Why The Gulf Between Man United And Man City Is So Huge
It's not been the start to the season Erik Ten Hag wanted.
After the recent derby between Manchester City and Manchester United 3-0, it only highlighted the gulf between the sides both on and off the pitch.
After the recent derby between Manchester City and Manchester United 3-0, it only highlighted the gulf between the sides both on and off the pitch.
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00:00 Hello guys, Adam here from 442. Now I know what you're thinking, this isn't Adam, the
00:10 Adam that I'm used to. Correct, this is a different Adam. There is now two Adams on
00:13 the team and I need to stop saying Adam. We've got Adam Cleary, who is currently in New York
00:18 and Tokyo having a lovely time away, and me, Adam Monk. I am the new presenter who will
00:23 be working with Adam Cleary. Unfortunately, I'm also a Manchester City fan. I am also
00:27 in a little bit of a makeshift set up today. I'm in my bedroom, but we've got a snazzy
00:32 new studio coming along shortly, so we'll be there. But today, a makeshift one, much
00:36 like Manchester United's back four this weekend. So let's talk about that. So where did it
00:41 all go wrong? Well, let's look at the glaring errors. Now I'm going to show you a picture
00:45 now of me the last time Johnny Evans played in a Manchester derby. Okay, now that tells
00:51 a story in of itself. I was 11 back then and it was in the sixth one that Johnny Evans
00:57 last played in. I was in a Butlin's watching the game with my United fan friends and I
01:01 was in year eight. So the fact that he's now playing against a 22 year old Erling Haaland,
01:06 I feel a bit sorry for him, truth be told. It's not fair. So what else was wrong with
01:10 the lineup? Well, you might have noticed that Scott McTominay played in the 10 position.
01:14 Now it's felt a little bit like Scott McTominay has almost just been shoehorned into any role
01:19 that he can sort of adapt to somewhat throughout his whole Manchester United career. You may
01:23 or may not know that Scott McTominay used to be a striker in the academy, very two-footed,
01:27 very good ball striker, very good finisher. And that's why he's got three goals this
01:31 season. But playing him in a 10 automatically shoehorns Manchester United's best player,
01:35 Bruno Fernandes, out wide. Another problem with United playing the system they did and
01:40 McTominay in that 10 is it disrupted Manchester United's collective press. Now I don't have
01:45 a tactics board with me right now, but I can get an artificial one up. McTominay by nature
01:50 is very haphazardous player. You could see that with Fred. That's why he took a lot of
01:53 stick at times for being leaky at the back because he was always caught out of position,
01:57 maybe played off the adrenaline of a game too much and sort of went off his own accord
02:01 at times chasing the ball like a lap dog. When you mix that pressing from the front
02:05 with Bruno Fernandes, who would also want to do it, and then Rashford, who's utilised
02:09 as the outlet on the counter attack on the left, it's just disjointed and made it so
02:12 easy for Manchester City to pass through all game. So when did this cost United? Well,
02:17 a perfect example would be the second goal. Now I'm going to show you a few pictures here.
02:22 You can see that Edison has the ball and there's a collective press from Manchester United's
02:26 front four, but to no avail because they're not tied to any markers and you've got the
02:29 most technical defensive players in the world on the ball. So it's like a hot knife going
02:33 through butter when they pick out a player in the middle of the pitch who's completely
02:37 unmarked. This then has already created a disconnect between Eriksen and Amrabat and
02:41 the front four in itself. So when City did beat Manchester United's man for man press,
02:45 they had all the time in the world on the ball in the middle of the pitch to beat United's
02:49 midfield press and then pick out Grealish and Bernardo on the left hand side and effectively
02:54 have a 2v1 against Balo every time they wanted. Another problem on top of this was the defence
02:58 of United were pinned back because they couldn't leave Haaland and Alvarez alone. Which they
03:04 did anyway. So let's have a little bit of balance. How good were Manchester City? Well,
03:09 the answer is as good as they usually are, but a few players were particularly impressive
03:13 this game and one of them is Jon Stones. So Jonny Stones, how has he evolved as a footballer?
