Man United were held to a 1-1 draw by Atletico Madrid in the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16. The Red Devils put in a poor performance, but Anthony Elanga cancelled out Joao Felix’s early opener to share the spoils at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium.
With the Champions League away goal rule scrapped, the tie is delicately poised for the return leg on March 16th. Here’s how the game unfolded:
Starting Line-Ups:
Rangnick made 3 changes from the side that beat Leeds United 4-2. Raphael Varane returned to the central defence, pushing Victor Lindelof into an unfamiliar right-back role. Fred and Marcus Rashford also replaced Scott McTominay and Jesse Lingard in the line-up.
Diego Simeone set his side up in a 3-5-2. Renan Lodi, Geoffrey Kondogbia and Angel Correa replaced Yanick Carrasco, Koke and Luis Suarez in the starting XI.
First Half:
Diego Simeone set up a brilliant defensive unit to neutralise the visitors. Atletico Madrid switched well between an intense high press and a solid mid-block to prevent Man United from stringing together attacks.
United looked to take up a 4-3-3 shape during build-ups. Fred played ahead of the centre-backs, allowing Pogba and Fernandes to play in more advanced roles. The full-backs also played at different heights. Lindelof often remained deeper while Shaw was able to progress higher up.
The hosts looked to prevent play down the middle of the field. The centre-forwards and midfield remained fairly narrow off the ball, ahead of a solid 5-man back.
Atletico Madrid did not particularly look to pressurise United’s defenders. Harry Maguire, Raphael Varane, Luke Shaw and Victor Lindelof are all comfortable with the ball at their feet and good at distributing play.
Instead, Simeone used the tactic of putting pressure on the keeper. Los Colchoneros looked to press higher up when David De Gea received the ball.
Atletico used chain reactions down the flanks to complement their high press. On the left, this involved Renan Lodi pushing higher up, with Reinildo marking the winger.
On the right flank, Simeone was hesitant to extend Vrsaljko higher up the field. This was because Stefan Savic did not possess enough speed to track Jadon Sancho on the flank. Instead, Simeone asked Marcos Llorente to press higher up the wing. Herrera and Kondogbia adjusted their positioning well to compliment Llorente.
Atletico Madrid took an early lead against Man United when Joao Felix met Renan Lodi’s cross with a spectacular diving header. The La Liga champions then restructured into a compact mid-block. Most of the action in the game was concentrated in the middle of the park.
The home side’s mid-block was a more clearly defined 5-3-2 shape. The wing-backs remained deep to cover Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford. The midfield was flexible and bent in shape according to United’s positioning.
One of United’s struggles turned out to be the lack of a proper number 9 profile. Cristiano Ronaldo often dropped deeper to get involved in build-ups.
This allowed Atletico to spread their defence out better to cover spaces. United tried to counter this by dropping Bruno and Pogba deeper. This move, however, bore little reward. The relatively deeper positioning of the full-backs overlapped with United’s interiors dropping wide.
Simeone’s men also effectively bent their midfield structure to cover such movements by Fernandes and Pogba. This was made possible because no Man United player provided effective movement in the middle of the park to occupy the midfield players of Atletico Madrid.
Because of this, the action was largely restricted to the wide and deep areas of the field.
United barely made any forays centrally throughout the game. Even from the wide areas, they struggled to make progressive and penetrative passes, but instead, were forced to recycle possession between the defenders largely. The forwards were often cut off from the rest of the game and struggled to make any impact.
The Red Devils did not cover themselves in glory while out of possession either. Rangnick’s men looked to press in a 4-2-3-1 shape.
However, Atletico Madrid used diagonal passes to the wing-backs to directly bypass United’s first line of pressure.
Another problem emerged for United off the ball. Neither Pogba nor Fred are classic defensive midfielders. In a double pivot, they lacked the defensive awareness to effectively close down Atletico’s forwards. Felix and Correa consistently found space between the lines to receive the ball and directly attack United’s backline. Lodi also complimented the forwards well, as the flanks became Atletico’s primary source of creativity.
This meant Atletico Madrid were consistently able to navigate through United’s lines of pressure. Higher up the field, they looked dangerous in the wider areas. United’s wingers did not drop deep enough to support their full-backs but simultaneously were not positioned well enough to cut off backward passes. This gave the Spanish side more time in using possession effectively.
At half-time, Manchester United were allowed the illusion of ball possession. The Red Devils had 66% of the ball but mustered only 2 shots, none on the frame. In comparison, Atletico had 6 shots, of which one found the net and one came back off the woodwork. Simeone had absolutely outcoached Rangnick in all aspects of the game. But the players themselves had made several poor decisions on the ball.
Second Half:
The second half of the Atletico Madrid vs Man United game began on the same note that the first half had ended. The home team was more than content to allow the visitors to hold onto the ball while defending central spaces tightly. The Red Devils continued to drop their interiors deeper to build around the home side’s midblock.
The Red Devils looked to find passes behind the opposition full-backs to directly access their wingers. Sancho and Rashford were able to beat Lodi and Vrsaljko in a foot race on most occasions. However, Reinildo and Savic were alert and often covered their teammates well.
United also looked to press Atletico’s midfield more in the second half. However, they often ended up committing 3-4 players around a single area of action, without complementary actions by the other teammates.
In the 67th minute, Rangnick made a triple substitution. Telles, Matic and Wan-Bissaka came on for Shaw, Pogba and Lindelof. The move apparently had a clear motive behind it: to help Bruno and Sancho, arguably the two best creators in the team, express themselves higher up the field.
Wan-Bissaka could provide more dynamism defensively to make up for Nemanja Matic’s introduction. The Serbian himself could play as the anchor in the base of the midfield to distribute passes to the frontline. Telles could use the overlap better on the left-wing, allowing Sancho to move into the halfspace.
The changes failed to have a drastic effect on the game. Telles often abandoned a lot more space going forward, and Matic lacked the legs to cover that ground effectively. Wan-Bissaka on the right offered more agility off the ball but was worse at pushing the ball forward in possession. Overall, the net positives of the triple substitution were all but neutralised by the individual weaknesses of all three players.
Read More:
- Manchester United Keen on €55Million Rated Bundesliga Midfielder to Replace Pogba
- Ronaldo & Maguire Lock Horns As Row Over The Captain’s Armband Brews Over At Manchester United
Rangnick threw another roll of the dice by introducing Anthony Elanga for Marcus Rashford. In the 80th minute, Elanga latched onto a Bruno Fernandes pass before rolling a calm finish past Jan Oblak. United retreated deep into their own half and heaved a massive sigh of relief as Antoine Griezmann’s resounding attempt bounced off the crossbar.
The final whistle brought an end to a woeful performance by Manchester United. They were outplayed in all parts of the pitch and tactically. However, a crucial goal gives the Red Devils a slender mental boost for the return leg in 2 weeks. Until then, Rangnick and the team will have to return to the drawing board and training ground to analyse exactly how they fell short in this game.
