Marseille 0-0 Manchester United: stalemate
The starting line-ups
A lack of goalmouth action resulted in the only goalless game of the Champions League second round first legs.
Mathieu Valbuena was only fit enough for the bench, and Andre-Pierre Gignac was out completely, so Didier Deschamps used a patched-up 4-2-3-1 with Brandao as the lone forward.
Sir Alex Ferguson fielded Wayne Rooney on the left of a 4-1-4-1, with Darron Gibson surprisingly starting over Paul Scholes in the centre of midfield.
The game was by far the poorest of the eight Champions League games that have been played over the past ten days – neither side were intent on scoring, and both seemed to settle for a 0-0 at a fairly early stage.
With similar formations, there was relatively little to choose between the sides in tactical terms. Michael Carrick broadly picked up Lucho Gonzalez, whilst United’s two more advanced midfielders did battle with Marseille’s double pivot. Neither side conclusively won the midfield battle – the sides attempted a similar number of passes (449-497) and had a similar pass completion rate (81%-80%). The ball spent most of the time in the middle of the pitch, but none of the six players in that zone dominated the game to any real extent – Carrick was disappointing despite having a fair amount of time on the ball, but Gibson’s passing was more incisive.
With such a stalemate, a full-scale match analysis would be rather unnecessary, so instead here are some chalkboards, courtesy of the fantastic TotalFootball app.
Wayne Rooney's passing
Wayne Rooney reverted to a disciplined left-wing role, rather than the lone striking role he’s played recently when Ferguson has gone 4-5-1 away in Europe. From that position his passing was generally sound, although he often lost the ball when attempting over-ambitious passes.
Both sides' interceptions
Both sides intercepted the ball reasonably high up the pitch – barely any interceptions happened in the final third – demonstrating how rare it was for the ball to actually be played into attacking positions.
Manchester United's crosses
Marseille coped well with United’s crossing (which generally came from the right wing) – none of the 14 crosses from open play were successful, it took a corner to provide a completed ball into the box.
Marseille's passes in the attacking third
Marseille’s passing was focused down their left – the vast majority of balls played into the final third came down that flank.
Paul Scholes' passing
Paul Scholes’ late introduction provided the assured passing United had missed until then – he completed 96% of his passes, the only exception being when he tried a ‘key’ pass into the opposition penalty box.
Marseille 0-0 Manchester United: stalemate
Boring Boring Boring……
I didn’t watch this game, I watched the Inter/Bayern game (a great game), but as soon as that finished I turned over to the Man Utd game for the post match analysis – I could tell that it was a rubbish game when the best chances they could show were long balls into the area which the forward didn’t quite get onto, or runs through the defence which ended with the player skewering the ball well wide……
This is potentially a good result for Marseille, cos if they go to Old Traff and score then Man U will need to score two…..I’ve got a feeling they won’t go and attack though, and play cagey and be toothless, with Man U getting the win they need…..I may be wrong though…..
It definitely should set up for a much more exciting second game…….
…..also…..GIBSON?!?!?! NO SCHOLES?!?!?! Ferguson obviously didn’t want to lose. When Man U play away in Europe they always play at a slow, very definite tempo, making sure they keep everything tight at the back so they don’t concede, hoping to nick one at the other end (watch the Manchester derby at Eastlands earlier this season for more evidence of this). Well, if you’re not trying to score Alex, don’t be surprised if you don’t ACTUALLY manage it……(Ferguson is quoted in the papers this morning that he’s unhappy that they didn’t score, labelling the result as “dangerous”)…..
Also, ZM, I would say great review, but the game was SO boring I haven’t actually bothered to read your review (ok, I read the first paragraph and I think I actually feel asleep for a few minutes), but thanks anyway…..
Wow. What a fabulous comment which revealed absolutely nothing…
“This is potentially a good result for Marseille, cos if they go to Old Traff and score then Man U will need to score two…..”
Genius! You should set up your own blog!
i guess things like civility are a thing of the past.
To be fair, it is a mystery he managed to write that much while at the same time saying nothing at all.
Thats the “Genius!” in me coming through…..
No offence meant, it was a bit of a ramble though
Sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out as football fans can be thick headed. Plenty of United fans caught up in the “we kept a clean sheet” rationalization that it was a “good result”, forgetting about the obvious away goals rule.
