Manchester United was beaten 0-1 at the hands of Juventus at Old Trafford in this week Champions League (UCL) match. Manchester United is problematic in their final third attacking, and also during the early period of the match facing Juventus.
Manchester United apathy vs Juventus Intensity
In both match before this against Chelsea and Newcastle, Manchester United started the game is a very bad way but Fortunately, they avoided defeat. They had the same problem when facing Juventus as well. Basically, they dropped to their half too deep that triggers Juventus to ‘Gang Ho’ and dominate their half (refer diagram below for formation)
Once again Pogba showed his weakness playing as a defensive midfielder in the first half combining with Matic and Mata become the creative engine behind Lukaku. As they were defending very deep, they became less aggressive to close down Juventus player whenever they had the chance which gave Juventus player a lot of space to exploit. They were lucky to only concede 1 goal in the first half. (refer snapshot below).
Man Utd only conceded one goal due to an excellent performance by Lindelof and David De Gea in defending. (Refer Lindelof stat below).
Poor Counter Attacking by Manchester United
During the first half, Juventus enjoyed almost 72% ball possession which shows how Man Utd was not threatening Juventus. In football, if you decide to absorb the attack too deep in your half by the opponent then you need to counter-attack as fast as you can to remain effective and threatening. The problem with Manchester United also lies in their slow counter attacking especially Rashford that is having a poor vision by running aimlessly with the ball without direction.
Juventus Attacking Plan
Juventus were playing a 4-4-2 formation to push Ronaldo as forward from the right flank to couple with Dybala. Towards the last 10 minutes, they were playing with 3 centre backs with a 3-4-3 formation.
They pressed United at the flanks and the half space. During the first half, they were given too much room for roaming. (refer screenshot below).
The truth is Juventus wasted couple of chances to punish Manchester United especially during the second half they had a lot of counter-attacking going on but loses the ball during the finishing stage. Ronaldo was behind Dybala most of the time and was not in his best form to beat United’s defenders in the penalty box when attacking. If only Ronaldo was in good form, it will be a long night for United with their exposed penalty box.
Juventus attacked from Luke Shaw’s direction because they knew that Martial will be lazy in defending compared to Rashford. Cancelo helped Cuadrado in Juventus attacking from their right. (Refer Heatmap below). In the last 10 minutes, Allergi noticed Juventus problem when they give space for Manchester United in their half, hence he brought in Barzagli so that Juventus can defend with 5 players and close any possible gap for United to exploit.
Second Half for Man United
They performed better in the second half but that was not good enough. Mourinho promoted Pogba to a more attacking role and they tried to press Juventus by flooding their players on the right side of the pitch. (Refer Heatmap above).
The main problem that they failed to fix was a disjointed issue between players especially Lukaku. You can see clearly how Lukaku was isolated from other United players and he failed to threaten Juventus inside their penalty box although United provided a lot of crossing ball in the second half (Refer Lukaku Heatmap below).
However, United was too wide and provided support from a very small depth which results in self-exposing themselves to series of central attack from Juventus midfield. However, Juventus also reckless and careless in their counter attack.
Conclusion
Juventus clearly deserve the win in this match for the single fact that they immediately started the game with high intensity. Mourinho tried to fix United’s gameplan in the second half but technically United’s players are problematic. Rashford and Martial losing ball; Lukaku failed to link-up play effectively; Pogba is not effective overall. Their most performing player was Lindelof who did a lot of killing for most Juventus attacks.