Manchester United - Rodgers gives too much respect
September the 14th, Leicester City travelled to Manchester United to play their fourth game of the season. A lot of Leicester fans were excited, United are on the slide, they aren't the team that won the treble in 1999. Despite spending £130 million on two defenders, their defense is still suspect, Paul Pogba obviously wants to leave and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has had legitimate questions asked about his qualities as a top line manager, despite success in his native Norway as a manager. As the international break finished City found themselves in a favorable position, in the last Premier League game they had played well, dispatching Bournemouth easily with Jamie Vardy looking back to his predatory best. Youri Tielemans had found his step again and then Manchester United had some key injuries, Paul Pogba and Luke Shaw being chief amongst them.
Brendan Rodgers went cautious though, playing two holding midfielders in the shape of Wilfred Ndidi and Hamza Choudhury. Harvey Barnes and Marc Albrighton dropped out, Demari Gray was brought into the side and this pushed James Maddison out to the left wing. The two holding midfielders also pushes Tielemans forward in to a more advanced position, which he doesn't thrive in. The best we've seen of Tielemans has been sat deeper alongside a Ndidi or Choudhury. It also has one massive issue which fundamentally kills the potential threat of Jamie Vardy. A slow build up has been proven time after time to kill Vardy's natural strengths. His pace and his work rate. Without Maddison behind him and pulling the strings Vardy is isolated. An isolated Vardy is an ineffective Vardy.
Of course this was the first time City played Manchester United after the Maguire saga was concluded, the lack of pace that United had at the back was something a lot of City fans were relishing, Vardy running round Maguire was often talked about. But Rodgers tactics hamstrung City, Demari Gray on the wing did NOTHING in one of the worst performances you could imagine. It was shameful watching his lack of effort, and after 20 minutes I found myself thinking is he really out there?
United won a penalty, Soyuncu won the ball in the area but Rashford's reaction was always going to get the ref's attention. The ensuing penalty saw Rashford send Kasper the wrong way and City found themselves down 1-0. At this point, I thought well maybe Rodgers will give it till half time to change something but nope the team came out looking exactly the same as it had in the first half. In the 57th minute, Choudhury was removed and Ayoze Perez replaced him. He put a shift in but as with his previous performances at City, something isn't quite clicking with him. It took till the 68th minute for the woeful Demari Gray to be removed. We can only hope this truly is his last performance in a Leicester City shirt, Ghezzal rightly got slated last season for awful performances but that equaled many of Gehzzal's performances.
Neither team really threatened each others goal, Schmeichel and De Gea (for United) had only the odd shot to save but it was a chore watching City play, it was a performance like the Puel era, and really Rodgers early games offer so much in terms of attacking football that this game really made me question if he's not trying to be a little too clever. This isn't the first time he's done this, against Wolves, Chelsea and now Manchester United he has employed this strange negative system. Last season we had to endure the poor midfield partnership of Mendy and Ndidi under Puel. This season under a very good manager, I hoped for more but then Rodgers is employing a similar system with the team looking unbalanced and turgid.
I am worried, Rodgers got the team flying last season playing attractive, quick football but what we got on saturday seemed to be him being too clever. There was no need to employ that system against United on saturday. Barnes has made a difference every time he's been introduced this season, Albrighton did nothing wrong against Bournemouth but finds himself on the bench for United. This isn't a vintage United side and at the very least because of Rodgers tactics, he tried to be too clever and ruined key components of the team. Namely Vardy's pace, Maddison's inventiveness, and the natural width of Albrighton or Barnes.
In all reality, if the talk of a top six is to become reality points need to be taken away from teams like Manchester United and Chelsea. The first half against Chelsea was poor but the second half was great, City should have won that match, but even after that match they came away with an away point. Rodgers changes made a difference against Chelsea but against United his tactics fell short of the expected result. There will be bad days and hopefully he will learn from this, I guess saturday will show a lot against Spurs.
Brendan Rodgers went cautious though, playing two holding midfielders in the shape of Wilfred Ndidi and Hamza Choudhury. Harvey Barnes and Marc Albrighton dropped out, Demari Gray was brought into the side and this pushed James Maddison out to the left wing. The two holding midfielders also pushes Tielemans forward in to a more advanced position, which he doesn't thrive in. The best we've seen of Tielemans has been sat deeper alongside a Ndidi or Choudhury. It also has one massive issue which fundamentally kills the potential threat of Jamie Vardy. A slow build up has been proven time after time to kill Vardy's natural strengths. His pace and his work rate. Without Maddison behind him and pulling the strings Vardy is isolated. An isolated Vardy is an ineffective Vardy.
Of course this was the first time City played Manchester United after the Maguire saga was concluded, the lack of pace that United had at the back was something a lot of City fans were relishing, Vardy running round Maguire was often talked about. But Rodgers tactics hamstrung City, Demari Gray on the wing did NOTHING in one of the worst performances you could imagine. It was shameful watching his lack of effort, and after 20 minutes I found myself thinking is he really out there?
United won a penalty, Soyuncu won the ball in the area but Rashford's reaction was always going to get the ref's attention. The ensuing penalty saw Rashford send Kasper the wrong way and City found themselves down 1-0. At this point, I thought well maybe Rodgers will give it till half time to change something but nope the team came out looking exactly the same as it had in the first half. In the 57th minute, Choudhury was removed and Ayoze Perez replaced him. He put a shift in but as with his previous performances at City, something isn't quite clicking with him. It took till the 68th minute for the woeful Demari Gray to be removed. We can only hope this truly is his last performance in a Leicester City shirt, Ghezzal rightly got slated last season for awful performances but that equaled many of Gehzzal's performances.
Neither team really threatened each others goal, Schmeichel and De Gea (for United) had only the odd shot to save but it was a chore watching City play, it was a performance like the Puel era, and really Rodgers early games offer so much in terms of attacking football that this game really made me question if he's not trying to be a little too clever. This isn't the first time he's done this, against Wolves, Chelsea and now Manchester United he has employed this strange negative system. Last season we had to endure the poor midfield partnership of Mendy and Ndidi under Puel. This season under a very good manager, I hoped for more but then Rodgers is employing a similar system with the team looking unbalanced and turgid.
I am worried, Rodgers got the team flying last season playing attractive, quick football but what we got on saturday seemed to be him being too clever. There was no need to employ that system against United on saturday. Barnes has made a difference every time he's been introduced this season, Albrighton did nothing wrong against Bournemouth but finds himself on the bench for United. This isn't a vintage United side and at the very least because of Rodgers tactics, he tried to be too clever and ruined key components of the team. Namely Vardy's pace, Maddison's inventiveness, and the natural width of Albrighton or Barnes.
In all reality, if the talk of a top six is to become reality points need to be taken away from teams like Manchester United and Chelsea. The first half against Chelsea was poor but the second half was great, City should have won that match, but even after that match they came away with an away point. Rodgers changes made a difference against Chelsea but against United his tactics fell short of the expected result. There will be bad days and hopefully he will learn from this, I guess saturday will show a lot against Spurs.
Comments
Post a Comment