Football News: Manchester 'pointless possession' United - The Truth

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A lot has been made of Manchester United's playing style this season, especially since the Christmas period ended. 'Boring', 'Predictable' and 'backwards' are 3 terms which have been used a lot recently to describe United's dreadful form (really?)

Now, I'm here to do something quite radical in this article, I'm going to talk about our possession game in relation to the famous Barcelona side of a few years ago and see where we lie in comparison.

As always, this will be 100% reliant on statistics, which of course don't tell the entire story but they're less biased than the majority of views I read on the rumor pages every day.

Firstly, I just want to make something clear, it is obvious that Manchester United don't possess the quality of that great Barcelona side, however they do hold similarities. Much like ingredients Barcelona mastered a recipe of possession, movement, forward runs and accurate forward passes (not to forget Messi) to create their dynasty, and well United may struggle to get half of those ingredients, but we'll see.

In 2012/13 Barcelona lost in the Final of the Supercopa, won the La Liga championship (by 15 points) and reached the semi-finals of both the Copa Del Rey and the UEFA Champions League - so it was by no means a poor season for them.

Statistically speaking Barcelona scored 115 goals, conceded 40, scored 17 of their goals form set pieces with a total shot accuracy of 55% and 397 chances created, they had an average possession of 63% and an average pass accuracy of 90% of with 59% were forward passes and 41% were backwards passes, they won 55% of their challenges and only averaged 36 defensive actions over the course of the season.

Unsurprisingly Xavi was the pass master, completed 93% of his passes (674), of which a further 62% were forward passes.

So we have a benchmark to compare Manchester United, lets see how they've stacked up so far this season.

Manchester United have scored 44 goals, conceding 26 and scoring 11 of their goals from set pieces, the club have a total shot accuracy of 48% and they've created 254 goal scoring opportunities so far this season. They have an average possession percentage of 56% and an average pass accuracy of 85%, winning 48% of their duels and already average 54 defensive actions for the season.

Michael Carrick is topping the pass percentage charts, having completed 90% of his passes so far this season of which a staggering 73% have been forward passes (590)

So far, this all seems a little bit silly, and perhaps it is all silly and I'm twisting facts to prove a point.

This isn't about Manchester United being Barcelona, it's about 'pointless possession' and how it can really benefit a team, it may not seem that way at the moment but United are certainly on the right path to success, with a strong defense and firing forward line United would be doing extremely well right now.

So, specifically let me talk about possession.

Depending on the team will depend on the style you play, for example Newcastle & Chelsea are both very direct, quick moving end-to-end teams. Play the quickest pass from top to bottom while keeping it on the floor. Arsenal and Manchester City like to build possession from the back and use a quick change in tempo to break down opponents, a terrific strategy.

And then we have Manchester 'pointless possession' United. What we like to do is we like to keep the ball for long period of time, tiring down the opposition and taking away their goal scoring opportunities by not giving them the ball.

The biggest issues arise not from the fact that our defence isn't good enough, or our forwards couldn't hit a barn door with a solar system, our issues come from the fact that because of our lack of urgency and tempo we allow our opposition to keep their shape and essentially stand static.

This then allows the opposition manager to look at the spaces we have in our team and the gaps that can be exploited, a quick change of tactics later and we're 1-0. That appears to be the story of our season. We're happy to keep the ball around our defence and the teams we play are happy for us to have it there.

So how did this strategy work for Barcelona?

Well, that's simple. It worked not just because of the magic of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta. It worked because they played short, interchanging passes at times quickening the tempo and pulling their opposition shape, it's relatively risk free allows you to keep the ball and disrupts the formational flow of the opposition.

Busquets would pick the ball up deep, move it to Xavi who would interchange with Pedro, Messi and Iniesta before giving it back to the defence to start all over again, the next time he'll head out wide giving the ball to Tello, Fabregas, etc. quick interchanges with the overlapping fullbacks and either Messi would turn on the genius or the ball would end up back at the feet of Pique sitting on the half way line.

The main thing here is short interchanging passes with rapid changes in tempo.
In the NFL they have these run plays called mis-direction runs, it involves a series of up to 4 players running across each other and handing the ball off in the appropriate sequence to disrupt the shape and confuse the defence, the same principle applies here.

Manchester United, on paper aren't too dissimilar form Barcelona in the passing department, in fact Carrick is displaying more of an attacking instinct than Xavi, but we all know that isn't strictly true.

If we can use Carrick as the ball carrier, bringing him up into the final 3rd and switching short passes with Rooney, Mata, Herrera, Blind, Di Maria, Januzaj, etc. we'll be able to probe for holes in the opposition defence, if we can't find any we'll go back and start again but it's important we move the ball at tempo, over short distances, quick changes of direction and one touch accurate passing. If we can't find the hole we go back and start again, once again building up with quick tempo changes to pull the defense.

Unfortunately we're not blessed with a player like Messi, so we'd have to rely on the passing ability of Mata and the direct running ability of Di Maria until we're able to find a player who suits this system (A la Muller).

Manchester United aren't quite there though, however if we figure out a way to play with this type of tempo and short 'pointless possession' much like Barcelona did, then our team would like a lot stronger. Although reinforcements are needed for the summer in Defence and Attack, the blame for our lack of entertaining play comes from us keeping our shape, being easy to read and not mixing the pace of play up like Barcelona did for all those years.

Written by Jordan Lombard February 23 2015 01:43:05