I’ve written before about a cavalry coming over the hills to save Manchester United. Sadly, whatever kind of cavalry there was, was snuffed out in a similar way to a horseback charge in a recent Game of Thrones episode.
And like those torches, this season, which quickly turned into a endless dark abyss, was turned around for a brief moments of hope, before once again, poor planning and poor-to-embarrassing performances led to the season being snuffed out.
Now, let’s move on from the Game of Thrones comparisons and get on with what I’m here to do. Look at what went wrong and then put forward a solution or plan for the coming season. While, you may disagree with a lot of what I’m saying, it’s still probably more thought out than the clubs current plan of stumbling around in the darkness worrying more about how much money you’ve got in your wallet, than the giant stomping its way towards you.
The year that was:
The season was very much like a gluten-free sandwich. An interesting and exciting middle, stuck in between two large pieces of something so bland and uninspiring that you just want it over with. Bar the brief period between mid-December and mid-March, when United offered up entertaining performances and an unbeaten run, with the result in Paris proving to be the undeniable highlight of the season. But apart from that, all we were treated to was slow, pedestrian football, that proved to be toothless and easy to counter. This, combined with lazy performances, player tantrums and shambolic displays will be how this season is remembered.
What this season showed, especially during the tougher times, was that a lot of these players struggle to adapt and look to others to get them out of the hole that they have dug for themselves by rolling over and letting the opposition dominate the game. Simply put, they seem to lack any level of mental strength.
Tactically, the team has played very narrowly in the oppositions half. This is a common issue with inverted wingers and fullbacks not getting forward enough in support. Our play was funnelled through the middle, creating bottle necks where the opposition could easily manage our attacks. Then, when the team did use the wings, it was nearly always down the left side, which would create a significant imbalance in the team. This was no doubt due to Pogba favouring that side, but also because Martial, Rashford and Lingard would invariably drift to that side, leaving the right side ineffective offensively and exposed defensively. Mourinho did try and rectify this, with his interest in Ivan Perisic during the summer of 2018, but was knocked back by the club hierachy. Perisic would have offered a hard working wideman, comfortable on the right which would have brought much needed balance to the team.
Next Season:
Next season, needs to be approached with a set of achievable targets and realise the level where we currently are. We are not going to challenge for the Premier League, we have slipped so far, that now, top 4 is what we are aiming for and quite frankly, what we should be aiming for. This will likely affect the level of players will come to us.
The team needs to get back to a consistent performance level, with the League being the priority. Our squad isn’t head and shoulders above the majority of the other teams in the Europa League like it was when we won it back in 2017, so getting back into the Champions League via the Europa League, isn’t as sure a thing as it was back then.
But the biggest target/goal that the management team need to hit, is to improve the mental strength of the team and stop them downing tools or not even turning up to games. This, above all else, would significantly improve the chances of the team outworking the opposition and maybe just, possibly, get back to winning games.
Tactics:
Last season, I’m pretty sure that we saw United employ most of the commonly used formations. It was the early diamond formation (4-1-2-1-2) formation that got Solskjaer the most success. However, going forward, I don’t think that this is the formation that best suits the team. Because, as previously mentioned, it funnels the team into the middle of the pitch and puts a large amount of emphasis on the fullbacks providing all of the width, which often ends with the front four or five players, at least this season, being easily marked.
Relying on width from your defenders, could work, but it would be better suited by deploying a back three (3-5-2) and relieving some of the defensive responsibility from the full/wing backs and pushing them forward more consistently, so that the opposition defence is stretched more often throughout the game, causing the oppositions midfield to drop deeper to compensate.
But this would rely on two clinical centre forwards being deployed, something that United don’t have in the first team at the moment.
The formation I suspect we will see next year is a 4-3-3, due to both it’s offensive and defensive flexibility and it’s ability to stretch teams, when wingers keep their width and are supported by energetic full backs. But also, it offers enough bodies in midfield to both control the game and get forward in support of the lone centre forward.
Recruitment:
Now, the area that year after year spawns endless twitter posts and articles. The transfer activity of Manchester United.
We’ll start with the departures, as of writing Herrera and Valencia have confirmed they are leaving. It looks as though Juan Mata and Matteo Darmian will leave when there contracts expire in the summer.
As for who should be sold, there could be any number of parameters applied to this squad . But quite simply, we’ve got to the stage where it comes down to whether or not a player is capable of performing at the level required.
By category:
Goalkeepers: No departures.
Defenders: Smalling, Jones, Young and Rojo.
Midfielders: Matic and Lingard.
Attackers: Sanchez, Lukaku and one of Martial or Rashford on loan.
So yeah, a lot of the first team could be gotten rid of and I don’t think that there are many who could complain. There are some that could have ended up on this list, but didn’t get enough game time. Also, all players out on loan have been kept.
While not all of these players could be replaced externally as the cost would be prohibitive, especially as a number of players who could have generated a fee if sold, had their contract not been allowed to run down and leave for nothing, there are still enough players from the u23’s who could move up and take the place of those that aren’t.
Positions:
Centre Back:
Lindelof has established himself as the one centre back who is capable of playing in this team, able to defend and also play, or carry the ball forward. So, one of the first additions must be someone to partner him. With Tuanzebe coming back off a successful season, an experienced addition is needed so that long term Tuanzebe can transition into being a first team player. So long as he continues to develop.
