dutch football Erik ten Hag and will understand the philosophy the new Manchester boss is trying to promulgate.
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From this it is not unreasonable to assume ten Hag’s solution to solving the midfield problem is to play with no central defensive midfielder.
Manchester United have so far this summer gone after Lisandro Martinez, Christian Eriksen and Frenkie de Jong.
Players extremely comfortable in possession, ones ten Hag can trust to be comfortable in not losing the ball or knowing how to win it back. Ten Hag’s answer to not having the ideal defensive midfielder isn’t buying a couple of players that might work in the number six position, but to take control of matches, alleviating the need for the ‘Casemiro’ type player.
Pep Guardiola, who constantly speaks about the importance of retraining possession of the ball, is often fascinating to listen to. Last year in a press conference Guardiola said “We don’t really have any players who are defensively so good. Maybe Joao [Cancelo]? But we have the ball.”
This is one of many quotes emphasising Guardiola’s obsession with controlling football matches by mainly keeping the ball. After drubbing United 2-0 last season, he compared City’s remarkable ability to rarely relinquish the ball to keeping it in the fridge – the slow, stifling chokehold that City hypnotise opposition into.
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Now this is not to say that Ten Hag will play exactly like Guardiola even if the styles are similar; what is more likely is Ten Hag will look to assert more possession of the ball, thus minimising the need for a player to sit in front of the defence as United will look to face less attacks.
Minimise attacks and increase control in possession and dictate the tempo. How would Erik ten Hag achieve this? Maybe by signing a player like De Jong to add calmness and assurity when receiving from defence, threading passes through to the attack.
On the basis of the brief Ten Hag ball that has been seen in the two pre-season games, United played Liverpool and Melbourne Victory FC. Saliently, United looked to press out of possession and be patient in possession, building attacks in a more composed manner.
Once again taking a gander at Ten Hag’s signings, they are all players who know how to progress the ball. United, since Bruno Fernandes arrived, have heavily relied on the Portuguese international to magically pick the lock at times on his own back.
Put the right players in place such as Martinez, Eriksen, and De Jong who can help build a team correctly construct attacks, and it will stop them from breaking down before they begin or at least stop them from breaking down in their own half.
The Athletic’s playstyle wheel is a graphic that goes some way in explaining how a team plays. Manchester United’s for 2021-22 clearly shows how poor the Red Devils were in terms of successfully progressing the ball, which means successfully moving the ball to create goal-scoring opportunities.
Ten Hag has set his sights clearly on altering that as a priority. Manchester City and Liverpool, the two best teams in England and arguably the two best teams in Europe, had the highest average possession in the league last season clocking in at 68.5% (Man City) and 63.3% (Liverpool) interestingly they both made some of the least amount of tackles in the league too.
City with the least p90 (13.4) and Liverpool the 4th least (9.63).
What does this show? That both teams perform less defensive actions/tackles because they aim to control games and normally succeed.
Erik ten Hag’s Ajax team of 2021-22 had an average possession of 65.6%, 2020-21 62.5, 2019-20 64.5. Manchester United have been a chaotic team for quite some time now, rather than United’s new boss inserting a fresh player to combat the chaos, he wants to solve the issue by ripping the root out of the tree, getting rid of the chaos completely.
Featured Image Credit: AlamyTopics: Manchester United, Erik Ten Hag, Frenkie De Jong, Christian Eriksen, Lisandro Martinez, Fred, Scott Mctominay, Paul Pogba, Nemanja Matic, Football