No need to point that out to united fans who unlike city fans cant understand the away goals rule as they haven’t actually played a champions league game .. ever
Away goal rules are also applicable on the Europa League.
The only question for me is whether it was as bad as the appalling Sparta v Liverpool game in the Europa League last week. Anyone who stayed awake for both these 90 minute doses of utter, utter rubbish deserves either great admiration or profound sympathy
You say that Gibson’s passing was more incisive than that of Carrick. Perhaps it would make an interesting feature, or match review to look at Gibson’s performance and evaluate what he does for the team. He seems to get a lot of criticism from pundits and fans, yet Fergie seems to be content to let him develop and play a part for the team.
Is he doing something that people are missing or is it a question of a thinning squad?
Fergie is lucky that he has a fleet of decent, hard working players in Gibson, O’Shea, Brown, Park, Fletcher and Johnny Evans who don’t tend to moan if they are kept out of the side, or fail to play week-in-week-out.
Additionally, when they do play, they play out of their skin and have a great work ethic. No other side has this luxury.
Actually, you have to credit the manager for that. Players like O’Shea and Park continue to stick around OT for some reason. Of course the shirt counts for something, but they clearly love playing for SAF, and the fact he plays them in important games probably helps a lot.
And, of course, they pay well.
Man Utd will dominate the 2nd leg but only managing 1 goal among a flurry of chances, while Marseille scores a late late equaliser and proceed on away goals, you heard it here first!!!
“The only question for me is whether it was as bad as the appalling Sparta v Liverpool game in the Europa League last week.” Oh yes, just as awful. The revelation for me was that I hadn’t realised that Carrick’s decline is just as severe as Rooney’s: my golly, he was feeble. For the first twenty minutes or so Fletcher and Gibson did quite well, but then they became enfeebled too. Dreadful rubbish; if this shower win the EPL it’ll signify a great decline in the standard of that league and of this club. Bring back Cantona.
epl standards are pretty down.uniteds team is poor going forward..arsenals defensively..chelsea hav long ago pressed the self destruct button..
I could not understand why Deschamps took off Remy to put on Valbeuna.Remy had shown good skill and dangerous when running with the ball.Surely they needed both Remy and Valbeuna on the pitch in the closing stages.I thought that Deschamps was a good coach but I was disappointed with him in this instance.I could not see any indication that Remy was injured.
Actually, Remy was vomiting just before Deschamps took him off… that’s why Deschamps chose to replace him by Valbuena who was supposed to play, returning from a long injury. It’s true Remy had a good game, but he is a natural striker and it’s the first year he plays as a right-winger, and has been quite disappointing for most of the time. It’s maybe his first good game in this position.
I agree with the others to say it wasn’t an exciting game, but I overall blame United for this, because their midfield didn’t really try to control things and Marseille was only the outsider in the contest.
Carrick was horrible. He missed too many passes; fletcher also did, but considering Carrick’s role is a deep-lying playmaker, it’s a huge problem. He has been clearly off-form for nearly more than two years. I don’t think that he’ll remain in the club after this summer.
Scholes’ impending retirement and Carrick’s poor performance mean united desperately need to buy another good passer in this summer.
Joe Cole may be available.
His name is Ozil, and you guys completely whiffed on that 15 million euro steal.
Ozil, while I like the player and appreciate what he brings to the Real team, is not the deep-lying playmaker type of player that United are trying to replace.
You don’t think you could use an attacking midfielder? I think Man United needs one bad.
we don’t have a genuine Attacking midfielder..we like to have more true central mids…this basically gives a lot of flexibility from a squad outlook
I saw one tactical thing in this game: the Heinze(smart but slow) vs Nani(not slow) duel was scary for us Marseille supporters before the game; it was dealt with smartly i thought, by letting M’Bia deal with Nani one on one near the area. Then, Heinze as centre back (a spot he is used to play with Diawara when M’bia is injured/suspended) worked well, with a couple of Heinze head clearances.
The puzzling thing for me was why Marseille’s “attacks” were mostly on the left side with Ayew running against MU defenders and Heinze’s useless “crosses” from the midfield line. On the right side, Remy and Fanni showed signs of wanting to run and combine but were not often given the ball.
