Man City 0-1 Man Utd: Paul Scholes – he scores goals
They say that football is great because it is so unpredictable, but there’s little in football more predictable than a stoppage time Manchester United winner in a title run-in. It wouldn’t be a Premiership season without one.
United were tactically superior, and they also went onto win the game. It’s tricky to link the two definitively because of the frantic nature of the final ten minutes, when the game was stretched and either side could have scored, but on the balance of play United were probably the better side and created more genuine chances throughout.
City continued as a rough 4-4-2 – Carlos Tevez playing off Emmanuel Adebayor, with Craig Bellamy on the left and Adam Johnson on the right, both looking to cut inside onto their stronger foot.
United’s line-up was also largely as expected, 4-5-1 / 4-3-3 rather than 4-4-2, with Wayne Rooney alone upfront, Antonio Valencia hugging the right touchline with Ryan Giggs drifting in from the left. Paul Scholes played deeper than his two central midfield colleagues, meaning it was a 4-1-4-1 when United didn’t have the ball, and something approaching a 4-1-2-3 when they did.
The opening to the game felt similar to the Tottenham v Arsenal game in midweek. A local derby, a 4th place challenger at home to a title challenger, the home side playing 4-4-2 and the away side playing 4-3-3, the away side having more possession but struggling to create chances.
There were basically two key features of this match. Firstly, Scholes being the free man in the centre of the pitch. Secondly, City’s ‘inverted’ wingers struggled to get balls into the box.
Let’s start with Paul Scholes. Although he made his name as an attacking midfielder, and although his tackling is sometimes atrocious, Sir Alex Ferguson has favoured playing Scholes in a deep-lying midfield position this season, where he has time on the ball and can create from deep. Scholes is one of the few players around at the moment who has both the ability to play excellent long-range passes, and the discipline and patience to knock the ball short when required, and as such he is perfect for this role.
The important thing to note is that Scholes plays this role in a 4-1-4-1, rather than in a 4-2-3-1. By fielding two central midfielders ahead of him (today, it was Darron Gibson and Darren Fletcher), those two effectively occupy the opposition’s central midfield pairing, and allow Scholes to be the free man. Had Fletcher played deeper, in a 4-2-3-1, then it would have allowed Gareth Barry to press higher up the pitch, and Scholes would have found himself closed down much quicker.
Roberto Mancini surprisingly didn’t instruct Carlos Tevez to mark Scholes when City didn’t have the ball. The value of doing this when playing 4-4-2 against United was shown back in January by Birmingham City, when Cameron Jerome and Christian Benitez took it in turns to occupy Scholes when United had the ball, denying him space and making it difficult for United to get the ball to him.
Playing Tevez there would have made it tougher for Scholes both offensively and defensively. Scholes clearly struggled for pace when up against Cesc Fabregas at the Emirates a couple of months ago in the deep position, and that forced Ferguson to switch his midfield around. But Tevez continued to float in front of the United defence, and Scholes dominated the game to the extent that Ferguson named him as his man of the match.
It would be tricky to attribute Scholes’ last-gasp winner to this (since City had changed to a system featuring three central midfielders, and tactics had pretty much gone out of the window by the 93rd minute) but the fact that Scholes headed home – unmarked – was a fitting end to the game when approaching it from a tactical point of view.
And you might be surprised to know that Scholes won 7 of his 9 tackles in the game, and didn’t give away a single free-kick.
City’s second problem was with their wingers. The concept of inverted wingers has been arguably the season’s defining feature tactically (see Jonathan Wilson about it here, and a WSC piece about it here) with sides including Fulham, Aston Villa, and Bayern Munich all enjoying various levels of success by playing wide midfielders on the ‘opposite’ side to which their strongest foot would generally dictate.
This game, however, showed how the tactic can fail, as City struggled to get any kind of crosses into the box. Craig Bellamy was the main culprit, constantly beating Gary Neville for pace before failing with his final ball.
The Chalkboard sums Bellamy’s failings up better than words can – and it was no surprise that he was jeered by some City fans in the second half.
