UK Edition
How Jose Mourinho brought the United Way back to Old Trafford in West Ham thrashing
When Sir Alex Ferguson left Man Utd, Old Trafford lost a bit of its fear factor. With this performance, Jose Mourinho brought that back.
This was the first time in years that we’ve seen a Man Utd team who genuinely frighten an opposition team. They are big, powerful, clever, devious and ridiculously quick - Pablo Zabaleta will have nightmares about the torrid time he had for months. “It’s about confidence,” said Mourinho after the match.
There was a lot more to it than that. But what?
Movement and defensive discipline
United lined up as a 4-2-3-1 but the shape changed throughout, with players swapping positions and moving into space created by others. The attacking players attacked, the defensive ones defended. Everyone knew their job.
Antonio Valencia was a right-back but spent most of his game as a winger, Henrikh Mkhitaryan was wide right on the team sheet but played mostly just behind Romelu Lukaku - which is also where Juan Mata played, or at least arrived on one of his runs from deep - and Paul Pogba roamed all over the pitch, liberated by Nemanja Matic, who held everything together. The whole system was extremely fluid in attack and disciplined in defence; as every great Mourinho team has been, they were exceptionally well organised.
West Ham were cautious for the first 20 minutes, wary of the threat that United posed and the enormity of the occasion. Slaven Bilic said before the game that they needed to be compact in defence and keep the space between players constant to ensure they remained in the game, and in the opening stages it worked, evidenced by them not conceding a goal.
At the other end of the pitch they didn't threaten at all and United controlled possession in the final third. Last season this became something of a problem, as a timid attack ran out of ideas trying to create chances when faced with a stacked defence or was simply unable to finish the few that they did manage to force.
The trick to unlocking a defensive team is with fluid movement. In this example, Mata is right of Lukaku, the entire right side of the pitch is free and Mkhitaryan brings the ball forward. Instead of moving into that space, Mata runs across the front of the defence.
This causes panic. By the time Mata could get into position on the right, West Ham would have been able to get back and organise and besides which, Mata is left-footed and would have to cut back onto his left anyway - slowing the play down further. Mkhitaryan plays a pass between centre-back Winston Reid and right-back Zabaleta.
Mata is forced wide by Joe Hart, who comes off his line and prevents the easy cross. Mata does get the ball into the box but the defenders manage to block Lukaku and clear their lines.
Mourinho's low defensive block
Some managers like to press high up the pitch, Mourinho generally does not. By committing players to a high press a team can be left exposed and it is energy sapping. A deeper press is more defensively secure and means that when possession is turned over, as happened for United's first goal, the defending team (West Ham) is in a transitional phase rather than defensive, and therefore more susceptible to leaving space to attack. This method only works if you have pace and power, which United have an awful lot of.
For the opening goal, United defended deep, coaxing West Ham out of their defensive shape. Pedro Obiang thinks he has space and time to play a pass out to Zabaleta on the right wing, who runs to receive - and the trap has been set! Matic springs to action and closes him down.
It's a fortunate bounce but as soon as Marcus Rashford has the ball under control, West Ham are in real trouble. Zabaleta is caught completely out of the play and has no chance of getting back in time.
The back four hold their line, Pogba sprints to join midfield, the more advanced players race forwards and begin to take their positions. They instinctively know that for this attack to work, one has to go left, one wide right and the other must attack the space behind Lukaku.
Rashford is the left winger but because he needs to be the one attacking the central space, this means someone else needs to cover the flank. Matic realises that's his job and bounds forwards to overlap while Mkhitaryan pulls out to the right. Zabaleta has been left in the other half of the pitch.
As Rashford cuts inside, the West Ham defence shifts over leaving Mkhitaryan in acres of space. He is the obvious pass. It's a trap! Again! Rashford plays a brilliant reverse pass between the defenders (the same ball that Mata ran onto earlier in the half) and puts Lukaku - who times his run perfectly - one-on-one with Hart. Goal.
This kind of quick-hit counter-attack is exactly what Sir Alex Ferguson's greatest teams were best at. Although the Fergie years are occasionally recalled by romantic historians as being host to the most beautiful free-flowing football of all time, if anything, they were simply incredibly well organised, driven and full of fantastically creative forward-thinking footballers. Pace, power and creativity - the United Way.
Focusing on a weakness
Before we get carried away, it should be noted that West Ham hardly put up a fight in defensive situations. The midfield provided little cover, Zabaleta was run ragged and Arthur Masuaku was dreadful - he was substituted in the second half and will be lucky to get near that first team again if Aaron Cresswell is anything close to being fit.
Quite why a five-foot-eight-inch-tall left-back was marking a six-foot-two-inch tall - and much stronger - Lukaku for a set piece from wide is a question Bilic could answer, but only Masuaku himself will be able to explain why he was seen laughing before the free-kick came in and his reason for putting up so little resistance to Lukaku's jump to head in the second goal.
Mourinho either spotted that Masuaku was a West Ham weakness and made his team focus down that area, or his players were naturally attracted to his side of the pitch. United's average position was heavily weighed to the right.
With play focused on that right side, it meant West Ham shifted to that side of the pitch to close down the man on the ball, leaving space for Rashford on the opposite wing. If West Ham tried to defend both flanks, they would be stretched. Bilic said before the game his defensive strategy was to make the team compact - the only way to defend both flanks is to stretch the team shape, which weakens the centre. They couldn't cope.
The defending for a Rashford shot in the 66th minute showed the difference in class between the two teams. Reid steps out to close down Lukaku and the West Ham midfield three are in a nice shape. This bit of the play is fine.
But that's when you notice Andre Ayew is one of the midfielders. He is not a defensive player and no matter how well organised West Ham's shape, he doesn't have the defensive attributes you need in a situation like this.
Rashford draws Ayew towards him, Zabaleta defends the right-back space. Everything looks fine. It isn't.
Daley Blind has to overlap to double up in the wide area and to give Rashford the option of moving inside or passing it wide. Zabaleta can't step out to Rashford in case Blind makes this run and receives the pass and so it is Ayew's job to close down Rashford. He does this with determination of a man who would rather be at home.
Rashford has two yards of space and absolutely slams a shot off the far post, which bounces back across goal and behind.
Fellaini as protector of leads
With United 2-0 up, West Ham switched to a 4-4-2 and shunted Javier Hernandez out onto the left (which naturally made it a lop-sided 4-3-3), hoping chipped balls forward to Marco Arnautovic and Diafra Sakho (who offered nothing) would be a way back into the match. It worked for a brief period of minutes and Mourinho responded. Predictably Marouane Fellaini was the chosen one, adding strength and height in midfield to cope with set pieces and high balls into the area.
In the past, Mourinho has attempted to see out games like this and the Fellaini substitution was an example of his wanting to control the rest of the match. The thing is, West Ham were completely worn out and United possess so much firepower and pace that they remained dangerous until the end of the game - the back six defended, the front four waited to counter.
United now have options on the bench too. Zabaleta must have been gutted to see Anthony Martial come on for the final 10 minutes, spending his time either moaning at teammates for the lack of help he was being provided or being run into the ground by Rashford. West Ham wanted to leave the stadium with a 2-0 defeat or anything better but within a few minutes, Martial had scored one and assisted another.
This wasn’t just a counter-attack masterclass from United. For long spells of the game they completely controlled the ball and some of the pass-and-move buildup play was beautiful to watch. They can create while in possession, have a clinical finisher in Lukaku and remained a genuine threat even when trying to see out the match.
“The reality is that in the last part of the game instead of being boring and controlling the game, we scored the third goal,” said Mourinho. There was absolutely nothing dull about this exhilarating performance.