03:18 Well, playing in midfield is a good starting point and one that I'm sure not a lot of people
03:23 really expected. We knew he was good on the ball, a lot of City fans did, but the fact
03:27 that he's so comfortable in that six role, so press resistant, it's like he's, I don't
03:31 know, it's like he's playing FIFA on semi-pro or something. It is ridiculous. But this game
03:35 in particular, he was actually operating in that sort of, I suppose you could say the
03:38 eight role, but that KDB, Kevin De Bruyne, a sort of half space. We've seen Trent operating
03:44 there, but Jon Stones really was doing that a lot this game. As you can see by the pictures
03:48 provided here, he was marauding with the ball. I think that's probably the right word to
03:52 use. Marauding forward, dragging Man United midfielders out of position, you know, just,
03:56 just wreaking havoc really from top to bottom of the pitch. However, there is one player
04:01 that facilitates Stones in this system to be able to do that role and it is of course
04:06 Kyle Walker. So of course I don't have the tactics board with me right now, but I've
04:09 got an artificial one here, which should suffice. Now you can see Kyle Walker is a default right
04:14 back in the system on paper, but what he does when Stones marauds forward is he sort of
04:19 plays this hybridised right centre back, right back role. And the only reason he can do it
04:23 is because his physical attributes are so good. So if we do lose the ball and there's
04:27 a turnover of possession, he's got enough recovery pace to deal one-on-one with Rashford
04:31 and also to deal with any long balls that may have gone in the channels behind, which
04:34 he did all game. Now, as good as Manchester City are, this is a thing that will have to
04:39 change when Kyle Walker's either his legs go or he does leave the club because you physically
04:43 cannot play this system without him doing that role. It is true that City have very
04:47 quick defenders, particularly with Josco Guardiola recently joining, who's not slow himself,
04:52 but Kyle Walker is, is, is borderline an Olympian, put it that way. He's so quick on the ball
04:57 with his recovery pace that it actually almost allows John Stones to be an extra man, both
05:01 in defence, midfield and sometimes attack. So it's like sometimes it's almost like you're
05:06 playing against 12 men, let alone 11. But listen, it's nice to be able to say that about
05:10 City for once, because we're all used to Man United being the team with 12 men at Old Trafford
05:14 in the past, aren't we? That's called satire. And look, no matter what you think about that
05:18 penalty that was given City, you know, me personally, I think it was contentious. I
05:22 think it, it smacked of inconsistency because you see that incident three or four times
05:26 every Premier League game. And most of the time it'll just get waved away by some fella
05:31 in the VAR just, you know, maybe watching this video or something that, you know, anything
05:36 he could be doing anything, but he's not watching the game. But bottom line, that was Manchester
05:39 City's first penalty at Old Trafford since 1992. So we were due one. Anyway, enough of
05:45 that. We would have won the game anyway. There was one more player who was absolutely imperious
05:49 and has been for three or four years now in Manchester City colours. And that man was
05:54 Rodri. So let's bear in mind, this man is a number six. His first job, first and foremost,
05:58 is to be press resistant and break up play. He does that in abundance. And he's got to
06:02 the point now where he's contributing tenfold consistently at the other end of the pitch.
