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— THREAD — United vs Burnley: Analysis
Paul Pogba’s second-half goal at Burnley yesterday earned Manchester United the three points by which they now lead the Premier League, before the game against Liverpool who are 3 points behind them with the same amount of games
It has been a quite complicated game for United, only getting 1.2 xG throughout the game while Burnley had 0.8 xG according to Fbref. The Red Devils didn’t create much in the first 30 minutes and could’ve been 1-0 down if Burnley showed a bit more will in the final third
United started in their usual 4-2-3-1 formation that quickly moved into their usual 3-2-5/3-1-6 organization when they had the ball. Matic either dropped on the left or in the middle of the back 3 and Pogba sometimes dropped on the right of the back 3, as seen below
As you have seen above, Pogba’s positioning on the right of the back 3 gave him an immediate access to the right half-space and especially to Bruno Fernandes higher up the pitch. With Rashford taking position wide right, Bruno enough space to ask for the ball in the half-space
On the left, Martial was able to stay inside as well thanks to Shaw’s wide positioning, which facilitated the access to Martial from Matic when the latter was receiving on the left of the back 3
Let me expand on both points by taking Pogba’s example. Burnley were defending in a 4-4-2, which means that if you move the ball quickly enough, you can have an immediate access to your teammate in the same halfspace as you because the opponent couldn’t restrict space in time
As I’ve said previously, United lacked control in the first 25 minutes because they couldn’t sustain pressure in Burnley’s half. Their best chances came from a recovery in the opponent’s half and a Burnley player could’ve been sent off if Shaw didn’t make a foul on the counter
United’s lack of control came from two main points that I shall in the few tweets below. Firstly, United lacked movements to make the opponent come deeper. AWB should have asked for the ball into space but stood there instead. In the second still, nobody stretches vertically
The second reason was the lack of rotations when United had the ball in their opponent’s half and for that I decided to show you City’s positional play in their 5-0 win against Burnley this season. Below you can see KDB taking up Walker’s position to fill the vacated space
A rare occurrence of both rotations and movements into depth when United are already in the opponent’s was Martial’s run in the vacated space, which allowed Shaw to drive into space inside. United were able to keep the ball for longer than usual in the first half
However, it changed in the second half and United players were finally performing rotations but were also asking for the ball beyond Burnley’s last line
By fielding 5 attack-minded players, United matched Burnley’s 4 defenders on the last line, as seen below
The rotations I’m talking about helped United players finally finding crossing situations from which they were dangerous as their 5 attack-minded players were attacking the box. You can see Bruno’s cross being directed into the box where there were 4 United players
United performed a lot of crosses from the left half-space yesterday and they have and they have generally made more crosses lately (15 crosses per game, 21 last night and 19 in average over the last 3 PL games where they used this same organization)
Finally, let’s talk about the rotations United performed, especially on the right side, from where the goal came. AWB finally made a run into depth, which helped Bruno came short, freeing up space for Martial into the box. Finally, United sustained pressure and were dangerous
This is something United should look to do more often in this setup as they could find cutback from a Rashford or an AWB wide run. This would be especially deadly as there are more players into the box in that setup, as I said earlier.
Why do I say that? Let’s take the goal United scored. It came from a Rashford cross. You can see 3 players into the box and close to the goal when the cross happened. Their positioning gave Pogba the time to take a shot because Burnley’s defenders were attracted by their forwards
In the first 35 minutes of the second half, United were pretty convincing but they fell off in the last 10, which showed again their inconsistency already highlighted by the first half. They deserved to win but it could’ve been harder if Burnley were better in the final third
