Why Man United struggle vs teams sitting in deep defensive formations

It was a frustrating afternoon for Manchester United on Sunday after they were held to a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford by Everton.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side were the more dominant on the day, hitting 23 shots, eight of which were on target and recorded an expected goal (xG) total of 1.77 - according to Wyscout.

The visitors, on the other hand, managed just nine shots, four of which tested David de Gea and registered an xG of just 0.39. United's dominance was further highlighted when looking at their superior possession average of 63%.

Despite this relative superiority, there was still a sense that United were struggling to create the same clear cut chances that they managed in their two previous league wins vs Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City.

In those matches, particularly in the latter vs City, Solskjaer instructed United to avoid looking to retain possession when they won the ball back, and instead launch quick counter-attacks for pacey attackers such as Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Daniel James to profit from.

It's been a largely successful tactic against the sides situated near the summit of the table, however, it cannot be replicated in games where the emphasis is put on United to attack, such as was the case vs Everton.

This is because when teams sit deep, there is less space to exploit and fewer moments where the attacking side can expose an unorganised defence.

United's struggles to find a way of breaking down sides sitting deep is highlighted by the fact that they have failed to win any of the eight league games in which they have had a possession average of over 55 per cent this season.

But why do they struggle so much?

A big problem is the roles played by both Fred and Scott McTominay in the centre of midfield.

Both players are strong in the defensive aspects of the game, reading opposition attacks well, making key interceptions and recycling possession of the ball.

However, from an attacking point of view, they seem to lack the ability or even confidence to attempt more line-breaking passes. An example of the same is below.

Fred picks the ball up and can play a pass to McTominay who can then attack the space highlighted.

The ball is played into McTominay who faces pressure from Richarlison, however he remains goal side.

At this point, rather than turning towards goal and attacking the aforementioned area, he decides to play the ball backwards towards Fred.

Now Fred is back in possession and looks to spot a pass to a team-mate. Ahead of him, Everton's Seamus Coleman has been dragged centrally by Marcus Rashford, meaning Fred has a good opportunity to play a lofted pass into Coleman's vacated area for Luke Shaw to attack.

Despite this, Fred avoids the forward pass towards Shaw and instead goes backwards to Harry Maguire and United are forced to start to build an attack again through their central defenders.

This reluctance to attempt more attack-minded passes is highlighted in the below shot maps for both players from Sunday's game.

In the match, Fred completed 69/77 of his attempted passes on the day, which returns a high success rate of 90 per cent. Yet, as illustrated in the below, a lot of those passes were sideways or even backwards, meaning they didn't provide much in terms of creative threat.

It was a similar story for McTominay who completed 36/45 of his passes in the match. He did take on a few more attack-minded through balls in the game, however, on the whole, the bulk of his passes were again sideways or backwards.

Neither player should necessarily be chastised for the above, after all, we are unsure of the instructions given to them by Solskjaer and his team. Additionally, they do tend to do a good job of anchoring the side whilst wing-backs support attackers in counter-attacking moments.

However, against sides who sit back, one of the central midfielders really needs to be less risk-averse and provide more of a creative and attack-minded approach. Failure to do so will mean that one of the two risks being dropped for similar fixtures in the future.