The Genius Way Man United Beat Man City For The FA Cup
Despite being written off after a disappointing season, Manchester United didn't just beat City in the FA Cup final, they did so brilliantly. And while his time in at the helm might soon be brought to an end, it was a tactical masterplan from Erik Ten Hag that got the better of Pep Guardiola at seemingly every turn. Adam Clery takes a look at the Dutchman's ingenuity and explains how he pulled off one of the shocks of the season.
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00:00Ladies and gentlemen, my name is of course Adam Cleary, you are watching the 442 FA Cup
00:08Roundup video and Manchester United, this Manchester United, have just gone and got
00:14possibly their biggest victory in years. And despite all the evidence to the contrary this
00:20season, it is only fair to say that in this match, Eric Ten Hag was a genius.
00:26Alright, okay, hello there chums, how's it going, just want to quickly say before we
00:32start that I was dreading doing this video. When it incredibly unfairly leaked in the
00:37run up to this game that Man United were going to bin Ten Hag regardless of the outcome,
00:42I was like, oh great, now I've got to give him one more kicking on his way out, how fun.
00:47But that is not what we are going to be doing today, is it? Because for the first time in
00:51a really big game this season, he got it absolutely spot on and his team executed
00:56a brilliant plan almost to perfection. And that plan was thus, right, the team sheets
01:02came out and they had Man United in this 4-3-3 that we've pretty much seen them in all season.
01:06But from the first few minutes it was immediately apparent that's not what the system was going
01:10to be at all, they were actually set up in this really deep, really compact sort of 4-2-4
01:15or 4-triple-2, whatever you want to call it. And Ten Hag's game plan was fairly simple,
01:19they were going to sacrifice certain areas of the pitch to completely stop City in areas
01:24they deemed to be more important, specifically the very central part of their own half.
01:29And throughout that first half, they looked really good for doing this. You can see here
01:33in just the opening exchanges, City want to be playing that ball through the middle,
01:37but Man United have completely shut it down, they've got no options in that area.
01:41But the thing is, everybody knows by now that that's how you play against City,
01:44you shut off that central area, you don't let them get on the ball in the areas where
01:48they can really, really hurt you. That's not what was clever about what Ten Hag did.
01:52Because City come up against this kind of problem all the time, and they've got baked
01:56in solutions in their starting XI for what to do when plan A isn't working. But what Ten Hag did
02:02in this match was he correctly predicted how Man City would try and adapt to their game plan
02:07and built in solutions to the Man United side to take advantage of that.
02:11So how did it work? Well, first of all, this was not really Man City's shape either,
02:14they were listed as a 4-2-3-1 with Foden on the left, but if we look at his heat map from the game,
02:19he had no interest in being in this wide space. Part of the way this system works
02:23is he drifts all the way into the centre to become a second number 10 with Kevin De Bruyne.
02:28Silva stays out on that side to sort of stretch this channel, which can occasionally allow De
02:31Bruyne or Haaland to drop into it, and then Vardyal, he pushes all the way up and that
02:35gives them this attacking front five. So Man United's game plan, and the reason they didn't
02:39start with the centre forward was it allowed Bruno Fernandes and McTominay to just sit
02:43on both Rodri and Kovacic, because Man City are going to want to play through the centre,
02:46they need to get the ball to these two to make things happen, so they shut that option off
02:51entirely. And they were both very disciplined with this, but not passive, because they did
02:55occasionally try and shut down one of the centre backs when they had the ball, but they only did so
03:00if they could leave their actual player in what's known as their sort of cover shadow or shadow
03:04cover to shut them off as a pass, and if they didn't get the ball back straight away, rather
03:08than chasing it around, they would just drop back to where they were meant to be. And you can see
03:12that very quickly here, like Fernandes thinks he's got a chance of getting the ball back in an
03:16incredibly advantageous position to do so, but once that goes, rather than just getting a rush
03:21of blood and carrying on that press, he just takes a second, gets his breath back, and goes back to
03:26where he's meant to be. Now what Man City will often try and do in these situations is they give
03:30Foden and De Bruyne the licence to then sort of float away from this congested central area to
03:34get on the ball, like Foden can go back out to the left, De Bruyne, as we've said, will try and get
03:38into that half space that Silva is leaving for them, but because there was no centre forward,
03:43they had options, they had extra men to play with, and that meant that both Amrabat and Maneu could
03:48stick to them like curry stains on a white top. It didn't matter where they went laterally across