Thanks for the article, sorry for the spectacle.
One thing that struck me was that Marseille was unbelievably fast. Fanni abused Giggs. I think that Marseille has some pretty good individual players, Fanni and Remi in particular, and Man U need to worry about trotting that formation out against a team like Bayern, who will exploit the lack of pace on the pitch. I’m of the sort that thinks Andersen is useless, at best a counter waiting to happen, but he rarely got undressed in terms of pace or positioning. Letting Fanni run created odd man situations that Marseille sort of let ManU out of (they didn’t have the same sort of vision or pace on the other flank to follow the move). The problem with Ligue 1 teams is they are rarely able to build coherent teams- once one of their players auditions successfully on the UCL stage, they can’t hold on to him, and you can really see a couple Marseiile guys who are probably on their way up and out.
Giggs did not play.
Fanni defended very well and it was his second champions league game(the first one back in 2002 with Lens). The rest of the defense did a good job too, but Manchester didn’t push very hard.
I didn’t have much hope for Marseille playing beautiful attacking football as many offensive players were injured or recovering: Gignac out, Valbuena was not supposed to be here, Remy with a twisted ankle+heel injury on saturday. (even Brandao, not exactly a creative player, had a bad ankle from last saturday). Deschamps said before and after the game he was satified with a 0-0.
Rooney! it was Rooney. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.
Which match were you watching? Neither Giggs nor Anderson played!
I thought his absence was key- he provides an element of pace, particularly on the defensive end, that Man U lacked.
I agree with that. Anderson must always be played ahead of Gibson. If Anderson shows some more aggressiveness going towards the opponent’s penalty box, I think he would produce more results too.
So it won’t let me reply to your post, but Anderson’s problem is he can’t pass. Really pacy, good tackler, pretty fearless, but can’t pick out a pass to save his life. Maybe it’s youth- he doesn’t seem to like to go square, an important part of the game for a ball winner. If he went square or retreated more often I think that would fix a lot of his problems. If it gets to the point where they play a Bayern, his tendency to give the ball away as a holding player (because that’s essentially what he is, right?) could really, really hurt them
ZM, I see you mention Carrick not having a great game, but what’s your overall opinion of him? Personally, I think he’s a very underated, but quality player. He’s part of this new ‘breed’ of Defensive mid, he’s very comfortable on the ball, and he’s also very good positionally, and very good at breaking up play.
Also, I’m really hoping Smalling can continue the way he’s going, what a prospect! Stong, quick, good in the air means he’s a good athlete, but he’s also very comfortbale on the ball and decent positionally even at a young age, he could be a future England regular.
Still fancy United to go through in this one, can see them winning 2 or 3 nil at OT.
I thought Smalling looked pretty accomplished: very promising lad. Carrick, as I opined above, seems to me to have declined dreadfully. What a pity.
A couple of thoughts.
1) I don’t understand how people could say the game was boring. Was there a lack of clear-cut chances? Absolutely; but you can see the intensity and competitiveness which often left my heart in my throat.
2) Im interested to see how ZM defines the formations. He puts Marseille as a 4-2-3-1. Although Ayew, and particularly Remy dropped deep during defense to make a 4-5-1, I thought in attack they were a 4-3-3, not a 4-2-3-1. Well, semantics.
3) Beautiful defense: two highlights for me – 1) Marseille’s pressing and 2) Man U’s defensive organization in the first half. A thing(s) of beauty.
A game even half as bad as that between ‘lesser’ teams (eg Birmingham v Stoke) would be condemned out of hand. But because it’s the Champions League, some people are desperately looking for something interesting in it. Don’t bother, just admit it was crap.
i actually agree. I’m not a fan of either team, but i didn’t find it as boring as many here mention. My natural inclination was to cheer on Marseille since they were the underdog. And i was in to it.
There were a lot of interesting things about this match, even if the match wasn’t pleasing on the eye. The formations essentially canceled each other out. Here are some of my match notes.
I. Heinze vs. Nani- Man Utd. clearly looked to exploit Nani’s superior technical quality on their right and mainly focused on playing balls to Nani (or purposely trying to give it away to Heinze) for most of the first half. Marseille was aware of this tactic and Heinze was well supported by his fellow team mates.
