da dobrowin： They say what goes around, comes around. Clearly the reverse is also true. For Manchester United, who have spent an entire season controlling games only to fail to monetise their dominance and convert it into goals, when teams attack their defence it’s always a nervy moment.
da realsbet： They’ve been bitten too many times. Last season, Louis van Gaal’s men dominated West Bromwich Albion to the tune of 80% of the ball possession, yet lost the game to a dodgy set piece.
But this weekend, Manchester United were on the giving end of it for once. No longer the prize fighter felled by the sucker punch, Manchester United went to Anfield and laid the knockout blow with their only shot on target in the entire game.
They may have their own goalkeeper to thank, but they won the game. They may not have played very well, but they won the game. And if Louis van Gaal is interested in keeping his job over the next few months, then surely wins are a very important commodity.
The fact is, football has moved on over the past few seasons. There’s a pragmatism present in the game now that has distorted the whole board. Teams like Leicester City have thrown the game on its head.
Only a few weeks ago, tactical super-brain and all-round footballing God Jonathan Wilson mused that he didn’t know what attacking was any more. It seemed that LvG’s United have so much of the ball, yet their brand of probing the defence without ever taking a risk, is just as reliant on an opponent making a mistake as Jose Mourinho’s method of sitting off and trying to catch the opponent on a break, usually in the spaces their defenders leave if they push forward.
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Waiting on an opponent to make a mistake isn’t a particularly active way of playing football. It’s inherently reactive. How can you you say that you’re ‘attacking’ an opponent if all you do is wait for the mistake.
Going back to the sucker punch metaphor, when Homer Simpson became a boxing champion, he did it by letting his opponent smash him in the face for most of the fight, right up until the opponent was too tired to punch any more. Then Homer would land one punch to fell the fatigued fighter opposing him.
It’s almost like a Chelsea gameplan, or a Leicester gameplan this season. Although the Foxes haven’t had a wonderful defence, it’s still their defending that allows them to attack. The trick is to be just well enough organised that you defend the opponent’s’ attack, but then you play very directly towards the goal. When you see Leicester’s ball retention stats – possession, pass completion, etc – they are so far down the table that it’s astonishing, yet they score so many goals by being so direct.
Going back to Wilson again, it’s hard to think of this as being inherently attacking either – how can you say you’re attacking the opposition when you’re sitting deep and waiting for them to gift you the ball so that you can play it straight to your speedy attackers? Yet it’s this approach that scores the goals this season, it seems.
In some sense of the word, every team is attacking. In some way, every team is heading towards the goal and trying to score – in most games, anyway. It’s just that every team has a different opinion of how best to score those goals.
But if last weekend was anything to go on, United were the team who more resembled Leicester and Liverpool the team who more resembled United. Liverpool were the protagonists, the active team. Manchester United were the reactors, the Homer Simpsons who soaked up the punches and landed the sucker jab with their first shot on goal.
There are infinitely many ways to win a game. That’s what we love about football. But when the tables are turned so dramatically in one game, it just goes to show how closely related they all are. The words ‘attack’ and ‘defence’ are starting to mean less, it’s all about the best way to win a football game. And everyone has an opinion on how to do that!
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