03:53the pitch, they would follow them around, and if they went into sort of these areas where nobody
03:57was sort of marking them, they would pass them off to Garnaccio and Rashford. And the execution of
04:01this on an individual level by Man United was just so, like, disciplined. You can see Rashford here,
04:06having been keeping an eye on one of them, passing him back off to Maneu when he comes
04:10into the central area again. But again, just like Man City come up against this sort of low block
04:15all the time, they are used to having their best players man-marked, and they have a solution in
04:19this system designed to deal with that. And that solution tends to be that Bernardo Silva, who I'll
04:23just get here, will just completely vacate that right-hand side and come and join in in the three
04:29here. And that not only gives them much better passing angles in this sort of build-up area of
04:34the pitch, but it also means that they both outnumber these two players three to two, and then
04:39the midfield five to four. And you don't really need me to tell you that one of the reasons Man
04:43City win back-to-back-to-back-to-back Premier League titles is because this is incredibly
04:48effective. But again, because it is something they regularly do, it's something that Ten Hag
04:53predicted and had a plan for. Now, if we look at the average positions of this Man United team in
04:58the game, you can see these sort of six players all nicely disciplined through the centre of the
05:01pitch. But I want you to look at Rashford and Garnaccio. And you've got to remember, this shows
05:06you the average positions, right? Not where they specifically found themselves most often, but where
05:10all their work averages out on the pitch. And bear in mind, they were trying to provide all the width,
05:15they were trying to get in behind City down the flanks. The fact that they come out so narrow in
05:19that average is because they were tucking all the way in into this central area to get that numbers
05:25gain back. And I mean, you can count, can't you? So you can see straight away, this 3v2 advantage
05:31for Man City is now a 4v3 advantage for Man United. And the whole story of that first half,
05:37and honestly, I could show you 10 separate clips all showing you the same thing here,
05:40was Man City having the ball in this central area, but having no way through Manchester United.
05:46If we just stop one of them here, for example, and redirect what our eyes are looking at,
05:51you will see that the consequence of being so compact and difficult to break down in the middle
05:55means that the wide spaces are about as well covered as the old Trafford roof. And I mean,
06:01leaving Vardial on the left and Kyle Walker here on the right, 1v1 with Man United's fullbacks,
06:08is a pretty big gamble, but Ten Hag put his trust in both Dalot and Wan-Bissaka. And it largely
06:15paid off, because while the pair of them are excellent 1v1 defenders, both going forward and
06:19back the way, they're not the kind of players who are likely to make something happen all of their
06:24own. They're not going to go past the opposition defender. And you've got to remember as well,
06:28even if they try to do that, that's a big risk for City, because if they lose the ball,
06:32there's so much space behind them, and they know the players they're supposed to be marking
06:36are in there somewhere. So that was the game plan in so much as stopping Man City winning this game.
06:42And just to show you how effective it was, this is the pass map for Kevin De Bruyne across the
06:46whole match, right? You can just see he's nowhere near able to get on the ball as much as he would
06:51like to. And even when he does, he's not able to pass it forward or do anything sort of effective
06:56with it. And actually, I was watching this in the pub, and when Guardiola subbed De Bruyne off,
07:01like around the hour, just before the hour, there was like a noise of like shock and surprise went
07:06around. People couldn't believe he was taking him off. But I'll just show you every pass De
07:11Bruyne made in that second half. And I've not, I've not done this wrong. I've not made a mistake
07:16here. Between the second half starting and De Bruyne getting subbed off, he completed one pass,
07:22one pass. In fact, I'll just show you Foden's as well, because he was probably Man City's best
07:26player, looked the most likely to make something happen. But even him getting on the ball more,
07:31still wasn't doing anything great with it. There's a few here that are going into a dangerous area,
07:35but look how many of them are sideways, or in some cases, even just backwards. So it was the
07:40man marking job being done on him when he was receiving the ball. It was normally facing the
07:44opposite way because he couldn't get turned. He just had to give it back to whoever gave it to
07:48him in the first place. And the thing is, right, this is just how you stop Man City from winning
07:53the FA Cup Final, right? But we're not, we're not here to talk about Man City not winning the FA Cup
07:58Final. We're here to talk about Man United winning it, and winning it well. And this is why, like,
08:04honestly, I'm quite happy to throw the Genius label around in this video, because you can have
