Manchester United 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur: United find quality on the right too late

In a fixture that’s never really short of passion, Tottenham Hotspur travelled to Old Trafford to take on Manchester United. Neither side has lit up the league with their performances this season, with the winner of this match finishing the gameweek in lowly 6th place. This was probably why the win was so important to both managers, as the sides went all out to grab the crucial 3 points.

Line Ups

Manchester United: De Gea; Smalling (Kagawa, 61); Vidic; Evans; Evra; Carrick (Hernandez, 61); Cleverley (Young, 84); Valencia; Rooney; Januzaj; Welbeck

Tottenham: Lloris; Walker; Dawson; Chiriches; Rose; Lennon; Capoue (Bentaleb, 64); Dembele; Eriksen; Adebayor (Chadli, 70); Soldado (Kane, 75).

United play down the right

Tottenham lined up with 2 forwards in a 4-4-2 shape, as opposed to the 4-2-3-1 that United started with. Eriksen was on the left side of the midfield while defending just ahead of Danny Rose. This presented a fine avenue for Manchester United to attack.

Eriksen isn’t a player who is renowned for his defensive work or defensive abilities. On top of that, he had a sort of a free role going forward, which meant that he was always in a race to get back to his position. This effectively created a 2 vs 1 situation on the right wing and United had to exploit it.

Valencia started there and Smalling was also bombing forward to support him. The idea was to get Rose isolated and then exploit the inside channel. In the first couple of minutes itself, United were able to send in 2 through balls behind Chiriches to Welbeck. He almost made one count as Lloris was put in a bit of trouble while trying to clear the ball.

As can be seen above the ball is played into the channel between the full back and the centre back, with Danny Welback looking to run onto it. There were a number of such through balls over the course of the match.

However, the tactic did not really yield dividends for Manchester United for 2 reasons. Firstly, and more importantly, Valencia had quite a poor game. The winger was able to go on the outside and create the space, but unable to deliver an effective cross. The height on his crosses was improper and as a result he only made 1 accurate cross out of 13. United as a whole managed only 9 out of an astonishing 47.

The second reason why they failed to really exploit the wide right was Eriksen’s defensive vigour. The young playmaker did put in a mighty effort to stop the United play on the right hand side and provide Rose some form of protection. It was good work from him, but not necessarily very effective.

There were a number of occasions when United still managed to get balls into the box, despite his presence. He either wasn’t robust enough in the tackle, or had his angles wrong while defending and attempting to block the cross.

As you can see above, Eriksen (circled) has taken up a position that doesn’t really benefit his side defensively. The ball is eventually played to the man in the box, but Eriksen doesn’t stop it. He also isn’t in a position to cover the pass to the advancing full back. His position is one that can’t really block any cross/pass from Valencia.

As mentioned above though, Valencia and United couldn’t really capitalise on their advantage here due to the inefficiency in Valencia’s play. However, this changed in the second half after Moyes changed his side and moved a few of his players around a bit. Kagawa was brought on and placed on the left. Rooney shifted into a central midfield role, Hernandez led the line, Welbeck played behind him and Januzaj was shifted to the right.

As soon as Januzaj got to this position, Rose began having a torrid time. The youngster who has been exceptional for the Red Devils this season made a tremendous impact on that side. He completed 2 successful dribbles here, and even managed a few crosses.

The assist for Danny Welbeck’s goal also came from the right wing, as Januzaj played a quality through ball in the gap and behind Chiriches to set up the chance. United’s second half dominance can be attributed to Januzaj and his performance on right keeping Spurs very occupied in defence.