The Genius Way Man United Beat Liverpool At Their Own Game
Manchester United got their biggest win of the season, twice coming from behind to beat Liverpool 4-3 in the FA Cup Quarter Final. But rather than this being a "bad day at the office" for Jurgen Klopp, the game was a long-awaited justification for how Erik Ten Hag has built his team. Adam Clery explains why, despite all the chaos, it's the Dutchman who deserves the most credit.
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00:00 (bell dings)
00:02 All right, so we'll start at the beginning.
00:03 This was the Man United side as they lined up.
00:06 And probably the most interesting thing here
00:07 is Aaron Wan-Bissaka at left back.
00:09 Now, as we saw across the course of the game,
00:11 he was there for two reasons.
00:13 First off, teams are just terrified of Mo Salah
00:16 and what he can do on the ball.
00:17 And Wan-Bissaka is a brilliant defensive fullback.
00:21 He wins his challenges, he's got great pace,
00:23 he's perfect to do a man marking job on him,
00:25 and he did reasonably well.
00:27 But more importantly, from an attacking perspective,
00:29 Ten Hag wanted to get at Liverpool
00:31 in this specific area of the pitch here.
00:34 Liverpool had started Joe Gomez at right back,
00:36 and while he was pushing up the flank,
00:38 he was also drifting into the middle,
00:40 leaving a bit of a gap there with Jarel Kwanzaa,
00:43 arguably Liverpool's least experienced central defender,
00:46 having to cover across.
00:47 Now, it's pretty straightforward, that one.
00:49 Obviously, you're hardly gonna target the side
00:51 that Van Dijk and Robertson are on,
00:52 but that is a little gap
00:53 that Man United could get some joy in,
00:55 and so they overloaded that area.
00:57 Fernandes kept drifting out there.
00:59 Wan-Bissaka, they'll just reach him.
01:01 He would push all the way up,
01:02 and they kept finding themselves with a nice 3v2.
01:05 And it was this overload that led to the first goal.
01:07 Man United go back to front really, really quickly.
01:10 Gomez has come in field, so he's out of position,
01:12 so Kwanzaa has to chase Marcus Rastford into that channel.
01:15 And while Liverpool do get men back,
01:17 you can just see from their defensive shape here
01:19 that they're kind of all over the place.
01:21 The two on the left have gone too far back,
01:23 and because Kwanzaa and Gomez are kind of both
01:26 in a bit of a muddle here,
01:27 it allows Garnaccio to sneak in round the back.
01:29 He's played through, and that's how they get the first goal.
01:31 So we might then reasonably assume
01:34 that because Man United got such a big win here
01:36 against such a big team in such a big game,
01:39 that these massive defensive problems they've got
01:42 weren't really a factor.
01:43 They had a good system for stopping that happening, right?
01:46 (laughs)
01:48 Oh, no, no.
01:49 You see, rather than make the game less chaotic,
01:52 what they actually did was they just made it so chaotic,
01:54 they were like the only team in the world
01:57 that could ever hope to thrive, and they did.
02:00 So as we have discussed on the channel
02:01 a million and one times at this point,
02:03 Man United's big problem is that they like to press
02:05 with these five players,
02:07 and they get really aggressive with it,
02:08 and they're good at winning the ball back,
02:10 and that creates them some chances,
02:11 but they also defend really deep with these players,
02:14 and they leave all this space in the middle
02:16 for young Kobe Maneu
02:18 or sometimes Casemiro's creaking knees to try and cover.
02:21 And it is about one billion square yards.
02:24 And just to use that nice little montage
02:26 from last time we talked about Man United,
02:28 when teams break through this first area of the press,
02:30 when they are unsuccessful in regaining the ball
02:33 in this part of the pitch,
02:34 they then just run straight through.
02:37 And you don't need me to tell you this.
02:38 If you're a Man United fan,
02:38 you've seen it a million times.
02:40 This exact scenario just keeps happening,
02:42 and happening, and happening, and happening.
02:43 And indeed, in this very game,
02:45 it kept happening, and happening, and happening.