08:09all the answers to the questions Man City are going to ask you. Like, that's all well and good,
08:13but you've still got to use that and turn it into a way to have a threat of your own. And this
08:19very defensive structure from Man United was actually designed to give them the best possible
08:24chance going the other way as well. This is from literally the opening seconds of the match. Man
08:29United are able to turn the ball over, it's a sloppy pass, and just look how quickly Marcus
08:34Rashford knows he's gonna get into that space behind Kyle Walker. And it happened a couple of
08:39times in the opening exchanges. Rashford getting into that space behind Walker, Man United trying
08:44to find him with a killer ball over the top. It's just that Kyle Walker's whole thing is that he's
08:48this brilliant recovery 1v1 defender, so Man United didn't get anything from it. However,
08:54on the other side of the pitch, it was a slightly different story. Man United, with their shape
09:00working very well, turn the ball over and Amrabat lays the ball off to Dalot. And if we just stop it
09:05right here, you will see the first thing he does is look up to see if that pass into Garnaccio
09:12behind the defence is on. There is not one single thought in his head about returning that ball to
09:18Amrabat or turning around and giving it to the defender or the goalkeeper. Plan A1 is to get it
09:24anywhere you can and see if you can hit this space. And he does. And yes, of course, what follows is a
09:30catastrophic defensive mistake from Manchester City, but it comes about specifically because
09:34this is what Man United are trying to do. It's a goal born out of chaos, but a specific type of
09:40chaos they were looking to create. Bardial's got to run back towards his own goal, which he didn't
09:45really want to do. And because there's so much room behind, Ortega is sort of forced to do something.
09:50He's got to come out and address it somehow. And they're just getting a bit of a muddle and they
09:53get the first goal. Like they wanted that to happen specifically. It's not like, look. And you saw it
09:58again with the offside goal. Man United get the ball back. They look up to see if that ball to
10:03Garnaccio is on. It is. And while yes, it was ultimately given offside, just look at how much
10:09space him and Rashford have behind both the City fullbacks. Look at the distance between them. They
10:15were forcing Man City to commit both of these players to these wide areas because it was the
10:19only place on the pitch there was any space to do anything. And then once they turned the ball over,
10:23they were coming out of this central area where they were stopping the through passes, going back
10:28out wide and becoming the main attacking threat. And the second goal is rightly going to be remembered
10:32for that beautiful pass from Bruno Fernandes and the fact that Kobe Mane, who became the first
10:38teenager to score in an FA Cup final since Garnaccio had done it 10 minutes earlier. But once
10:45again, it is this play that made it happen. Man United get the ball back and we'll just highlight
10:50where Walker and Vardial are. And wouldn't you know it, they've pushed way up beyond the other
10:55central defenders. When it gets out to Rashford, this ball across the pitch on his weaker foot is
10:59just not on in a million years. But because Garnaccio has that room, it's worth a try, isn't
11:05it? And he executes it perfectly. And from there, they're up the other end of the pitch. And I did
11:09weirdly see a couple of commentators being like, oh, City was so static in their defending here.
11:14They were just totally motionless. But if you just look at this bit here, it's actually a 4v3 counter
11:20attack that's just about to enter the box. These two can't do anything. They've got their men. But
11:25John Stones turns his head, sees he's got two. And the only sensible thing you can do in that
11:29situation is not over-commit to either of them either way. Just Man United have expertly
11:35manufactured that situation. And Kyle Walker, as quick as he is, is coming from too high up the
11:40pitch to get back to Kobe Meunier in time, which gives him the chance to finish. And finish he does.
11:45And obviously the second half was a different story entirely. Guardiola did address this quite
11:50well with his changes, specifically making sure it was Jeremy Doku in this position instead of
11:54Guardiola. Because all the will in the world, he's not going to go past Wan-Bisaka. He's not going
11:58to make things happen on his own. But Jeremy Doku is exactly that guy. Like if that is where a team
12:04is leaving you the space, that is the man you want attacking it. And even though they lost the game,
12:08that was pretty effective. Like you saw that play out several times in the second half. They
12:12couldn't leave Doku one-on-one. So it was pulling other players out of this central block, which
12:17opened up a bit more room, allowed City to make better chances. They had the goal, obviously.
12:22Then they had two that they absolutely should have put away. I think Haaland hit the stanchion
12:27between the post and the bar. Like on another day, those changes may have brought this game back. But
12:32the fact is Man United had done all the hard work in the first half. They just needed to hang on.
