This game really taught us a lot when looking at how it panned out. Much like I’ve said in recent weeks, this one had hella positives as well.
To end off a truly terrible season with a victory over City, a trophy and European football gives us something to remember it by.
What a performance by United and a thoroughly deserved win for Erik ten Hag.
1. Team setup
We saw the false 9 approach from Erik ten Hag once more in this final. It has been a tactic he’s used in the last couple of games and wasn’t a surprise (to me at least) that he ended up doing so again.
Scott McTominay was tasked with that striker position ahead of Rasmus Hojlund just as we saw against both Newcastle and Brighton. This allowed United to then have a more compact midfield as McTominay is more adept at a midfield role than Hojlund.
This led to the centre of the park being flooded with players making it really difficult for City to breakdown and play through United often having to go out wide to work a different angle.
ten Hag’s players were a lot more comfortable and confident with this. Not being able to play down the middle seemed to put Man City off as they appeared somewhat uneasy as we know that they usually do pass through teams like a hot knife through butter.
Whenever United did get the ball, they kept wingers Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho out wide making the pitch bigger and exploiting the spaces left by City. This is how both United goals came about as after winning back possession, a ball was played over the top to Garnacho who was either out wide or on the shoulder of the last defender.
Being compact in midfield without the ball and making the pitch wider with it worked superbly well for ten Hag and co resulting in this unbelievable win.
But in deploying this tactic, it showed the improvement in his coaching, the ability to adapt to different games and opponents and do what’s necessary to thwart them as well as get the win for his own team.
This tactical adaptability and against the best shows that Erik ten Hag is a manager who can overcome tough opposition in different ways and gives even more reason to keep him.
2. Improved squad
These last three games had me feeling good about our team and bench. No longer did I look at it and think ‘God, its our academy we have to call upon should things go wrong.’
The starting lineups in the last three matches have been relatively strong despite not being our strongest. But with the returns of players like Lisandro Martinez, Raphael Varane, Victor Lindelof, Marcus Rashford, Mason Mount and even youngster Willy Kambwala, it meant that we actually had players we could bring on that would keep the quality high or even improve things.
The lineup in the final was:
Onana
AWB, Varane, Martinez, Dalot
Amrabat, Mainoo
Garnacho, Bruno, Rashford
McTominay
The bench:
Amad, Evans, Hojlund, Eriksen, Kambwala, Mount, Lindelof, Bayindir, Antony
That’s not bad.
It gives us all a confidence boost knowing that we have quality and experience on the bench compared to just youngsters. Should the game be going wrong, we have the players to come on and influence proceedings.
This is something that Erik ten Hag has been pointing out all campaign. With the 723 injuries and 214 different back lines, it makes it really hard for him and the team to get any rhythm. The quality is also not there as we can see the difference the likes of just Martinez and Varane make to the team.
3. Martinez and Varane
One last time.
United’s main centre-back duo had one last go before the Frenchman packs it up at MUFC in his final game for the Red Devils.
And what a performance it was by the two of them and indicated exactly what we’ve missed and how important they are to the team.
Not only are they great defenders individually, they compliment each other so well.
The height, speed and experience of Varane along with the brilliant reading of the game, strength and one of the more important traits, ability to play out from the back with Martinez, makes this pair incredible.
This last point is something that has been spoken about in that despite having a ball-playing goalkeeper, without the players ahead of him to do the same, we haven’t truly seen the best of Andre Onana or ten Hag ball.
Even Pep Guardiola had this to say regarding the Argentine World Cup winner:
“Lisandro Martínez is top 5 centre-backs in the world.
He made the difference on this game by playing passes through our defence”.
If that isn’t high praise, then I don’t know what is.
In this point made by Guardiola, it should tell you how important it is for United to have such a defender or defenders in their back line so as to play this more modern way.
But both Varane and Martinez did some great defensive work too. Ample headers away, great clearances, blocks, and keeping that fraud Herling Haaland quiet, except for that one chance where he hit the bar.
There was also a lot of leadership and communication from the two of them to keep everyone in line, two aspects of the game that we missed so much since they’ve been injured.
What the two of them also do is make us all feel a lot more comfortable and confident simply because they’re there. When Martinez went off and Jonny Evans came on, that sense of certainty did disappear a little (for me) because Evans isn’t as good as the Butcher nor has he got that ability to play ball.
The Northern Irishman did do a great job all the same and has been really good for us this season.
We are absolutely going to miss this partnership so they better get a good replacement for Varane.
What a final dance for the two of them.
4. The future
In this picture, we can see a glimpse of the future of Manchester United. Kobbie Mainoo, Alejandro Garnacho,
and Erik ten Hag.
Yes, I’ve included the manager in this because he’s just as much a part of the future of the club as those players. He gave them the opportunity to flourish and become the players they are.
On Mainoo and Garnacho, two amazing performances by two exceptional teenagers. Both goalscorers and massively influential to our style of play. Despite their young age, they seem a lot more mature than their ages suggest.
This goes for the likes of Amad and Rasmus Hojlund as well.
Erik ten Hag is also the man I believe can get even more out of these young players and players in general because I do think he’s a brilliant coach and especially developer of youth.
ten Hag is the best option in terms of managers for what United need. He’s been here for two years and has been through much and more, most of it quite negative and yet still managed to win two trophies and after that win, look to have ALL the players behind him.
Bringing in a new manager would mean a restart and unless they win the PL, I don’t think they’ll be able to emulate what Erik ten Hag did in his two years.
There’s more reasons to keep him than sack him.
He has to stay, he really does.
5. Unity
This is an important point.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a squad that appear more together, more as one.
The 4–0 defeat at Palace was almost like a last straw in terms of these players backing the manager as it did look very much like they downed tools, again.
The following four matches saw a complete u-turn in terms of the unity among the squad.
Arsenal, Newcastle and Brighton gave us a great indicator that perhaps things weren’t as they seemed. And for the good.
Those three performances in the build up to this final brought us all together, not just the players. We saw a team play some good football, follow instructions, execute the manager’s orders and smiled and celebrated with each other after scoring.
The high fives in defence were back, something that we notified last season as being a big reason as to why we were so solid defensively.
All these suggest a team that is truly United.
The final against City was even more prominent when it comes to that unity.
Once more, the understanding of their roles was clear to see, everyone played with all they had and the celebrations during and after the game wouldn’t indicate to one that this is a squad that is at each other.
I think Erik ten Hag has to take a lot of credit for this. He is the man responsible for bringing this togetherness and after such a game at Palace, it wouldn’t have been surprising if we saw those type of performances for the remainder of the campaign. That is what happened to previous managers.
For ten Hag to pull them all together for the end of the season run-in is something that shouldn’t go unnoticed.
When looking at how some of the players like Garnacho, Mainoo, Varane, Shaw, Maguire and Martinez (among several others both players and staff) celebrated with the manager, everyone was happy. It didn’t suggest to me that they didn’t back him.
Captain Bruno Fernandes and Jonny Evans both came out with words of support for the manager and given majority of the fan base wanting ten Hag to remain, sacking him would go against what many desire.
They CANNOT let him go. They just cannot. It would be a stupid decision and one where they would have most against them with their new manager having to come in and be amazing from the start.
Background: Man Utd’s future | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)