02:47 Liverpool kept finding themselves in all this space
02:50 between Manchester United's midfield and their defence.
02:53 It's the side's Achilles heel.
02:56 But again, as we said in the last video,
02:57 I'm not some genius who's spotted this
02:59 and Eric Ten Hag hasn't.
03:01 This is how he wants them to play.
03:03 He wants to be aggressive in this area,
03:05 and he doesn't want to get balls in behind the defence.
03:07 So they just leave this gap.
03:09 But what was different about this match
03:11 was that this, as a system, actually kind of worked.
03:16 What is supposed to happen when you're defending this way,
03:18 and what, if you're a Man United fan,
03:20 you hope they will get better and better at
03:22 the more they do it,
03:23 is that you sort of abandon the width
03:25 that you've got as you're running back to your own goal,
03:27 and everybody just kind of congregates in the centre.
03:31 'Cause when teams have got a fast break on you like this,
03:33 they want to be going direct to goal.
03:35 It's not about getting territory or possession,
03:37 it's about getting a chance.
03:39 And obviously the most direct way to do that
03:41 is through the middle.
03:42 So they congest that area as best they can,
03:45 completely abandoning the players they're marking out wide
03:47 to force the ball to go there.
03:49 And around like the half hour mark or something,
03:51 there was a brilliant example of this actually working.
03:54 'Cause Liverpool do get through that press
03:56 and they get the ball to McAllister.
03:57 He's in loads of space in the middle.
03:59 There's only really Scott McTominay
04:00 who's there to deal with it,
04:01 but he can't leave, I think this is Sobhra's lie,
04:04 so he's got to kind of just stay there.
04:06 And Man United's back four is stretched quite wide.
04:08 Dalot is here, he's got somebody to mark,
04:11 and they're all the way across to Wan-Bissaka
04:13 on the other side.
04:14 But as McAllister charges towards goal,
04:16 they all just kind of just disregard
04:18 the man marking element.
04:19 And by the time they get back to their own 18-yard line,
04:22 just look at how much more narrow they are.
04:25 The central options that looked like they were on
04:27 when he picked the ball up have now gone entirely,
04:30 so he's forced to go out wide.
04:32 He could go, I think this is Salah this side,
04:34 he's in miles of space, and Robertson the same on the left.
04:36 But because going out wide,
04:38 when you're a team who aren't naturally gonna look
04:40 to hit a first-time cross
04:41 or have got that kind of target man in the middle,
04:43 that totally slows the play down.
04:46 Robertson gets it, realizes there's no sort of incisive pass
04:48 he can make from that position, and they go back.
04:51 And by that point, Man United have got back down the field
04:53 and they've got numbers.
04:55 In the end, they're forced to go all the way back to Van Dijk
04:57 and Man United have 11 players behind the ball again.
04:59 But this is why in the intro to this video,
05:02 I said that they just went even crazier
05:04 because you play in Liverpool, right?
05:05 And this is a high-risk strategy.
05:07 So the sensible thing to do
05:08 would be to only press with these four, right?
05:11 So you've got a little bit more presence in the middle.
05:13 No, they pressed with six.
05:16 I mean, fair play,
05:18 because Den Hoog must have bars the size of grapefruits
05:21 to try and do this.
05:22 They knew that Liverpool's best chance of getting through
05:24 was through the center,
05:25 so they man-marked every single out ball they had
05:28 through the middle when they had possession at the back.
05:30 They kept trying to force them wide, even in their buildup.
05:33 And you did see that happen a good few times.
05:35 Like here's Liverpool giving away a throw-in
05:37 because there was no pass in the center.
05:39 You can see they're all well-marked and they just panic
05:41 and they go out wide and they lose it.
05:43 But for how good and how effective this was,
05:45 going into the last couple of minutes of this game,
05:47 Man United were still losing
05:49 because Liverpool are a really good team
05:51 and this system is still quite open.
05:54 And this is why I said at the start of the video,
05:55 if you end up in a crazy contest against Manchester United,
05:59 their best bet is to just simply make things more crazy.
