Sports Season Manchester United fans should be no stranger to The DevilsDNA, this guy is good at using data analysis to dig out some tactical characteristics, and in January 2022, he recommended Manchester United to sign Guimaraes, and then was poached by Newcastle; He also recommended Manchester United to sign Gvardiol, and then shined in the World Cup. One of the more forward-looking and far-sighted bloggers recently updated an article discussing Manchester United's rebuilding midfield, which is roughly as follows:
While there are many things a midfielder can accomplish, try to summarize the responsibilities of a midfielder into 6 basic functions, P for possession and D for defensiveness.
P1: Transitioning possession from the defensive third to the midfield third, which includes receiving the ball from the feet of goalkeepers and defenders, and being able to control the ball while pressing, being able to circulate effectively and handling a large number of balls consistently. (In fact, it is ball control + dirty ball).
P2: Transition the ball from the midfield third to the attacking third, including the ability to advance with the ball, be able to switch positions, be able to transfer long passes, and have the ability to pass vertically and break through the defensive line with the ball, and be able to make risky creative passes while ensuring the safety of the ball.
P3: Ability to help a team create scoring opportunities or score directly, including delivering a lethal pass, passing the ball to the player in the best position to shoot, being able to break down the opposition's defence with creativity, having good off-ball movement into dangerous areas, and scoring ability.
D1: When losing possession of the ball, be able to quickly organize the defense line with the midfielders in the lower position, including protecting the back line, or joining the back line, that is, when the team loses the ball, it can complete the transition from attack to defense, and need to have a good sense of position, be able to intercept and block the opponent's pass, and not fall behind when the opponent is 1v1, and also need to watch the opponent's off-ball running personnel.
D2: Ideally the second-back midfielder in possession, including a wide range of coverage, with continuous running, pressing, interceptions and possession, and being able to provide additional defensive support to the deepest midfielder.
D3: Have the ability to press in the high position, when losing possession, have a good sense of position and prediction for disrupting the opponent's organization and attack, and be able to tenaciously press, chase and mark the opponent's key players, and lead the team to press.
You can see that this is defining the work task, not the function of a location. Because different tactics have completely different requirements for different positions, you can combine these 6 tasks in various ways and assign them to different players to make a difference. For example, in the 433 formation, the back may take on a large number of P1 and D1 tasks, and some tasks are shared by personnel in several positions.
Manchester United may seem to have a large group of midfielders, but few will be able to use them in the next year or two. Casemiro and Eriksen are 32 years old, and the two have been struggling in terms of physicality, fitness and intensity of the game for a year, and in general, it makes sense for United to continue to invest in young players, assuming that Casemiro and Eriksen are not at Manchester United this summer window and even next summer.
Amrabat didn't play a role during his loan spell and the general feeling is that Ten Hag is worried about injuries and therefore lacks midfield use, and will not actually buy out Amrabat, so his presence will not be counted. Donny van de Beek hasn't played in United's first team for a long time and he is likely to leave in the summer window, so he won't be counted as staying. As for Hannibal and Gore, the two players are a bit complicated, and it is uncertain whether Ten Hag will stay at the end of the season, and it is not certain whether a potential new manager will use them in the future, so they are not counted for the time being.
So,In essence, Manchester United can only have four midfielders for a long time after the summer window or after next year's summer window, including B Fee, McTominay, Mount and Meno。The reason for Mount and Mayno is simple, because they are young enough and have just started their careers at Manchester United, Fernandes is 29 years old and in his prime, and McTominay could spark discussion.
Now, according to the 6 tasks we have summarized, the abilities and specialties of our 4 midfielders, we will score them against the tasks. It belongs to the rating of 5 points, 0 points means that the player does not have this ability at all, and a score of 4 or more indicates that the player is good at the task, for example, McTominay's D2 rating of 4 does not mean that McTominay is better than most players in the D2 project, but it only means that on McTominay's skill tree, D1 and D3 ratings are far less good than D2.
B fee:Whether it's ball control or switching from attack to defense, the further back he goes, the worse his performance becomes. The higher he is up, the better he becomes, and he has always been the best in the final third, where he is only capable of passing the ball into the final third. Whether it is organizing offense or switching between attack and defense, his performance in the defensive third is not up to standard.
Meno:In possession, Meno was excellent in the defensive third, thanks to his ability to withstand pressure, dribble and composure in circulation. In terms of advancement, he has been doing well in the midfield third. However, he is not a player in the offensive third, he is also prone to losing possession in the offensive third, he is not good at landing the last defensive midfielder, because he is relatively short in stature, and tends to dribble and pass dangerous moves in 1v1, he has shown good pressing ability in recent games.
Mason Mount:Contrary to popular belief, I don't think Mount is a replacement for Fernandes, nor do I think their stats overlap. Mount's efficiency in the final third is not at all comparable to Fernandes, but his role in P2 was seriously underrated, as evidenced by his early performances in the season, as he was a very good presser and a very good consistent defender after losing possession.
McTominay:I'm sure this will be controversial, but listen to me patiently. In terms of possession, I think McTominay has been doing well in all three phases, he doesn't have the creativity or passing skills of Fernandes, but he is a good shooter with excellent shooting ability and underrated ball handling, which makes him a very useful player in the attacking third, and when he loses possession, he also does well in the midfield third, including confrontation, coverage and second point contention. However, due to his poor positioning and defensive awareness, he is not suitable for dragging back and pressing high.
Knowing the assignment of tasks and the allocation of existing players, then we have a very clear idea of the midfielders that need to be added in the summer window. We need a ball-possessing type of midfielder with a certain sense of defensive position, that is, players who perform very well in the P1 and D1 stages, that is, players who have the ball out of the back + sweep at the back. We also need a small hexagonal warrior, that is, a player who performs well in D1 and has a certain ability to control the ball, that is, a defensive midfielder + a certain ability to control the ball.
The latter calculation process is too complicated, not to translate, probably to build a model of these data, matching the model adaptability of the performance of various data such as pass success rate, steal data, interception data) from fbref** all the data of midfielders in the seven major European leagues, data modeling, weighted average of various key data, and the final result is that the players in the following figure are more suitable for Manchester United.
Among them, Manchester City's Rodri + B, Arsenal's Rice, Tottenham's Bissouma, Liverpool's McAllister, Brighton's Gross, Chelsea's Enzo Fernandez + Gallagher, Villa's Kamara, Real Madrid's Kroos and other players are all relatively adaptable. In fact, the players with relatively high adaptability are now basically the core midfielders of the major giants, including Inter's Cha Ball King.