Manchester United has undergone a revival under Ole Gunnar Solskjaers short tenure. Players like Paul Pogba, Nemanja Matic, Victor Lindelöf and Anthony Martial have already shown huge improvement in their form since the Norwegian took over from Jose Mourinho. One player who really seemed to be a bad fit personality-wise with the Portuguese is Luke Shaw. The English left-back has been superb since Solskjaer took charge. This tactical analysis will look at his new role in Solskjaers United.
Luke Shaws role under Solskjaer
Shaw never really had a long and consistent role in the team under former Real Madrid boss Mourinho who often publicly criticized the left-backs mentality. Despite this, Shaw had made 12 Premier League starts this season under Mourinho. With Solskjaer coming in, Shaw has been given a hugely different role to the defence-first mentality of Mourinho.
Shaws previous responsibility was to stay close to the central defenders and not get caught high up the field. Under Solskjaer, he is vital to Uniteds attacking play with excellent passing and intelligent movement.
Its already been clear that Solskjaer has certain ideas about how he wants his United to play. These mainly mirror what I profiled from his Molde tactics. Its about rotation, fluidity and combination play. The full-backs play a vital role. Solskjaer talked after the Cardiff win about how he wanted his full-backs to play.
“We had a little session yesterday on the patterns of play and we wanted Ashley [Young] going forward and Luke [Shaw] to support Anthony [Martial], because hes great one-against-one, and Ash on the right-hand side too. It worked great today.”
These roles were similar in the following two matches. Against Bournemouth, for example, Uniteds attacking shape often looked as imaged below. Young pushed high and wide with Lingard moving inside on the right while Martial stayed wide on the left with Shaw tucking inside.
This created a very fluid shape with lots of possible passing triangles. One of these triangles, between Martial, Pogba and Shaw, has already proved key to Uniteds attacking football.
Key to Manchester Uniteds combination play
Luke Shaws changed role in possession can be seen with everyones set of eyes, but its also proven statistically. In the last four matches he played under Mourinho, Shaw averaged 45 passes. In Solskjaers first four, he averaged 81 passes as United looked to dominate possession through quick and slick short-passing combinations.
Below we can see a triangle being established on Uniteds left wing. The connection and combination play between Shaw, Martial and Pogba has been key in Uniteds exciting style of play. The trio often exchange quick passes between each other to draw in the opposition to then attack another space and exploit a weakness there. Shaw positions himself at the base of the triangle with a good passing angle diagonally to the two Frenchmen. With Martial wide this forces Shaw to move a bit more centrally.
