Analysing Jose Mourinho's New System and Mauricio Pochettino's Masterclass.
Jose Mourinho Man United best performance came last week against Pochettino's Tottenham. Believe it or not, it was one of the strongest Manchester United performances we have seen in recent times, but they just lagged some luck. There were a few flaws that Pochettino exploited, and it came in as the winning cause for Spurs.
Here was how Manchester United lined up.
This was Manchester United's line up on paper, but this was not how they played. Valencia and Luke Shaw started as wing-backs. Jose Mourinho wanted his wing-backs to close down Tottenham's full-backs. As a result, Mourinho deployed Ander Herrera in the right centre back position alongside Phil Jones and Chris Smalling.
However, it may have been a bad decision to deploy Herrera in the back instead of Matic because Nemanja Matic has a better defensive record than Herrera.
While the wingbacks tried to close down Spurs' full-backs, Fred and Pogba marked Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli respectively while the back three were occupied by Lucas Moura and Harry Kane. Meanwhile Spurs started their same 4-2-3-1 with Dembele and Eric Dier in the central defensive midfield position.
Manchester United started the game with high intensity. They hadn't used this much intensity before now, thus proving why the system was looking wholly changed. Lingard and Romelu Lukaku were in charge of forcing Tottenham to go on one side, which eventually worked out their way.
Manchester United had the front foot on the match. De Gea has his accurate long balls ready for Lukaku and United tried to pull it off in an attack. Manchester United had won the game in the first half meanwhile Tottenham were struggling to pass in between this high-intensity pressing.
This formation removed the right-wing position from Manchester United's attack which was the weak link in their attacking plan. When Valencia took away Rose, a player would make a run behind the Spurs' defenders (Lukaku and Lingard) which becomes more accessible to collect for the player because the fullback is out of position.
Pogba was given freedom in this lineup as every time Manchester United went for an attack. He would make a run forward upfield to take an opportunity and score for the Red Devils.
This formation also told Luke Shaw to express his attacking intent in the match because his responsibilities were not only staying limited to defence this time but to cross it in as well. Shaw was the most important part of United's plan as he drifted so wide, that he gave the width United would want to attack with.
Kane was frustrated so much that he came down and dropped deep to help out the team. United had the match in their hands but they failed to score, with open goal misses from Lukaku. Lingard and Fred missed some chances as well.
However before the first half ended, Pochettino found a weakness in United's formation. They found their target and it was Herrera who had very less defensive stats for a centre-back to offer.
This hole in their defence turned out to be very very costly for the Red Devils. Pochettino used it very well, and his second-half masterclass began just as so.
In the second half, Pochettino put Alli in the centre so his three centrebacks would be occupied and Eriksen could exploit the free space in the wing area.
Following this move, Tottenham earned themselves a corner, the very corner which resulted in Harry Kane goal for the Lilywhites.
They tried the same thing again, Eriksen exploited the free space, resulted in Lucas Moura goal within two minutes after the first goal. Bearing this in mind, United went all attack so Poch asked Moura to stay with the last defender because he could use his pace. The same thing happened and resulted in 3-0 victory.
Manchester United was looking good; their luck was not favoured. In the first half United had nine shots, out of which at least six could have been sure shot goals. Jose Mourinho is brilliant and definitely will not be quiet and at least will try to regain the top four.