One has to consider factors apart from the fact he was playing on the wrong side, however. Antonio Valencia did an excellent job in tracking back and getting in front of Gary Neville, meaning it was hard to cut back onto his right foot, as Valencia was in attendance. The fact United had a spare player in midfield also enabled them to get a man into that zone to assist Neville and make it difficult for Bellamy to come inside – and credit too should go to Neville himself, for showing the Welshman down the line. Finally, City struggled to get their full-backs forward on the overlap, as both were faced by United wingers high up the pitch.
But one of the main benefits of playing wingers on the opposite side is that they have the ability to switch, and yet Mancini never bothered to attempt this, which surely played into United’s hands.
It could also be said that City were guilty of looking to their widemen too often – Emmanuel Adebayor caused both Nemanja Vidic and Jonny Evans problems when he had his back to goal and held the ball up, and a better tactic might have been for City to hit Adebayor with long passes, and get Bellamy, Tevez and Johnson supporting him.
As such, a more clearly-defined 4-2-3-1 system surely would have been better for City. It would have (a) got Tevez in Scholes’ face and made life more difficult for him, (b) pushed Bellamy higher up the pitch, where he would be using his pace to get in behind Neville for through balls, rather than running at Neville and looking to cross, and (c) would have made Adebayor more of a focal point for attacks.
An overwhelming tactical victory for Ferguson, even if it was a very tight victory in terms of goals.
Man City 0-1 Man Utd: Paul Scholes – he scores goals
Interesting, Actually I feel Man City was somehow playing a lose 4-2-3-1, with Tevez behind of Adebayor and two wings pushing up high – at least when they had the ball.
Yeah, that tended to be the way because the natural tendencies of the players involved – Tevez dropping off Adebayor, for example. But I thought they would have been better off being a more ‘rigid’ (or “clearly-defined”) 4-2-3-1 even when they didn’t have the ball, particularly with the Tevez issue. Instead they generally defended with two banks of four, and Tevez not really doing much.
There was an article about how UTD prefer to play their way through the right flank.
That was demonstrated again today.
There wasn’t much play on the left until when Nani came on, and when he did, you could see him getting into space on the left flank and getting ahead of the full back. But no UTD centre midfield player looked interested in passing him the ball.
United DO need more creativity, their attack is all one-dimensional at the moment.
Anyway, brilliant play by the Ginger Prince
Paul Scholes scores again (Milan, City, Porto, Barcelona etc etc). I just wonder why Ferguson doesn’t play him forward more often. He admitted in the interview I think that he made Scholes advance up the field and it paid dividends, even though City were attacking too.
Giggs should be playing in the center of midfield because I don’t think he has the pace to play as a ‘left sided winger drifting in’ anymore and let someone like Nani or Macheda who are faster play there instead.
With Giggs playing left, there isn’t much off the ball movement in the team. Only Rooney, Nani and Valencia show that (Bayern Munich at Old Trafford) right now and they should be used more.
P.S.: Can’t remember the last time I saw Scholes give a post-match interview!
Ferguson mentioned after the game that he had ‘moved Scholes forward’, but that was slightly disingenuous. Sure, Scholes was playing further up the pitch in the last ten minutes, but the switch was in fact to move Darren Fletcher back, rather than deliberately push Scholes on. After the introduction of Ireland, Ferguson needed a more defensive minded presence at the base of his midfield to counteract the Irishman’s forward runs, so Fletcher was swapped with Scholes.
Had Ireland remained on the bench, Scholes would most likely not have been free to make his run. Would De Jong have tracked any run made from midfield had he been on the pitch?
An interesting view I heard earlier today.
What did you think of Mancini’s substitutions?
To me, those were no good, especially Ireland.
When Nani came on Mancini had to mirror Utd’s 4-3-3.