06:07 The fact that City have lost the two games this season without him paints a picture in
06:10 itself. But you have to ask the question, how is he doing? What he is doing on a football
06:15 pitch? Well, of course, you've got Bernardo Silva and John Stones who are great space
06:18 finders and supplements for Rodri to allow him to push higher up the pitch with little
06:22 risk of there being a possession turnover. But with that said, the volume of what he
06:26 is doing on a football pitch is just preposterous. So let's go through it. Firstly, there was
06:31 a pass to Kyle Walker at nil-nil, looped over the back line, headed back to Foden. That
06:35 was saved by Onana and Haaland should have finished that chance, but Rodri ultimately
06:39 created it. Then he won the penalty. Now, whatever you think about that, you can leave
06:42 a comment down below. But listen, he won it at the end of the day. It was him who drew
06:46 the foul. So that's another attacking contribution right there. And then the ball over to Alvarez
06:50 for the second goal, which was again creating from deep time and space on the ball, having
06:55 time to pick out the pass and executing it to perfection. And then he also created the
06:59 third by marauding forward and clarting. Peter Dror used the word clarting, which I didn't
07:03 think was in his lexicon or was very Shakespearean, but he clarted the ball at Onana, which was
07:08 rebounded to Erling Haaland, who then squared its full Foden. So he also somewhat created
07:13 the third goal as well. So that now leaves Rodri as the player who has created the most
07:17 big chances for Manchester City this season so far now, with 10 games in. And he's done
07:22 that from six. So all I'm saying is that award ceremony that's going on at the moment called
07:27 the Ballon d'Or, you might be talking about the wrong guys to win it. With all that said,
07:31 after a scoreline like that and two performances that were so contrasting from City and United
07:36 in a game like that, it does beg the question, what is the gulf between Manchester City and
07:41 Manchester United? Well, if you look at Manchester City, you've got the CFA, you've got Pep Guardiola,
07:46 you've got the same integration of style throughout the under 12s to the first team. You've got
07:50 players just being replaced in the first team and fitting like a glove seamlessly. They're
07:55 all on the same page. Whereas at Manchester United, they can't really read, to be honest
08:00 with you. Where do you even start with them? Like there's no one answer as to what is the
08:06 biggest problem at Manchester United. People point towards the ownership. People would
08:09 always look at the management because he's the one who gets the players play in a certain
08:12 way. But for me, I'd probably say one of the biggest things looking at the team yesterday
08:16 was the wage structure that's at the club and years of mismanagement really dating back
08:22 to Ed Woodward. Because you look at their inability to shift Edward, let's say, the
08:26 likes of McTominay, Martial, Maguire on big, big wage packets. There and then in a position
08:32 they have the leverage to be able to veto any move away because they want to sit tight
08:36 on the 200 grand a week, which I suppose is fair enough. And another way of looking at
08:40 it is this. You look at the back line from yesterday, you've got Dalot and Lindelof at
08:44 full back who were both signed by Jose Mourinho. You've got Harry Maguire at centre back who
08:48 was signed by Oli Gunnar Solskjaer and then Johnny Evans in there who was effectively
08:51 just a stopgap for the time being, but is 35 years old nonetheless. Bottom line, that
08:57 is not a back four that can really be challenging for trophies. Definitely not trophies, but
09:01 maybe not top four either. I know a lot of United fans myself and saw some on Twitter
09:06 who were looking at that line up before the game and almost felt like they'd been beat
09:09 before a ball had even been kicked. And that's not even just against Manchester City. You
09:12 have the Brighton game as well, who are obviously a very good side, and they felt like they
09:16 were going to get turned over by them too by just looking at the team sheet. And that
09:19 translates onto the pitch as well, ultimately, doesn't it? It feels like the United players
09:23 are going out at the moment knowing that they're going to see another ball and not really know
09:27 what to do with it when they do get the ball. So do you look towards mismanagement from
09:30 the board above and the Glazers and Woodward in the past? Or do you look at the coach who's
09:35 implementing those styles on the pitch? Well, that's for you to answer in the comments.
09:39 Anyway, that is me done for my first video. Make sure you do subscribe. We like to see
09:44 that number rising. Pretty nice first video for me talking about why Manchester City are
09:49 good and Manchester United are bad. Nice and easy for me to do. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed
09:54 the video. As I said, the set up will be a little bit better next time. Well, not next
09:58 time, but in the near future. You know what I mean? When we move into the studio, because
10:01 I am literally just in my bedroom right now. But with that said, hope you enjoyed the video.
10:06 sure you subscribe and I'll see you soon bye bye