Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Tactics At Manchester United 2018/2019 – Tactical Analysis

After a stunning start to his time as Manchester Uniteds interim manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjær has faced an extremely difficult spell in which United has been catastrophic.

In fact, ever since his spell in charge was made permanent, United have conceded a lot of goals.

This will be the focus of this tactical analysis, as Ill highlight Manchester Uniteds defensive problems and why Solskjær needs to improve his sides defensive structure to address them.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Statistics

Its been clear lately that United have defended very poorly compared to only six weeks ago.

The statistics back this up: in Solskjærs first 19 games in charge, United conceded 17 goals.

In the eight since his appointment was made permanent, theyve conceded sixteen.

They kept seven clean sheets in those first nineteen games compared with none after Solskjær became the permanent manager during the international break in March.

It seems incredible that a team that impressed defensively and kept clean sheets against Chelsea and Liverpool now finds itself consistently being played right through the spine of its team.

Teams like West Ham, Watford and Wolves have all deserved to score more than they have in games against United.

Its not like United have been exploited for being a lot more attacking and looking to outscore the opponent, as United are without a goal in open play for about a month, but United have simply been extremely poor both in attack and in defence.

Where is Ole Gunnar Solskjærs Manchester United going wrong?

United probably do their analysis well after games, but still, they havent eradicated their structural issues defensively.

These issues include too much space given to opponents between Uniteds midfield and defence, man-orientated marking dragging players out of position and horrible, reactive positioning around the box.

Lets look at a few examples of this below.

Spaces between the lines

Anyone who has ever coached or played football knows that you need to protect the space between your defensive and midfield lines.

This is especially true against teams like Barcelona.

In the image below, Ive highlighted Uniteds defensive setup just before Coutinho made it 3-0.

Lionel Messi is on the ball in midfield and plays a sweeping pass out to Jordi Alba.

He could, though, just as easily have threaded it into Coutinho or Luis Suárez who are positioned between Uniteds defence and midfield.

The central midfield duo of Fred and McTominay both push towards the ball while the defence drops, creating that huge space between the lines.

Alba has just played the ball back to Coutinho (yellow).

Lindelöf, Smalling and Jones have all dropped while left-back Ashley Young has been to slow to retreat.

The same goes for Fred in midfield.

This means Barca are actually 3 vs 3 agains