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Exposing Ole’s flawed 4231 system and why it will lead Manchester United to eventual Failure
So let’s start off with the defence. We’ll mainly look at the fullbacs. It is well known Ole has deployed 2 defensive fullbacks in the team, who offer very little going forward and our supposedly solid defensively.
This is a major problem for Manchester United as Rashford and Greenwood are utilised as Inverted wingers, meaning Manchester United are unable to create width and create crossing opportunities. This is also another problem as it shows how far away we are from the top clubs
Top clubs such as Bayern, use gnabry and perisic as wingers who are able to tuck in. Meaning, the likes of kimmich and Alphonso Davies, who are offensively orientated, are able to bomb on forward, stretch the opposition full backs and create crossing opportunities.
This makes Bayern unpredictable and gives them many ways to score lots of goals in an efficient manner. As they can create from the middle and create chances from the sides too.
Manchester United lack this in abundance, because of the fullbacks. Ole’s lack of trust in attacking fullbacks, mean Manchester United can become predictable and are easy to shut out.
Now let’s look at the formation. Ole mainly uses a 4231 with Matic and Pogba deployed as 2 DMs and Bruno as the number 10. However, this choice of formation is becoming, evermore extinct in modern day football. Bayern, Barca, City, even Sevilla utilise 433 and it’s effective.
This is because teams like city in particular have an out and out DM and 2 number 8s. This can easily be manoeuvred at United. Matic can be used as the out and out DM, and Pogba and Bruno can play in their rightful positions as number 8s
This means when needed, pogba and Bruno can be close to Matic and make the team even more compact when defending, and when going forward Man Utd can have pogba and Bruno bombing forward and being involved in attacks. Which will overall, make us better defensively and offensively
As well as that, ole can use wider wingers if Ole was to still keep defensively orientated fullbacks, as the 2 number 8s can be used for underlapping and overlapping, which means their’s still width and opportunities for effective crosses to come in.
This also frees up space for the wingers to eventually get on the end of some of these crosses. These situations, were executed perfectly in the centurion 17/18 by sane and Sterling as the two wider wingers, and KDB and David Silva/B.Silva as the 2 number 8s
Finally, Ole’s worry of the defence being exposed with attacking fullbacks can be fixed with the simple implementation of a continuous high press. That is utilised by Hansi flick’s Bayern and Klopp’s Liverpool.
Davies & Kimmich and Trent & Robertson as duos respectively bomb on forward as attacking fullbacks but because of both teams’ high press. Bayern and Liverpool win the ball back in high area and, in hand, can create even easier goalscoring opportunities.
If the high press is beaten u get a DM to sit in as a centre back and one of the centre backs to cover one of the fullback’s position, to remain defensively stable.
Ole lacks all of these components because of his use of the very pragmatic 4231. These deficiencies will lead Man Utd to eventual pain and failure
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