06:03 And if there's anything crazier this season,
06:05 than Anthony not only using his right foot,
06:09 but scoring a brilliant goal with it, I don't wanna know.
06:12 And when that whistle blew for 90 minutes,
06:14 that is pretty much where this game ended
06:17 as sort of a sensible tactical joust between two managers.
06:21 Because as soon as injury time started,
06:23 it just went bananas.
06:26 But I think more than anything else in this match,
06:29 this right here is where Eric Ten Hag
06:31 deserves the biggest amount of credit.
06:33 Because how many times have you seen,
06:35 in injury time, two tired teams not really going for it.
06:39 It tends to be a stalemate.
06:40 They just play it out with penalties
06:41 or somebody does one little goal somewhere.
06:44 That Liverpool team has played so much football in 2024.
06:49 They have had so many injuries.
06:50 They are relying on so many young players.
06:53 They had a game on Thursday night.
06:56 Ten Hag looked at that and just thought,
06:57 "Surely they must be more tired than we are."
07:01 And this might honestly be my favorite graph
07:04 we've used all season, right?
07:05 Including the substitutions.
07:07 This is what Man United's average positions
07:10 ended up being in that game.
07:12 That is the most formless, shapeless, chaotic mess
07:17 I have ever seen.
07:18 So Dalot at right back and Rashford on the left,
07:21 they played pretty much the entire game.
07:22 They look fairly normal,
07:23 but everybody else is just everywhere.
07:26 And they come in a big congealed pool in the middle
07:28 because that's where it all averages out.
07:30 Like, Gonacho changed sides, so he's in the center.
07:33 And Anthony changed sides, so he's in the center.
07:35 And Bruno Fernandes was here and there and center back.
07:38 So he comes out in the middle as well.
07:40 And this isn't me just saying,
07:41 "Oh, Liverpool were tired," by the way,
07:42 because there's so much more to it than that.
07:44 Man United, after 120 minutes,
07:46 had players who were absolutely exhausted,
07:49 but Ten Hag moved them around into areas of the pitch
07:52 where his fresh legs would tell
07:54 and his tired legs wouldn't.
07:55 Fernandes going into center back
07:57 is just a great example of this
07:58 because you don't want to lose his ability on the ball.
08:01 But also after that much football,
08:03 you can't be expecting him to press
08:05 or to join in counterattacks.
08:07 So you put him somewhere where the running is less important.
08:09 But also, and I genuinely think this might be
08:12 one of the smartest things he's done all season,
08:13 was Anthony at left back.
08:15 Going into the final stretch of this match,
08:17 Liverpool's right-hand side consisted of Conor Bradley,
08:19 who absolutely loves to bomb forward
08:21 and had the legs to be doing that.
08:23 And then Harvey Elliott and Cody Gakpo,
08:25 sort of interchanging.
08:27 And you've got two players there,
08:28 and Gakpo, who won't work back particularly hard,
08:31 and Elliott, someone who gets drawn into the middle
08:33 and wants to play centrally, so can be out of position.
08:36 And the thing about Anthony, right,
08:37 is that it's very, very easy to look at all the things
08:39 he's bad at, but one thing he doesn't get enough credit for
08:42 is that he's actually excellent defensively.
08:45 Like these are his attacking numbers
08:47 from the last 365 days.
08:48 That is absolutely not what you want
08:50 from an attacker who costs that much money,
08:52 but these are his defensive numbers.
08:54 People forget this, but it was the whole reason
08:56 Ten Hag wanted him, because when he had him at Ajax,
08:59 he was excellent in the press,
09:00 he was really aggressive going forward off the ball,
09:03 but he would also work back really hard
09:06 and was good at winning it.
09:07 Might be a whole other video in this,
09:08 but that is genuinely something Man United
09:10 should consider doing more, in my opinion,
09:12 certainly in certain games.
09:14 Having him there with the license to get forward,
09:16 but knowing you'll work back could actually work.
