Christian Eriksen has Manchester United playing closer to Ajax, Jurgen Klopp fluffed his Liverpool team selection and Pep Guardiola made errors for Manchester City’s draw against Aston Villa. Here’s five lessons we learned from the past Premier League weekend…
1) Glimmers of new system punctuated by Rashford-led counters
The defining moments of this game followed the pattern of Manchester United’s win over Liverpool; in the second half, United sat deep before launching Marcus Rashford-led counter-attacks, more like an Ole Gunnar Solskjaer team than an Eric ten Hag one. But we should look beneath these headline moments to United’s impressive first half display, where things finally started to look more ordered and Ajax-like.
There were some excellent pressing traps set, in which United swarmed together on a trigger to prevent Arsenal from playing out from the back, and there were plenty of times when United developed their own build-up phase with more sophistication than we have seen for years. More specifically, the relationship between Christian Eriksen and Bruno Fernandes formed the basis for vertical and meaningful possession, casting aside the aimless sideways passing that has defined the club for so long.
Those two connected very effectively, most notably for the opening goal, to set a tone that United maintained for the first hour of the contest. Ten Hag knows this will be a long process with many ups and downs, which is why we must cling on to any small glimpses of the project coming together. Tactically, this was the most United have looked like a Ten Hag team to date.
2) Rodgers’ 4-4-2 stood no chance against the elastic 3-1-5-1
Leicester City are in a relegation battle according to Brendan Rodgers, and it is hard to disagree following their tactically inept performance at Brighton. It is the manager who must take the blame for such a strange decision to utilise a 4-4-2, which is invariably ill-suited to facing a 3-5-2 because it is essentially outnumbered in every line. Brighton had a two-on-two in attack, a three-on-two in central midfield, and a three-on-two in defence.
Rodgers eventually changed to the 3-5-2 he should have started with, but by that point the pattern of the match was set and Leicester’s dejected defenders conceded yet more goals. Graham Potter, meanwhile, showed us once again why he is among the most gifted tactician in Europe. He deployed Alexis Mac Allister as a lone six, with Moises Caicedo, Pascall Gross, and Enock Mwepu floating in front as triple number tens.
It was genuinely innovative: a 3-1-5-1 formation that completely overwhelmed Leicester’s two-man midfield in the half-spaces, allowing Brighton to constantly find a spare man as they passed in neat triangles all the way into the penalty box.
3) Son’s return to form leads to Fulham’s first poor performance
It was hardly vintage Tottenham Hotspur and we are still not entirely convinced that Antonio Conte’s lower line of engagement can give Spurs the platform needed to win the title, but with Heung-Min Son returning to form we could at least see more of Conte’s patterns of play. Son and Harry Kane were both excellent at dropping into the ten space to receive a straight pass, turn, and drive at the Fulham defence in classic Conte style.
However, this had as much to do with Fulham’s flaws as Son’s skill. The last time Marco Silva managed in the Premier League his Everton team were too attacking in their setup, fanning out across the pitch to leave huge gaps between the lines. So far this season Fulham have been more compact and conservative, but Saturday saw the return of what used to be a Silva hallmark.
Joao Palhinha and Harrison Reed have been very resilient for Fulham in 2022/23, yet here they were overworked – and caught out by Son and Kane dropping on the blind side into gaps either side of them. It was a common feature of the contest long before Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg danced through the midfield to score the opener.
4) Klopp makes errors as Liverpool again lack fluidity
Very little of note happened in the first Merseyside derby of the season, which is to Frank Lampard’s credit. His 5-4-1 formation was narrow, compact, and defensively sound, preventing a jaded-looking Liverpool from connecting attacks together with any fluency or speed. But Jurgen Klopp perhaps could have done more to prise the hosts apart.
Starting Fabio Carvalho as an eight proved to be a mistake; he is too inexperienced at this level to win his battles in such a congested midfield, although he was not helped by Klopp’s decision to play Darwin Nunez over the in-form Roberto Firmino. Firmino was needed to drop deep and yank the Everton midfield around, because with a static Nunez up front it was easy for Everton to keep track of their opponents.
This was exacerbated further by the narrowness of Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah. Liverpool had initially found joy on the right as Salah, Harvey Elliot, and Trent Alexander-Arnold formed a triangle down that side, but after a strong start Salah started to drift into the middle and things became stuck again. Klopp, reacting poorly with a series of ill-fitting substitutions, had a bad day.
5) Guardiola gets his formation completely wrong
Aston Villa did not really deserve to take a point. For all the desire, energy, and hard work they put into this game we should not be fooled by the result; Man City recorded a 1.92 xG and Villa 0.3. Nevertheless there is a reason why the visitors could not capitalise on their dominance or find a way to repeatedly test Steven Gerrard’s system.
For once, Pep Guardiola got it completely wrong. In most games so far this season he has deployed a 2-3-5 formation in which the full-backs move into central midfield, releasing the two eights to fan out into the half-spaces while the wingers stand on the touchline to provide width. That would have been the perfect way to draw out Villa, who are by some distance the narrowest team in the Premier League in Gerrard’s Christmas Tree 4-3-2-1.
Instead, Guardiola had Kyle Walker and Joao Cancelo take up more traditional full-back positions more often than they should have, while the wingers naturally drifted inside. Guardiola picked his narrowest wide men, Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva, causing further congestion in the central column of the pitch. It should not be difficult to stretch a disorganised Villa defensive shell out of position to create room for Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland. Guardiola over-thought this one and paid the price.
