Why are Manchester United so bad; a derby edition

After very un-Manchester United results; the 2–2 Atalanta, 5–0 loss to Liverpool, 4–2 loss to Leicester, losses to Aston Villa and West Ham, I thought it was about time to break into Manchester United’s tactics with their game against Manchester City.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer thought, after that loss to Liverpool, changing from his 4–2–3–1 to a 5–3–2 would help stabilise his team, and it worked against an even worse team in Tottenham, but it didn’t really work against Atalanta in the Champions League. Nevertheless he decided to stick with it in the Manchester Derby.

Set up sadly

First things first; when you play against Manchester City, you have to expect that you won’t have much possession and you won’t have as much as City will which means your biggest strength will be your counter-attack. You will need players on the pitch who have the speed, directness and general ability to execute that. Solskjaer from the off didn’t choose the best personnel to carry this out. Additionally his choice of the 5–3–2 is questionable because automatically it leaves your players outnumbered on the first two lines of defence (the two strikers and the three midfielders) and if you’re outnumbered against anyone, there’s no way to put pressure on your opponent’s circulation.

Man Utd trying to press (and failing)

Despite the hosts being outnumbered, they tried to put in sequences in which they pressed higher up the…