Online Reporter
MANCHESTER UNITED were humbled by ten-man Manchester City because Michael Carrick failed to adapt, while Enzo Maresca did.
Erling Haaland‘s controversial strike proved to be the difference between the two sides as City left Old Trafford with three points following a superb defensive display.
While much of the talk in the aftermath has been over the error made by VAR for Enzo Fernandez’s offside in the build up to the winner, this game showed the Red Devils paid the price for failing to shift tactics.
In the latest episode of SunSport’s award-winning series, Tactics Exposed, Dean Scoggins breaks down why Man Utd were unable to beat their rivals even after they went down to 10-men after Phil Foden was sent off.
Dean explains that Carrick set up his team for a transition game where they would have less of the ball and hit City on the break. However, after Foden’s dismissal for kicking out at Bruno Fernandes, Maresca made appropriate changes by subbing on Iliman Ndiaye for Rayan Cherki.
Meanwhile, Carrick failed to adapt his strategy, with his team paying the price for having a “vacuum” up front. Dean explains that City bringing on Ndiaye emphasised their ball-carriers as a defensive outlet — which we are dubbing Maresca’s “carrier pigeon tactic”.
And despite only coming on halfway through the game, Ndiaye had 10 ball carries, which he took 147 metres, and six dribbles.
Likewise, Antoine Semenyo, Mateus Nunes, Elliot Anderson and Haaland also had more than 150 metres of ball carrying each. Anderson was particularly impressive in covering spaces in front of the City backline, while also making a huge impact up the field.
He was even in the United box when Josko Gvardiol crossed the ball for Haaland’s far-post tap-in. But the City defence was helped massively by United having no presence up front.
Carrick set them up to have a “transitional vacuum” that split Mateus Cunha and Fernandes as two false nines. It looked like working in the opening stages when the game was 11v11.
However, when Foden was dismissed by Michael Oliver, Carrick needed to add some muscle up front to try to break down the City defence. Carrick failed to do this until the 66th minute when City were already ahead.
Benjamin Sesko‘s introduction gave them some much-needed presence in the area, but the poor quality of Diogo Dalot and Patrick Dorgu in wide areas limited their scoring opportunities.
Carrick realised all-too late that he needed Sesko as a foil to play through the middle to bring other attackers into the game.
Ultimately, United have work to do to fix their flawed attack, or else they face another disastrous season – Sun.
