Team Focus: Is this United Team Better than it Appears?

Not for the first time this season, Louis van Gaal’s press conference on Sunday was baffling. Ronald Koeman, the Southampton manager, is habitually cautious about discussing the opposition, but he had no qualms about acknowledging Manchester United’s defensive “flaws”. But not Van Gaal, who turned aggressively on his questioner.

To most at St Mary’s they seemed self-evident: Southampton had, after all, scored twice and hit the post, while David De Gea had been forced into two excellent saves, the first of them, a reaction stop from Jose Fonte, stunning. When told that Koeman had acknowledged the problems, Van Gaal replied, “That is remarkable.” And yet he admitted he had had to take off Mateo Darmian at half-time because he wasn’t getting tight enough to Dusan Tadic and said that his team had struggled in the final 15 minutes because they were suffering the aftereffects of Tuesday’s Champions League defeat to PSV Eindhoven.

It’s been a similar story all season: Van Gaal talking about process and philosophy and apparently seeing a wholly different game to anybody else – which may, of course, be a facet of his genius. And yet for all the grumbling, for all the sense that United are inhibited, playing constantly with the fear of conceding possession, for all the reports of delegations of players complaining about the stifling atmosphere, United are second in the table, just two points off the top.  It says much for how unexpected that is that United’s average WhoScored rating for the season is 6.89, only the 11th best in the division.

Although United’s third goal in Sunday came after a move of 44 passes – the map of the goal was extraordinary, showing an array of sideways passes and only two that went forward at an angle of more than 45 degrees - Sunday’s win didn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with process: United won because of the excellence of a goalkeeper who made a number of fine blocks and a centre-forward who scored with two composed finishes. But are there underlying suggestions that this United team may be better than it appears?

Van Gaal prioritises possession above all else – which is probably why United have the second lowest figure of dribbles in the league. “When you have the ball, the opposition cannot score,” he said again on Sunday. United have the third-highest possession stats in the league behind Arsenal and City. The allegation from critics is that they don’t do enough with the ball: sure enough, while Arsenal have 20.2 shots per game from 58.6% possession and Manchester City 20 from 57.2%, United have had just 11.3 from 56.9% possession.

That shots per game figure is only the joint 13th highest in the Premier League. Nor can it be said that United are adept at holding back with speculative shots: their figure of 3.5 shots on target per game is also the 13th-highest. A total of nine goals scored in the six games so far, though, is the fourth best in the league.

And United do have the third–best defence after City and Tottenham, conceding only 8.8 shots per game – the second lowest figure in the league. In that sense, the possession-first approach is working. Van Gaal pointed out on Sunday that over the summer it had been widely predicted that their defence would be their weak spot, and he is right to point out that has not been the case so far, but Southampton showed how vulnerable United can be when forced to defend, when the insurance of possession is breached.

But perhaps that’s the point: hold possession enough and those defensive inadequacies are largely irrelevant. If Anthony Martial gives them a cutting edge to go with that, if Wayne Rooney flourishes back in his withdrawn role, perhaps the process of which Van Gaal speaks does provide the basis for a serious title challenge after all.

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