Crystal Palace - Manchester United

Really feels like the season is ending now but still a few more games to go! I thought we played pretty badly today but managed to squeeze out a good result which is always nice. Young is continuing with his good form and Fellaini once again shows his usefulness.

1) Shaw feels right at left back

Example 1:

For me, Blind playing at left back always feels a little odd and while he does a good job there, Shaw just feels more natural to me playing there, even though sometimes I find it hard to describe. 

Here's him with good awareness of holding the defensive line and being part of the back four unit. He knows Bolasie is making a run and he sees that the pass is going to be played to Bolasie and he starts running to mark him.

But he also knows that Smalling and Jones are holding their line so instead of following and marking Bolasie, he steps up and plays him offside. 

Compare that to this (from the match against City) where Blind is playing at left back: 

Very similar situation and Blind breaks down our defensive line. You even see that our centerback realizes he's broken it and he has to start running back to cover - in the pictures of Shaw today, you see that our centerbacks are relaxed.

2) Switch the play!

I often criticize Rooney for making first time diagonal passes but in this case, we needed someone to do that.

This would be better with a moving GIF but I don't know how to make those so I just uploaded a picture of every touch. Here, Valencia has the ball.

He passes it to Herrera who passes it back to him immediately. Notice that Blind is completely open.

Valencia passes it down the line to Mata (I think). Notice that Blind is still completely open. Also, notice that all three of them on the right are well marked by three Crystal Palace players. 

It goes back towards Valencia again and now we see Smalling coming back from up front to help out.

The ball gets to Smalling and he still tries to force a pass to our right wing (again, I think its Mata). 

Blind is open the entire time during this sequence! All they needed to do was to just turn and look left and they would have found space but instead, they tried to do it the hard way. If this was in a more dangerous position closer to the Crystal Palace goal, it might be worth doing something intricate but this was too far away and they should have taken advantage of Blind being completely open. It's general field awareness that players like Herrera need to develop (which Scholes was the master of - I would bet that at any given moment, Scholes would be able to tell you the position of every player on the pitch without looking).

Example 2:

This one isn't too Shaw specific but I think it just shows how well Shaw blends in and works with our center backs as a unit. Here, the ball goes over the top and that's Smalling, Jones and Shaw all defending their respective players. Jones is a little forward since he's the aggressive center back, Smalling is further back as a sweeper type and Shaw is marking is man.

The ball doesn't really fall right for us and it goes over Shaw. The important thing here is that our defenders are all still marking their players and tracking their runs.

Eventually, De Gea gathers it and you see that now, Jones is furthest back, Shaw is moved Central and Smalling is on the left. Despite this switch in position, all of them are still marking their respective players. 

It's kind of hard to show with just pictures but this sequence just stuck out to me because Jones, Smalling, and Shaw all knew exactly what to do and there was no confusion about where to run or who to mark. It was an example of perfectly fluid defending by a coordinated unit.

3) Blind's needs to work on his defensive covering

At the beginning/middle of the season, I didn't think there was a big difference between Carrick and Blind in the defensive midfield role, but now that I've seen more of Blind in that position, I realized Carrick is definitely the better player in the role. Blind still hasn't had too many games there so obviously he can still improve and he could still turn out to be excellent there.

Example 1: 

Just look at this - this is a Crystal Palace attack and their number 7 (Bolasie) is completely open. Shaw has rightly moved centrally to defend the player with the ball. 

A few seconds later, Blind and Fellaini (red arrows) finally come back to cover him - it was much too long and if the Crystal Palace player just did a back heel flick, it would have been an easy goal. Also notice that Fellaini is back but he's also playing much further up, almost as a striker for us and he's covering back here because Blind wasn't covering. 

I went back a few more seconds to look at their initial positions and I found Blind, circled in red. I have no idea why Blind is all the way there when we have so many other players there. Fellaini is there because this was from a Crystal Palace goal kick and he was there to help with a defensive header. Blind should have been in the red circled area and if he was, he would have been in a much better position to mark the Crystal Palace player.  

