With passivity against the ball, and a poorly structured possession game, Manchester United crash out in the Champions League Round of 16.

Deep defensive line

Some of the aspects to be discussed in this piece have been touched upon previously on here, such as United’s deep defensive line. United also primarily used opponents as the reference point when defending, as they did in the game against Chelsea.

The fact that United’s defensive line dropped deep, and did it early, meant that United had problems with their vertical compactness against the ball at times against Sevilla. United mostly defended in a 4-1-4-1, which could turn into a 6-3-1 when the wingers tracked the opposing full-backs as they moved forward.

United’s central-midfielders in the 4-1-4-1 were Lingard and Fellaini, with Matic behind them. Due to Lingard and Fellaini’s orientations towards Banega and Nzonzi, there were large spaces behind them, which would be less of a problem if the defensive line wasn’t so deep, as previously mentioned. This allows space for any opposition players receiving between lines to turn towards goal with minimal pressure, which presents a dangerous situation, even if United do have players behind the ball still.

Overloading Matic

When spaces such as this appeared in the game against Chelsea, the away team were unable to make use of it, because of the way in which United’s man-marking scheme matched up with Chelsea’s attacking structure, which meant that United’s players, particularly McTominay and Matic, usually had the players they were marking already in their zone of access.

In contrast, Sevilla were able to access the aforementioned space between lines simply by the wide players in their 4-2-3-1 coming inside, with the United full-backs often being unwilling to leave their position in order to follow them.

This meant that Sevilla could create overloads in the space around Matic, with free players able to receive the ball between lines. Furthermore, Lingard and Fellaini lacked intensity when it came to closing down Banega and Nzonzi, meaning that it was relatively easy for Sevilla to retain possession with these players.

Pushing United’s wingers back

Aside from the lack of pressure from Lingard and Fellaini, Banega and Nzonzi could also find space simply by dropping into deeper wide areas. This was possible due to United’s wingers tracking Sevilla’s full-backs deep into United’s own half when out of possession.

Sevilla’s central midfield players could then drop into the resulting space, able to receive the ball with little pressure again, knowing that United’s centre-midfielders would likely be unwilling to move that far out of position to follow them. Alternatively, Lenglet, the Sevilla centre-back, would simply run with the ball into the space created, sometimes able to advance well into United’s half before encountering any significant pressure.

Centre-back – full-back distances against the ball

Another feature of United’s defensive play which can have some adverse effects is the lack of ball-orientation from the centre-backs when the goes into wide areas. Rather than shifting towards the ball when the full-back goes to pressure, the centre-backs, Bailly and Smalling in this game, usually just stay in or close to the central channel.

This obviously creates a large channel between the central defenders and full-back. The player tasked with covering this channel is the ball-near central or defensive midfielder, who should track any runners coming into this space.

Of course, this does mean that if the opponents were to break through on the ball-near side and create a crossing opportunity, both United centre-backs should be able to help defend the box, having stayed in a more central position rather than having been pulled out wide to defend, which should give United a better chance of being able to defend a cross.

However, the fact that the defensive midfielder has to help with tracking runners in wide areas can open up the centre of the pitch, again leaving space for opponents to exploit in front of United’s defence.

In a way this particular defensive mechanism can be seen as a perfect reflection of United/Mourinho’s wider defensive philosophy – preferring to add players to the defensive line if necessary, allowing opponents to come close to the box, happy to defend close to their own goal.

Centre-back – full-back distances in possession

United’s centre-backs acted similarly in possession to how they did out of possession with regards to their centre-backs rarely straying far away from the central channels, even with the ball in wide areas. This aspect, and its knock-on effects, also harmed United’s possession game against Sevilla.

The way that the positioning of the centre-backs has knock-on effects on the team’s structure is similar in some ways to the effects it has against the ball. The fact that the distance between the full-back on the ball and his nearest centre-back is so large means that the full-back for United can find himself isolated when being pressed. His centre-back isn’t offering a supporting angle in order to receive a pass, and if the opponents are pressing, a pass to him could be a dangerous, given the distance and angle that the centre-back is at.

Again, like in the section above where the defensive midfielder has to drop into the back line to provide support, this is also the case at times for United in these situations. For example in the scene below, with Pogba dropping in to support Young. If this doesn’t happen, the full-back is often forced to play a long ball. In the end, United lose the ball anyway.

Having midfielders drop out of the centre of the pitch and out of the opposition’s shape like this, particularly when the conditions which cause it are preventable, poses a problem for the possession team, as having less players inside the oppositions formation usually makes it harder to penetrate into attacking areas, due to a lack of forward passing options.

It should be said at this point that having the centre-backs relatively close together in buildup isn’t inherently a bad thing. Having the centre-backs split wide is not a prerequisite for playing constructive football. If the centre-backs are close together, for example, it can allow a faster passing tempo, given the short distance that the ball needs to travel when they pass to each other, as seen in a team such as Napoli. The problem in United’s case had more to do with the resulting weak connections with the full-backs.

Centre-backs unwilling to bring the ball out

This is another issue which has been present at United for a while now – the fact that the centre-backs will hardly ever carry the ball forward from defence, even if there is space available to do so. Furthermore they will rarely attempt line-breaking passes.

As mentioned in the linked article above, not having centre-backs who are willing to carry the ball forward when appropriate deprives a team of the effects this can have on their opponents by provoking pressure to open spaces higher up the pitch.

Furthermore, the responsibility is then on the midfielders to drop very deep in order to help progress the ball, the effects of which are again discussed above.

Positives: Jesse Lingard

On the other hand, the dropping of midfielders sometimes can have positive effects too. For example, some of United’s better moments came from the intelligent Jesse Lingard. The Englishman would at times drop in and around United’s #6 space to offer connections for the centre-backs behind Sevilla’s first line of pressure. From there he would look to begin combination play with further forward players in order to progress the ball forward.

Other than this, United’s buildup left much to be desired. They often went long, looking for Lukaku, or Fellaini before he came off, which is fine to have as an option, but shouldn’t be relied on.

Targeted crossing

One final third strategy which seemed apparent in the first half was the targeting of crosses or lofted passes towards the back post from the left side, most likely to try and target Sevilla’s left-back Escudero, especially with Fellaini drifting to the back post to try and compete for headers with his height advantage.

In theory this isn’t a bad strategy, especially given that United have a player like Sanchez on the left side who usually has good quality in delivering these types of lofted passes around the box, along with the obvious aerial threat of Fellaini and Lukaku. It might’ve been effective for them had they been able to get into the appropriate areas of the pitch more often in order to use it.

Issues with defensive transition

Finally, United also experienced some issues with their defensive transition which allowed Sevilla good opportunities to launch counter-attacks. Much of this stemmed from Matic being isolated in the #6 space, or having dropped out of the #6 space to support the full-back, giving Sevilla space to counter through the centre, as both Lingard and Fellaini had licence to go ahead of the ball when in possession, and the full-backs usually remained near the touchlines.

Conclusion

Clearly there were plenty of issues with United’s performance against Sevilla, as there are in other United games. The outlining of some of their problems in this article should not be interpreted as a statement that United are a bad team, or that Mourinho is a bad coach. As always there are strengths too, United have some very talented players, and Mourinho has the ability to construct match plans which neutralise or exploit specific opposition players, for example. However, the point for the majority of this article was to explore some of their weaknesses.