Manchester United have safely secured the 3 points they needed to move up the league table. The Reds played against Bournemouth on Saturday and managed to win the fixture with a final result of 2-1. But the thing that the fans appreciated more than the victory is the shift in performance from the first half of the match to the second in the Bournemouth Vs Manchester United clash.
Marcus Rashford pops up late – very late – to secure all three points for @ManUtd #BOUMUN pic.twitter.com/d9CClopuxf
— Premier League (@premierleague) November 3, 2018
United had a very disappointing start to the Bournemouth Vs Manchester United match at the Vitality Stadium. According to Mourinho, the first half was a disaster and the team was awful defensively. The boss said:
“The first half was a disaster. We were really lucky because we were poor, defensively awful,”
“When I say defensively, I don’t just look to my defenders, I look to my team as a team.”
“I felt like people watching this game don’t believe the work we did on the training ground during the week. At half-time, I thought I was the luckiest manager in the Premier League because it should have been 5-2 or 6-2.”
“I said to my players it was impossible to play worse than we did and the second half was going to be better for sure.”
However with a desperately needed win and by putting in a gritty performance in grabbing all three points on offer, United have managed to pull in much needed morale, something that will go on to serve the team well if they do intend to get their season back on track. With a disastrous start to the season so far by their standards United are way off from the champions league spots and various bookies like topratedbettingsites.co.uk are offering quite unfavourable odds about their chances of a top four finish.
It was quite evident by conceding such an early goal that it was not a good start for the Reds in the Bournemouth Vs Manchester United game. By looking at the way how United has been playing, it seems like they go super defensive in the first-half and start attacking in the next half.
This could be a good strategy as we could analyze the way the opposing team is playing and then counter during the next 45 minutes, but it doesn’t seem to be working. United lost the ball way to easily and gave clear chances for the opposition to attack. United was holding back and not pressing the play quite well. The man-marking was very bad and certainly one of the main reasons why Bournemouth was able to move the ball easily.
The first goal that Bournemouth scored shows how unaware United’s defense was. The pressure created by the Cherries easily cracked up the United defense a numerous times during the Bournemouth Vs Manchester United game, although we were quite lucky that the hosts did not convert all the chances they got.
GOOOOAAAALLLLLLL!!! @MarcusRashford fires home in stoppage time! #MUFC #BOUMUN pic.twitter.com/aCRqmthit3
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) November 3, 2018
However, we got to see a completely different side of United after the break. We started bolstering up our attack and put some pressure on the opposition defense. Bringing in Herrera and Rashford helped us dominate the game as Rashford caused the opposition to panic with his swiftness and Herrera helped Pogba to attack further. United was dominating the second half of the Bournemouth Vs Manchester United game and was able to create more chances than Bournemouth in the second-half.
In the end, we got the result we needed. A hard fought victory and 3 points to help us make our way up. United was able to serve what every fan needed from them in the second half.
In the post-match interview, Mourinho explained why he wishes to play more defensively with United.
“I love the song “Attack, attack, attack” but you need to know that when you lose the ball you have to have stability.”
“We are not showing we have stability. We were ready for everything, we worked tactically for everything. I really can’t understand the kind of mentality that brings me more white hair.”
This is pretty accurate as the boss spoke quite the truth. United are not stable when it comes to counterattacks. When they lose the ball, they panic a lot and are not able to retrieve the ball. It makes a lot more sense why Mourinho is scared to play by a more attacking tactic.
But we should consider it because when we start attacking more, the opponent is a bit perplexed and start defending more. This way we control the game and prevent the opposition from attacking.
11/38#PL pic.twitter.com/MIWpsTiigF
— Premier League (@premierleague) November 5, 2018
Things are starting to look better for United as they are trying to get better with every fixture and if things go well, we could at least make it to the top 4 of the Premier League table. After quite the comeback in the Bournemouth Vs Manchester United fixture, United goes into a very busy and devious week.
On Thursday, United are set to face Juventus away from home in the Champions league and let’s hope that United give a good performance at the Allianz Stadium. Followed on by the Manchester derby between City and United at the Etihad Stadium.
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