Example 2:

Here, Crystal Palace send a cross in and there's two Crystal Palace players on top of the box with no one marking them. That's the job of the pivot/defensive midfielder/deep playmaker and that was clearly Blind's role. The furthest midfielder we have back and the closest one to marking them is Fellaini (circled in blue) and Fellaini is playing much further forward. Blind (circled in red, Herrera is circled in black) should be right at the top of the 18 yard box even just going by position alone, even ignoring the two unmarked Crystal Palace players there.

Example 3:

Palace are attacking on the left with Bolasie dribbling the ball down the line and Smalling defending him. There's a Crystal Palace player making a run through the middle, circled in blue. I also circled Blind who I feel should already be a little closer to him. That's his job, to cover the midfield runners. This isn't too bad of a mistake yet.

Except now, Blind lets the runner continue without following him. Yes, we have a defender there to cover the cross in that area but when our defender is standing still and the opposition midfielder is running forward, it's extremely dangerous to let the defender take over because the midfielder gets a running start for a header. Blind should be tracking and following him all the way - going by a simple rule, defenders mark strikers and midfielders mark midfielders.

3) Fellaini works hard and has been playing more intelligently

This sequence stuck out to me because Fellaini not only worked hard but more importantly, he used his brains to defend here. 

Below, Fellaini had just made a bad pass and the ball gets to a Crystal Palace player (Bolasie) who dribbles it straight down the line at pace.

Fellaini sprints back to defend his dribble (which is expected of someone who just gave the ball away due to a bad pass). You see, Bolasie has him completely beaten for pace and it's very easy to just take the easy way out and clip his heel here and give away a foul. But there's no need to because Jones is there to cover and Fellaini knows that.

He basically just follows Bolasie until he runs into the corner and falls over by himself. That's perfect, composed and intelligent defending. You see players often give away dumb fouls because they just made a mistake and get frustrated but Fellaini avoids this trap.

4) Herrera gets drawn to the ball too easily

Herrera is great because he has great movement and he's always looking to run into space and receive to ball. The problem is that even defensively, he's always looking for the ball.

Example 1:

Below, he's circled in blue. You see that he's looking at the ball and he's running towards the ball. He's not thinking about where he should be and about the Crystal Palace player that's completely free (at the bottom of the picture).

And eventually, the ball gets to that Crystal Palace player and because Herrera was too deep from chasing the ball, he's given the Crystal Palace player much too space to work with.

Example 2:

Here, the Crystal Palace playing is getting his head onto a long ball. Herrera is at the top of the penalty area and he should be anticipating that the ball will go along the blue dotted line and be ready to or start running along the red arrowed line. He should know that there's a Crystal Palace player behind him making a run (Fellaini is defending him but is wrong sided so Herrera should still cover in front).

Except that Herrera is too slow because he's watching the ball and reacting to it as opposed to anticipating where the ball will go. The ball goes past him to the Crystal Palace player and Fellaini does some remarkable defending even though he's wrong sided.

That's already one mistake. Now, Fellaini has the Crystal Palace player contained and Herrera is looking/running towards the ball. The problem is that another Crystal Palace player is making a run (red arrow) and has gotten in front of Evans (an Evans mistake). Herrera has to have better awareness of someone running just a few feet from him but he's too focused on the ball.

The ball gets to the now open Crystal Palace player for an open shot about 12 yards from goal. Forunately, De Gea magic saved us once again.  

I think I've mentioned this lack of awareness a few times in the past, most memorably here (Everton), point number 6. This is something I'll be looking to see him improve next season or I can't see LVG continuing to start him over a midfielder who has better defensive awareness.

5) A neat trick

Just wanted to point out a neat trick players do to fool the ref. You see below, it looks like Smalling is grabbing/hugging the Crystal Palace player with his left arm, especially to the red. Except that it's actually the Crystal Palace player grabbing onto Smalling's left arm and holding it to make it look like Smalling is fouling him.

Not much you can do, it's a pretty convincing trick in real time and if Smalling tries to get his arm out, the player will just fall and it'll look like Smalling dragged him down. Try it next time you play ;)

Conclusion

I'm a little worried about the lack of defensive awareness/positioning Herrera and Blind are showing and it's Fellaini who seems to be there at the back covering even though he's supposed to be playing further forward than either of them. This is likely contributing largely to our decline in form since Carrick has been injured and why there's so many rumors of us looking for another midfielder still.

Let's hope for a Chelsea victory tomorrow to assure our place in the top 4 :)