09:19 But yes, anyway, sorry, just to get back to the point
09:21 I was originally trying to make,
09:22 Ten Hag went after Liverpool's energy levels.
09:25 And the thing about energy levels, my friends,
09:28 is that yes, they can take a toll on your legs,
09:31 but they also take a toll on your brain.
09:35 In extra time, Man United were 3-2 down,
09:38 but then capitalised on two very tired decisions
09:41 Liverpool made to score breakaway goals.
09:44 Darwin Nunes ends up with the ball on the left-hand side
09:47 and facing infield, and that is not where he wants to be at all.
09:52 And what's notable here is that Man United
09:54 have successfully cut off all his infield passing options
09:57 with three substitutes, so three players
10:00 who had the legs and the energy to go and close that off.
10:03 Now, they're quite happy with this situation,
10:04 because if he just turns back around
10:06 and goes to the full-back here,
10:07 they've forced them back, that's what they want to do,
10:08 but he doesn't do that because he makes a very tired decision.
10:12 He just tries to lump it from left to right
10:15 across a congested midfield,
10:16 which any coach will tell you you should never, ever do.
10:20 Man United turn the ball over from there
10:22 and immediately score.
10:23 What's even more telling here is this is an incredibly
10:26 difficult ball for McTominay to control,
10:28 and yet none of the Liverpool midfielders
10:30 close the distance to him in time, because they're tired.
10:33 And then the winning goal,
10:35 and it comes from one of the most tired decisions
10:37 I think I've ever seen on a football pitch.
10:39 Yes, Harvey Elliott has come on as a sub,
10:40 but he's someone else who has played a lot of football
10:44 recently, him and Endo, just neither of them can decide
10:47 whose ball this is, and somehow,
10:49 despite being third favourite to it by a mile,
10:53 Ahmad gets there.
10:54 And the mad thing is, when Garnaccio gets this,
10:56 you can even see the tiredness in him.
10:57 He can't get into a full sprint
11:00 the way you would expect him to,
11:01 and it's a really tired pass that he gives him,
11:03 and the chance nearly goes.
11:05 But that is why tactics and ideas and structures
11:07 and all just this nerd stuff will only get you so far, right?
11:10 Ahmad just takes a brilliant first touch
11:13 to open up the shot,
11:14 and then it is a even better finish
11:16 to find the bottom corner.
11:18 You can't really prepare for that.
11:19 You can't work out a system that's going to make that happen.
11:22 He just does it, because it's just deserved it.
11:25 And that's not only how Man United won it,
11:27 that's why they deserved to win it.
11:30 Like they made the game as open and as chaotic as possible.
11:33 And then Ten Hag had the courage to throw on players
11:37 who would thrive best in that situation.
11:39 And honestly, you just couldn't hope to have a better example
11:42 of why this Man United system works so well,
11:45 and also why it doesn't.
11:46 Like it can absolutely win you a chaotic cup tie
11:50 when both teams are going to do it.
11:51 But when you come up against more organised,
11:54 more structured teams that are probably happy to play
11:55 for a draw, or they're not really going to be too open,
11:58 it can create problems all of its own.
12:00 But Christ, when it works.
12:03 Woo-hoo!
12:04 Anyway, I'm going to go now,
12:05 because not to use a crude metaphor,
12:07 but this level of insight and analysis
12:09 on that game of football feels to me
12:12 like the proverbial hot dog down a hallway.
12:16 Don't really feel I've touched the sides.
12:17 If you have enjoyed it though,
12:18 then I do promise you it is always this bad.
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12:32 New magazine's out, it's brilliant.
12:33 And I do have to say that, but I would anyway, because it is.
12:36 So grab that from all good retailers
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12:38 Get me on social media @adamcleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
12:41 I just joined TikTok.
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12:45 So if you want to come and say hello, that'd be nice too.
12:49 In the meantime though, yeah, that's it.
12:51 Eric Ten Hag's Man United might be the best cup side
12:55 in the world, but also definitely mid-table in most leagues.
12:59 But that's football, baby.