United fans are usually not in agreement. From the ownership to the starting eleven, there are many opinions held among various factions of the fanbase. We can all agree however, that it has not been a good start to the season.
I am not going to beat about the bush here; both Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford should be dropped. The reason for that being these two players are mavericks. The definition of the word maverick according to the Oxford dictionary is, an unorthodox or independent-minded person. Take a moment to consider the meaning of the word.
Square pegs?
As we speak, Ten Hag is yet to implement his system on the Manchester United squad. We have seen flashes of his system within games but these moments are fleeting. If you do not yet have your system drilled into the heads of the players it does not make much sense to continue to use players who exist outside of it.
Bruno and Rashford are game-breaking players capable of winning games on their own. Across various Managers these two players have pulled us out of jail. It’s this maverick nature that they both share that makes it hard to fit them into Ten Hag’s mold. Our play is not consistent; in moments during games it appears as though the players haven’t trained together. Misplaced passes, multiple turnovers within minutes, and a general lack of understanding between the players. Ten Hag Ball has not yet been implemented. In these dire moments, when things are going bad, the players resort to the tried and tested methods; give it to Bruno or hit it long to Rashford.
I don’t totally blame the players for it either. Last season Rashford scored 31 goals and had 11 assists across all competitions. If I was under pressure with few options I’d hit it long to Rashy too. The same goes for Bruno; he came into this team under Solskjær and lifted the entire squad on his own. I will never forget us losing to Burnley in a game before we bought Bruno and how low I felt as a fan. Bruno breathed life into this team and I find it hard to criticise him. However, I cannot deny the reality of what I can see.
Bruno is not in good form. Too many games have passed him by this season and his numbers have dropped off since the arrival of Ten Hag. Rashford’s form has deserted him and he is now overthinking every single action on the pitch. So the two mavericks are in poor form. What is the solution? Well if you ask the players on the pitch it’s keep giving them the ball until they figure it out. With the way the season is unfolding both Bruno and Rashford probably think “damn if I don’t do something right now we are going to lose.” It leads to selfish play and incorrect decision making. This is especially noticeable with Rashford who has been accused of both this season.
Over-Reliance on individuals
At what point does this become unsustainable? What if both players stay in poor form what then? At the moment the get of jail free card is to pass it to the mavericks and hope they figure it out. While this can get us results in the immediate term this is not a long term solution. The other players on the pitch need to figure out how to solve problems on their own. Work outside of the gamebreakers and construct coherent attacks.
This idea makes me think back to Van Gaal at Manchester United. He mentioned that at times did not make substitutions when things were going wrong because he wanted the players on the pitch to find solutions on their own.
The problem that can arise when this happens is that the entire team starts to develop a dependency on these mavericks. At United this overreliance is firmly entrenched. We do not play well as a team if Bruno does not play well. We cannot score goals as a team if Rashford doesn’t score. Take the game against Burnley this season; we won one nil as a result of a Bruno golazo. He can’t score wonder goals every game and we have seen what happens when he does not. We panic, go a goal down and go out with a whimper.
The performance during that game was not good either, we let Burnley cut us open and a better team would have beat us. The only way to have the players solve their own problems is to drop the mavericks for now and force the rest of the team to play without them, like we’ve seen in the Palace Cup game.
United vs Palace – our best performance this season
The most impressive Manchester United looked this season was a Carabao Cup win versus Crystal Palace. United won that game three nil with goals from Garnacho, Casemiro, and Martial. This was the most coherent and dominant performance so far this season. In my opinion, it is not a coincidence we looked that good when both Bruno and Rashford were dropped. The players on the pitch couldn’t take the easy option and pass it to the mavericks; they had to rely on the Manager’s instructions. Garnacho’s first goal was a well worked move involving a lay off from Palestri and a cutback from Dalot.
To my eyes this looked like a rehearsed move from the training ground. Cutbacks are a great way to cut teams open and one of the attacking patterns you see top teams use across the continent.
Generally in this game we held the ball well, constructed our attacks well, and the interplay between the players was great. Take a look at the build up prior to Martial’s goal. The movement off the ball from Garnancho and Hannibal was great and the way Amrabat moved to the far side of the pitch to make space for himself was smart. Even though Amrabat’s pass into the box was blocked by Riedewald, I had no concern that we would immediately get the ball back and we did. Casemiro stood in the correct space to collect the loose ball and he crossed well to Martial for him to score. When the ball comes in Hannibal moves quickly into the box and challenges for the ball in the air against a Palace defender. Even if he did not think he would get the ball he did the right thing to keep another defender occupied. This allowed Martial to have the space to get the wrong side of Clyne and score.
Calm, composed, and confident is how we looked for the entirety of the game. The reason for this is that we had more ‘system’ players on the pitch. At the momen,t Garnacho and Hannibal fit in with what Ten Hag is trying to do more than Rashford and Bruno. Hannibal especially seems to be able to run for days plus he knows how to read the game so he presses at the right moments. Garnancho is a direct player like Rashford but he has a bit more variety in how he chooses to attack. He has cutbacks, crosses, direct running, and shots in his locker. Rashford has these all too but at the moment he seems to be limiting his own options and picking the wrong ones too often.
I don’t care for the notion that we only looked that good because Palace rotated. It’s nonsense; even though Palace did rotate, does that mean that the attacking patterns we showed don’t count? When we look at the game versus Palace right after this one in the league we see the difference. When Bruno and Rashford started in that game there was no coherence in our play and no visible system or attacking patterns. You can’t have these x-factor players in your system when the players don’t have the vocabulary to speak the language of your system.
Existing Outside of the System
Erling Haaland is a great example for existing outside the system. Typically, and even with the eye test Haaland does not fit into Pep’s system. Haaland is not great on the ball and he is not involved enough in the build up play to be a typical Pep striker. Julian Alvarez is more a natural fit to the type of football Pep wants to play.
But yet this has been a total success for Manchester City. The reason for this being that Pep has had over five years to fine-tune his system. This is due to recruitment and generally being a well-run club but the players that Pep has at the moment are in total understanding of what he wants.
They are speaking the language of his system fluently, whereas United are still learning the vocabulary of Ten Hag’s system. Since the system is so well understood by the Manchester CIty players, their team can afford to have players who are allowed to exist outside it. One maverick that the system can “carry” so to speak.
Another example to consider is that of Newcastle United. One of the first things Eddie Howe did when he arrived at Newcastle as Manager was selling Allan Saint-Maximin. He sacrificed a maverick player in the name of his system. As a result of that Newcastle United are now flying high domestically and on the continent. The lingua franca of football in this era is systems and managers, not mavericks and x-factor players.
United are still in the foundational building stage and need to allow the system to thrive first and then bring the mavericks into the fold.
Thus, the first step for a more fluid Manchester United would be to drop our mavericks Rashford and Bruno.