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