While there are a number of options out there, the player who I would go for is Toby Alderweireld. He was linked with United last year, but went nowhere due to disagreements between Mourinho and Woodward allegedly. At 30 years of age, he would hopefully be able to come and establish a dependable relationship with Lindelof, whilst also bringing some much needed experience in the short term.
Right Back:
Right back has long been an issue for the club, with makeshift solutions deployed from as long ago as Louis Van Gaal’s second season. While Diogo Dalot was bought for the future, he has struggled to feature and is much better going forward than he is defending, opening up once again the need for someone who can come in with some experience and ability, who will take the burden off Dalot so that he can develop over the next season or two.
So once again, I’d go Belgian, this time Thomas Meunier of PSG as a first choice, a versatile right back as capable going forward as he is defending. He’d also bring in title winning experience, something that has largely been lost from this current squad.
Midfielder:
The midfield and the recruitment needed there could get very complicated, depending on whether Paul Pogba stays. I for one, want him to stay and to have a team of players that are closer to his level built around him. Not for him, but around him. So, if we stays I’ll outline one option and if he stays, I’ll outline a second option, but both of these options will feel the effect of not being in the Champions League next year.
Both of these options rely on Fred playing as the most defensively minded of the three midfielders.
Pogba stays. We shouldn’t be buying midielders who compliment him, we should be buying great players who are dangerous and effective in their own right. Which is why I’d go for Ivan Rakitic, with the signing of De Jong and the emergence of Arthur, he may actually be available. He’s a complete midfielder who is comfortable on the ball, can help to dictate tempo and covers a lot of ground. He was on a lot of United wishlist’s when he was at Sevilla, but wisely chose Barcelona and went on to win a host of league titles and cups. If he would step down, and it is a step down, to United is another thing.
If Pogba goes you need to bring in two imposing midfielders who can get up and down the pitch, control the game and score. Easier said than done. So, if he goes, the one plus would that you’d probably get a fair bit of money for Pogba, which should be reinvested into the squad and Pogba’s direct replacement. So, hopefully, we’d have Rakitic as one of the two further forward midfielders, in a role similar to the one he currently occupies at Barcelona and then alongside him, I’d hope on bringing in Thiago Alcantara from Bayern, he’s the one midfielder I’d happily chuck silly amounts of money at in an utterly desperate plea to get him here. He is world class and in his prime, which makes it unlikely, probably the most unlikely of all the options I’ll put forward.
But Thiago would bring something we have needed for years, a midfielder who can dictate the pace of a game and can play the killer pass and open up a deep and well organized defence and again, would bring a winning attitude and experience of playing in high pressure games and being mentally capable of coping with them.
Wingers:
Wingers. Proper Wingers, who can go either side and can cross the ball and score are a dying art. The majority of teams play with inverted wingers, usually quick forwards who weren’t good enough to cut it through the middle. So, all that, plus being happy not to play in the Champions League for a year (hopefully), means we aren’t looking for much at all.
We’ve been linked with Jadon Sancho, but that currently looks like an expensive pipedream with us having no Champions League football to offer.. Alternatively, there is the Bayern Munich pair of Douglas Costa and Kingsley Coman, but with them going through a rebuild as well, it could be hard to pry them away.
So, if I’m going to go for someone for the right wing it would be Kingsley Coman, the big snag is that he’s at Bayern and could be difficult to pry away as he undoubtedly has the potential to become a real world beater. Capable of playing on both wings and beating players at will.
In the likely event of not being to able to get Coman, I’d go for another player who plays his trade in the Bundesliga, Julian Brandt of Bayer Leverkusen.
On the left wing, I’d go for a natural left footer, once again from the Bundesliga, in Bayer Leverkusen’s Leon Bailey. Quick and able to cross, like the hopeful arrival of Coman (or Brandt) on the other side, he’d be able to stretch the defence both in terms of width and pace, freeing up more space centrally for the midfield to work.
The ideal for the left wing would be Ousmane Dembele of Barcelona, but unless they suddenly need to raise a ton of cash to fund the De Jong transfer as well as potentially ones for Greizmann and De Ligt, that transfer would be nigh on impossible.
Centre Forward:
Another player who was linked with United previously, a few years ago during the summer of 2017, when we were reportedly “interested” in three different forwards and ended up signing Romelu Lukaku. But this summer, I’d bring in Andrea Belotti, still of Torino, who are on course to finish around the same place in Serie A as we have in the Premier League. He’s suffered some minor injuries which have limited his game time. But in the last two seasons, playing in a team that isn’t as stacked with talent, Belotti scored 30 in 72, whereas Lukaku scored 28 in 69 (I’ve only counted league and domestic cup competitions to make it as equal as possible).
Belotti may not be in highest level of centre forwards like Lewandowski, Suarez, Aguero or Kane, but he is a forward who is comfortable in the box and can score all kinds of goals. Something we quite honestly, don’t have.
What this would hopefully set up is a team comfortable on the ball and also uses the full width of the pitch to stretch the opposition, allowing for spaces in key areas. Whether the club adequately backs Solskjaer is a completely different matter. They have been known to balk at investing in players that they don’t feel are worth it, even though they have repeatedly shown a significant lack of football.
The time for a cavalry charge has long passed. What we need now is a whole new army.