II. United struggled to switch the point of attack until Paul Scholes came on, and Scholes should have been brought in after half time. Scholes is good at spraying long diagonal balls to the flanks. This would have spread Marseille’s defense out and created some more space for United in attack. The first few minutes after Scholes came on, more space opened up. Conversely, one could make the Kanu type argument here as Scholes is older and only really shines in these type of high intensity games once legs tire and more space opens up.
III. Marseille for the most part did not allow United to build up play from the back and pressed well. Brandao and Marseille’s band of 3 did a good job of forcing United to play quickly out of the back.
I agree. But wouldn’t you agree that United are severely lacking in anything resembling a creative player without Giggs or Scholes in the middle of the pitch. I mean Nani is always a trick away from winning any game, but United definitely need someone in the middle of the park who can bring the game under control the way maestro Scholes did when he entered late on. I don’t think they have anyone like that on the books beside the Ginger Prince.
Should’ve gotten Van Der Vaart.
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ZM, I was happy to watch Marseille passing beautifully. Also, there were lot of spaces in both halves, if given to a team like Barca, which could have been disastrous. A pity both the teams couldnt use these space.
Surprised to see Heinze having a decent game.
Any chance for Villarreal – Napoli recap? It was a good match and it would be interesting to read about Villarreal’s 4-4-2 vs. Napoli 3-man defence.
Good afternoon everyone!
I would like to add a few comments about this game between Marseille and Manchester United.
- Marseille’s coach said before the game he wanted a 0-0 and absolutly no goals conceded. So Marseille used his energy to control Manchester by using the same formation to cancel players and use physically strong players (have a look at the defense).
- When Scholes came in, Manchester ended the game in 4-4-2 with Fletcher on the right and Nani on the left. Zonal Marking, could you tell me why? To open the play in the midfield? It looks like Scholes and Carrick played very deep against three midfielders (Kabore, Cheyrou and Lucho Gonzalez) which could be dangerous(?). Maybe Sir Alex Ferguson wanted Marseille to press Scholes and Carrick and then leave space between the lines?Play second ball?
- I think I have an explanation of the great graph that shows there were more passes on the left than on the right for Marseille, in the final third. In the midfield, Gibson played slightly on the right and was in the zone of Kabore who played quite deep. I think that gave space behind Gibson to pass to Ayew on the left. Fletcher on the other side played deeper than Gibson as Cisse was a little bit higher than Kabore. The other point is Nani didn’t defend as good as Rooney did. Last point, Ayew is far more mobile than O’Shea.
Marseille has a very good coach and I’m sure he’ll be in a big european club sooner or later.
As a frenchman, I am not very confident for the second leg for Marseille. Manchester has been very good this season at home by far!
Alex from France!
PS : Could you cover please the best game scheduled this week end : Lille (first) – Lyon on Sunday night. Lille is excellent this year, Lyon is Lyon…
http://www.zonalmarking.net/upcoming/
It’s the third one down I believe.
This game was horrible. Man Utd. need to get their act together. It’s a chore to watch them.
I noticed this morning thank you! Can’t wait, Lille plays very well this year and might see a few players to leave at the end of the season.
I looked at the schedule of Man U and the one of Arsenal in Premier League, Arsenal can make it!
Alex – you wondered why United changed to a 4-4-2 when Scholes came on. I would say the main reason was to play more attacking football in the final 20 minutes (2 strikers up front) and try and force a late away goal, rather than to free up space in midfield. There was a noticeable change in United when the sub was made, but I wouldn’t just credit Scholes; I would argue that it had a lot to do with the 4-4-2. Having watched United’s weekend match against Wigan since reading this, I noticed that they started with the same combination, i.e. Nani on the left and Fletcher on the right, with Scholes and Carrick in midfield. On Saturday it was Hernandez and Rooney up front together rather than Berba and Rooney at the end of the CL match, but the point is more about the midfield.
For me, one of the focal points post-substitutions in the CL game, and in the Wigan match, was how well Darren Fletcher played on the right. United are obviously injury-hit in the winger department but playing Nani on the left and Fletcher on the right seems to be a far better setup than playing Rooney on the left. I thought Nani also played well on the left and see him as starting there when Valencia comes back from injury.