The ballsiest way to do this would have been to take Tevez off (he was having a shocker by his recent standards but I guess Mancio’s man-management instincts got the better of him) and replace him with Vieira:
———–Given
Onuoha–Toure—Kompany–Bridge
—-De Jong–Vieira–Barry
Johnson—————Bellamy
———Adebayor
but I think he sort of bottled it and went for a transitional period of:
———–Given
Onuoha–Toure—Kompany–Bridge
—-De Jong–Vieira–Barry
———————-Bellamy
———-Tevez
———Adebayor
with a huge hole on the right.
Then he went to a proper 4-3-3 when he brought on SWP for Adebayor.
———–Given
Onuoha–Toure—Kompany–Bridge
—-De Jong–Vieira–Barry
SWP—————-Bellamy
———Tevez
But De Jong got injured and this came about
———–Given
Onuoha–Toure—Kompany–Bridge
——Vieira——-Barry
———–Ireland
SWP—————-Bellamy
———Tevez
Scholes marched through the gap between Vieira and Barry once before the goal, but hoping for Steven Ireland to do something approaching the job Nigel De Jong does was folly.
Given the bench, I might have punted for
———–Given
Onuoha–Toure—Kompany–Bridge
-=——–Boyata
——Vieira—–Barry
SWP—————-Bellamy
———Tevez
and hoped for the best.
Great stuff!
When I saw the line ups I was convinced that ESPN India had got it wrong by suggesting that Man City were lining up with a 4-4-2. I thought that it would make much more sense for City to start with a 4-2-3-1 with Tevez being given license to roam but also a more defensive role as well. However whilst watching the match it became apparent that they really were lining up as an off-key 4-4-2 that occasionally looked like 4-4-1-1 and even 4-2-4 (echoes of Barcelona!) when they attacked.
I noticed that Tevez was often floating around and did not seem to work hard and press Utd at all. Adebayor was often isolated because Tevez did not support him well enough and consistently tried to pick up the ball from deeper positions. If Tevez was going to float around in a free role surely Mancini should have given him some defensive duty because Scholes was repeatedly free to pick up the ball and dictate play from deep.
On the “inverted wingers” point being ineffective even Andy Gray made the tactical analysis that they should be asked to occasionally swap and see what happens because they were having no joy. Overall I think Utd edged it today but Mancini played a clanger with his tactics. Perhaps the match should be used as a training aid to highlight, as Mourinho consistently noted, that when a 4-3-3 plays against 4-4-2 a free man is left in middle and can cause major problems. Scholes personified that today.
I have an impression (possibly wrong) that Mancini attempted to finish the game in the Italian manner, meaning “slow it down” and take a point. That may be works in Italy (sometimes), but not in Premier League, particularly with such a fine player (Scholes) lurking free.
Brilliant match analysis. If you allow Scholes time on the ball, he will dominate. There was an outstanding example of this last season when United outplayed Fulham at OT (only to be beaten at Craven Cottage a few weeks later). Scholes had oceans of space and time, spraying beautiful crossfield passes left and right. If you have someone closing him down fast, on the other hand, he will easily make a mistake. As he did when Fulham scored their opening goal against United at CC this season. As ZM points out, it should have been Tevez’ job to track back, doing what Park did against Pirlo in CL. Instead, City played a kind of 4-4-1-1 where they did not manage to play to the strengths of either TEvez, Adebayor or Bellamy.
I think Evans had an outstanding game, even venturing far up the pitch on several occasions in the first half. He looked so composed, brave and comfortable on the ball – just like he did last season during the spell of clean sheets (most of which were achieved with Evans playing, rather than Rio).
It was interesting to see what happened after Mancini made his substitutions, especially when United scored. Ireland had to share the blame for suddenly allowing Evra all that space on the left as two men pushed up to win the ball. Then Ireland failed to track Scholes, he simply jogged around in no mans land as Scholes ran into the box.
As for United’s subs: Gibson clearly had to be taken off, he was well off the pace, missing a number of simple passes. Moving Giggs in central to be replaced on the left by Nani was the obvious choice. I thought it was a weird decision to take Valencia off, but when Nani was subsequently switched onto the right it made sense.
Berbatov did really well to meet and receive the ball in deep positions, holding onto it and then releasing to player overlapping down flanks. His dropping deep to meet works really well when the opposition are out of balance – totally opposite to the game against Blackburn when he was far too deep.
