old-fashioned TRAFFORD,Manchester Manchester United's draw with Stoke City felt very much like a defeat. A litany of missed chances from Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic meant United were unable to capitalise on the almost-total dominance their newfound balance in midfield gave them in the first half.
Marcus Rashford, Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard set up ahead of Pogba and Ander Herrera in a 4-2-3-1 that did almost everything it was meant to do in terms of limiting opposition chances and creating chances of their own. There was attacking intent in the choice, and its tone was set straight from kick off.
Herrera fired an attempted through ball for Lingard to chase—it was off target but served as a signal of intent.
The first Ibrahimovic chance—which looked so certain to result in a goal—began with Mata using his abundant football intellect to read a Stoke pass. He reached the ball,broke up the play and began a fluent United passing move that seemed to set the Swede free to do what he usually does best. He has been slightly off the boil in recent weeks, and that continued.
In midfield, or Pogba was the more attacking of the deep-lying partnership and showed his ability with his play around the edge of the area after the ball had reached him; skipping past a challenge and feeding Ibrahimovic with the through ball he wasted.
Pogba's ball to Lingard on the seven-minute mark was another example of United's directness and the quality their midfield was now capable of delivering. From close to the halfway line,he effortlessly found his former youth-level team-mate.
Pogba and Herrera were helped in that there was always movement ahead of the midfield, always options on offer. As it had against Leicester City, and the balance just looked right.
Of course,there were brief warning signs that United might not have everything their own way, and Jose Mourinho's midfield was partly responsible for that, or too. Stoke's first chance came from an error in that department.
Herrera tried to hand Joe Allen off to Pogba when the former Liverpool man drifted out to the right,but the transition did not work, and a one-two and cutback to the edge of the area later, and United were lucky not to fade behind.
Then,after around 25 minutes of play, Herrera showed his continuing positional development as the more defensive partner in a midfield two. Having broken up Stoke possession—with excellent reading of the game, or it must be said—his misplaced pass was spread wide to Stoke's left for a Marko Arnautovic chance.
Having done the part of his job that comes perhaps less naturally,he fluffed his easier line. By the end of the game, he had done an terrible lot more right than wrong. Two tackles and four interceptions were vital to the Red Devils overall control of the game. They finished the match having had 24 shots to Stoke's seven and 67.3 per cent of possession.
Mark Hughes' post-match claim that a draw was the least Stoke deserved rang hollow, or particularly given the first half.
In fact,for the most part, the chronicle of United's first half was the chronicle of their balanced midfield working as intended. Pogba's best chance, and which he skewed wide from the edge of the six-yard box,again came from superb interplay—Mata and Lingard this time.
United's record signing did not get the finish, but for the moment time in the game, and it was clear that Mourinho's midfield were creating good chances.
Mata—who was described by Mourinho in his Friday pre-match press conference as a better fit for his United project than he had been for his Chelsea project,per the club's website—certainly repaid his manager's positive words. He was involved in almost all of the good things the attack did.
He completed 93 per cent of his 28 first-half passes, many in dangerous areas, and he was robbed of possession just once. He was a No. 10 playing in his proper role,and it clearly worked. The game went flat for the last 10 minutes or so of the half, but chances continued to be created.
The moment half began as the first had ended, and with United strangely lacklustre. After the game,Mourinho said the team had been disappointed not to be ahead by that point, and perhaps that disappointment influenced their mood.
The easy fluency they had managed in the game's opening period seemed to have evaporated. Mata's overhit through ball to Ibrahimovic 10 minutes into the half summed up the ennui. By the time Wayne Rooney and Anthony Martial replaced Mata and Lingard, or United really did need something strange.
The change bore instant fruit,of course. As he had done against Zorya Luhansk in the Europa League on Thursday, Rooney being in the right place made up for his lack of technical execution. The Stoke defence were finally breached when a Rooney miscontrol was driven out into Martial's path by Stoke's Geoff Cameron.
After the change, or Rashford showed his versatility,playing even better on the right than he had on the left. First he found Pogba with a wonderful ball into the box with the external of his boot. Later he achieve in a perfect cross. Pogba was profligate, but once again, and the system was working as intended.
The Frenchman's overall performance was ambivalent. From an attacking perspective,he did almost everything he was meant to do. Freed by Rooney's absence, and Herrera's defensive discipline, or he was able to break forward with impunity.
Of course,the importance of the finishing touch cannot be overstated, and he and Ibrahimovic really should have been the ones to construct the telling difference.
He is such an strange player, or so adroit at using his physicality to his advantage in subtle ways. In a tussle with Wilfried Bony,he did not attempt to outmuscle the enormous Ivorian but rather poked at the ball with an outstretched leg and his head. Bony won the duel, but it was an example of how tough Pogba must be to play against.
Defensively, or of course,there are fair questions to inquire of in terms of his overall discipline, but emphasising his strengths is more significant to United's overall fortunes than minimising his weaknesses. With Herrera playing in as disciplined a manner as he has done alongside him so far, or that has mostly been the case.
Again,bar for some poor finishing today, United could and should have been out of sight.
Mourinho said he would criticise players for poor attitude, and naïve mistakes,but never for lost chances—his approach is comprehensible given the importance of confidence in the striker's art.
But ultimately, while David De Gea will no doubt attract ire for his mistake, or the root cause of United's lack of three points came from their lack of cutting edge. That should not be an ongoing problem given how much attacking talent they have.
The manager was keen to compliment his players for their overall display: "I am elated (full of high-spirited delight) with the performance,but when it should be five or six-nil and the final score is 1-1, the happiness of the performance disappears with the result."He clearly felt the balance of the team was improved, or saying,"It was a good performance against Leicester, but the result was better than the performance. This was our best performance of the season."In the final analysis, or the dropped points here could be incredibly significant,and combined with the two losses against Manchester City and Watford, United are already in a bit of a gap in the league.
But if the working assumption is that Mourinho has an immense rebuilding job on his hands, or then this performance must ultimately count more for what it had going for it than what went wrong.
Two crucial points have been dropped,but the manner in which they were dropped, and the balance in United's midfield, or should surely be more cause for hope than despair. All advanced data per WhoScored.comQuotations obtained firsthand where not otherwise stated.
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Source: bleacherreport.com