12:38In fact, no, it's not right to say they did all the hard work in the first half. From a system
12:43point of view, they'd done all the hard work. But in the second half, it became about individual
12:48hard work. Because once they'd sort of lost the advantage of being perfectly set up to stop City,
12:52then you're relying on the players individually to do their jobs, to be accountable, to make up
12:58for that shortfall. And that's just something we haven't seen from Man United this season. Now,
13:02whether that's because of the injuries or whatever you want to put it down to,
13:05it just hasn't been there. But yesterday, across the entire XI, it was. Like individual mistakes
13:12have been such a huge thing for Man United. And there just weren't any in the second half.
13:16Every single player did their job. Every single player contributed to the cause. They all
13:22collectively kept forcing Manchester City out of the areas they wanted to be in, and to do
13:27things they didn't want to do. When a team is compact and low blocking, crossing suddenly
13:31becomes a big thing. Because the most creative thing you can do in the space being offered,
13:35just look at City's successful crosses in that second half. Rubbish. I mean, they're in the box,
13:41sure, but you can't score from any of the positions. They're getting the ball here.
13:45And just one final graphical overlay from City's perspective here, right? Because inevitably,
13:50he's now going to become part of the post-mortem of all this, right?
13:53So every touch, not pass, every touch of the ball, Erling Haaland had in the whole game. There's
13:59like three, three in the box. Two of them are shot, and all the rest of them are just congregated
14:06all the way out here, where Man United will not give a **** about him. And so good, man for man,
14:11were Manchester United, that it becomes really difficult to start picking out individuals and
14:15saying, oh, look what they did, and wasn't this a great game? Like, Amrabat, I thought was
14:19fantastic. Maneu, just is on another level. Both the wide players were so good. The centre-back
14:25pairing, I think only like the third or fourth time they've been able to use that pairing this
14:28season, was brilliant. But the one player I do want to pick out here is Aaron Wan-Bissaka,
14:33because this is where Man City were targeting Manchester United. This is where they thought
14:38they were going to get some joy, and they did. It's where the goal came from. But if you just
14:42look at all of his defensive contribution across this game, tackles, blocks, interceptions,
14:47recoveries, it was almost a perfect defensive full-back performance in a cup final. And that
14:53is what it takes to beat a team as good as Manchester City in a cup final. Like, you have
14:58to set up in the perfect way to give you a chance of going out and getting something. Then you need
15:04to trust that your players will go out and get you something. And they did. They went out and
15:11got this specifically, and it's incredibly, incredibly shiny. And now, of course, it does
15:16beg the question about Eric ten Hag's suitability to be Manchester United manager. Like if this was
15:21the first game under a new reign at the club, you'd be like, wow, this is night and day from
15:26how they were playing across the last two years. It's whether or not a performance this complete
15:30and this good with this much buy-in from your squads, you know, negates how in ten hogs own
15:36words, crap the entire season has been. And we will obviously, when they make a decision,
15:42either way, do a full video about that. But while I would say this is just an unbelievable
15:47performance, Manchester United aren't a team whose overall strategy across the season will see them
15:54having 27% of the ball. But in the here and now in this one game, which is all that matters when
15:59it's a cup final, it was almost faultless. It was excellent. It was as well as I have seen them play
16:05in a very long time. And I am happy, genuinely delighted after all the kickings I've had to give
16:10him on this channel to say that Eric ten hog, this may was genius. So that is it for the domestic
16:18season in this his majesty's Barclays premier league. If you have enjoyed the video, please do
16:23my United fans just celebrate in the comments. I haven't even got a good question for you.
16:26Just tell me how good that felt. I'll enjoy reading all of that. And of course, we will have
16:31way more Man United content over the summer and next season. So please subscribe to us here on
16:35442. We don't want to miss any of that. And of course, other clubs as well. Maybe just watching
16:39this as a casual bystander, your club will be covered. Almost certainly. Unless it's like,
16:45I don't know. Carlisle. In the meantime, though, you can grab me across all of the socials at
16:51Adam KVCLERY. 442s are in the corner of the video, the latest issue of the magazine, which I'm going
16:55to catch first time. Tada is the euros issue. You can get that now from all good retailers and
17:00the crap ones. We don't discriminate. And yes, that's it. Congratulations to Manchester United
17:06and in particular to Eric ten hog. What a day that was for you. Goodbye.