Credit to Neville for his positioning throughout.
The defining moment in terms of the result can be seen in the replay of the goal, with Steven Ireland waving his arms in the air a split second after Scholes knocking in his free header. Mancini was forced into taking off De Jong because he had picked up a knock, and with Vieira already on the park, he had few options on the bench. Boyata was possibly the man for the job, but I’m sure they’ve never practised with him in midfield, and moving Kompany out of defence would have been foolish. (If anybody needs an explanation as to Ireland’s exile, you need only look at his defensive contribution, which is characterised by shirking the challenge and not tracking dilgently.)
Be that as it may, I thought the match hinged on the City wingers v. the Utd full backs, and in that regard Craig Bellamy (who has at times strapped the team to his back and carried it so they could be in the position they are) should hang his head in shame. He had Neville there for the asking, yet not only failed to dominate, but failed to provide any service whatsoever to Tevez and Adebayor.
Sure, Scholes was a free man deep, but for 90 minutes United’s attacks petered out on CIty’s well-ranged lines of defence, and Scholes was at times like a basketball point guard, collecting the backwards pass of a failed assault. (Thereby echoing Arsenal’s futile attempts to pass through Spurs on Wednesday night, though Utd did open up CIty from wide a couple of time only to be let down by the finish.)
Hughes-era City was about overlapping fullbacks, Mancini-era City is decidedly not. Onuoha was there not to pin Evra back, but to stay at home and mind the space. Bridge was there because there was nobody else.
Nice article..i do have a question though..wht was the reasoning behind Mancini’s decision to bring on Viera in place of johnson with over a quarter of an hour to go in the game???
To me it did not make much of a sense..1) City were at home and had not done too bad up until that point so it was a pretty negative move by Mancini. Agreed they didnt quite create as many clear cut chances as United but they were still very much in the game and 2) I think City looked disoriented after Viera’s introduction. They couldn’t quite get back in it until SWP’s introduction ~10 mins later.
As for SWP, i thought he really looked like a threat the moment he came on. I wonder if SWP for Johnson would have been a better move by Mancini. SWP surely has the pace and his crosses are also not too bad. Plus being on the bench for most of the time under Mancini, he seemed like he had a point to prove..
Mancini’s thinking was probably that Bellamy’s pace would show more against Neville than Evra. City’s use of inverted wingers didn’t pay off, but perhaps it would had Bellamy cut back for Tevez on the break rather than take an uncalled-for shot with his left. Bellamy received the ball past Neville on many occasions but he simply ran with the ball down the line, leaving him with no option other than to cross.
At times Bellamy managed to get something into the box, but neither Adebayor nor Tevez were in position, since both centre forwards consistently dropped back, resulting in something like a 4-6-0. Both did fairly well in keeping and using possession (with Adebayor especially looking better than his replacement Bendtner in every aspect of the game), but perhaps Tevez should have looked to move diagonally to the left more, creating space for Bellamy to run between the defenders. It is also surprising neither of them marked Scholes, but to be fair their defence was soaking up pressure well, so perhaps Mancini took a gamble there.
Considering City’s setup, their chances were always going to come from counterattacks, so overlapping full backs were deemed unnecessary. When Vieira came on there should have been a reshuffling of the strikers as well to create a 4-3-3 shape.
Good Stuff! I thought Mancini missed a trick when he brought on Vieira. The first sub made was when Nani came on for Gibson. For about 15 minutes Utd played virtually a 2-man MF with Giggs in the free-role, trying to feed balls to Rooney.
Ireland should’ve come on at that time instead of Johnson, preferably instead of Tevez, to run with Giggs and put some pressure on the 2-man MF of Scholes and Fletcher.
Very well constructed review as ever and no one can deny the efficacy of the recessive gened one (especially in the taking of the now ubiquitous last minute derby goal).
However there was something more primal to this loss than the tactics, belief. On this occasion United had it and City did not; and it will be this which decides both the fate of the Premiership and the battle for fourth.