Analysis: Manchester United 2 Tottenham 3

Premier League, Saturday 29^th September 2012

This was truly a game of two halves. Tottenham dominated the first, United went beyond domination in the second. Vertonghen and Bale gave Spurs a 2-0 half time lead, before Nani, Dempsey and Kagawa quickly scored in succession. Although United will have felt they did enough to get a point from the match, the first half performance was worse than anything witnessed at Old Trafford in many years, and there will surely be a big inquest at Carrington this week in order to avoid it happening again. Here are some comments on the match:

Rooney and van Persie

The introduction of Wayne Rooney at half-time for an unfortunately woeful Ryan Giggs was the catalyst to change the game. He gave the team a kick-start with his neat touches, perfect passes and inspired movement. In particular his role in unsettling the Tottenham defence enabled the United midfield behind him to take control of the game, and allowed Paul Scholes to produce a second half passing master class. Perhaps the main encouragement to take from Rooney’s introduction though, other than his scintillating form, is the way in which he partnered Robin van Persie to such good effect.  As @manutd24 on twitter put it, ‘Rooney came on and gave van Persie wings’. This statement perfectly describes his effect. While van Persie looked isolated and lacking in mobility during the first half, the second half was a different story. The creation and movement of Rooney enabled the Dutchman to take up better positions, to run with increased energy into the channels, and to become a bigger threat. Meanwhile, the Dutchman’s running facilitated a creative and dangerous Rooney. It is with wetted appettites that we should wait for Ferguson to choose to start them together in a fixture soon.

Intensity and tactics

United were completely lacking in intensity in the first half, no doubt a highly contributing factor to the result. Giggs was not only ineffective, but enormously sloppy. Carrick, Scholes and Kagawa failed to have any influence in the attack and were devoid of energy, something a more centralised dynamic setup may have provided. Van Persie was lacklustre in running into the channels up front also meaning less space behind him for the creators to be ineffective. And all of this contributed to Spurs dominating. This diagram shows the difference in Spurs passing between the two halves. The contrast is quite incredible. As Alan Pardew once said, tactics and formation mean nothing without intensity. And United completely lacked any intensity in the first half meaning they were quite simply never going to compete. It was worrying, and a capitulation on even the poor display versus Liverpool last week. Let us hope they improve.

Meanwhile Ferguson’s tactics can be called into question. His reliance on width meant out-of-form Giggs and Nani started wide, something that had little impact. Giggs and Evra in fact on the left-side didn’t exchange a pass once, a sign of the ineffectiveness of United’s wingplay. Ferguson would’ve perhaps been better in choosing a more centralised formation that gave United more pace and drive, something akin to the 4-3-1-2 that United used successfully against Newcastle in midweek.

Going Forward

The first half was abysmal and is a concern baring in mind the simarlarly poor first half against Liverpool last week. Meanwhile Ferguson might be questioning his tactics, and must surely be looking to either a 4-4-2 or a central-focused formation in the future. Shinji Kagawa in particular was ineffective in this 4-4-1-1 and only became useful when he moved wide in the second half. The second period did however provide some positives, and United must grow from that. Intensity and creativity are essential, and both were missing in the first half. Perhaps the most exciting thing to look forward to though is a Rooney and van Persie partnership; together they looked a potent weapon, something teams will fear. Bring it on.

Ratings

[4-4-1-1]: Lindegaard-5, Rafael-5, Ferdinand-6, Evans-6, Evra-5, Nani-6, Carrick-6, Scholes-8, Giggs-3, Kagawa-7, Van Persie-6

(Rooney-9*, Welbeck-6, Hernandez-6)

*Man of the match

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