Manchester United's First 5 Games
Title contending parts and Europa League parts for an interesting team
Progression Podium Points
7: Pogba
6: Matic
5: Shaw
4: Varane
3: Lindelof, Maguire
2: McTominay
1: Fernandes
Gold Shot Buildup Involvement
9: Fernandes, Greenwood
8: Pogba
2: Matic, Ronaldo
Receiving Progression Points
13: Fernandes
7: Pogba
5: Ronaldo
4: Greenwood
1: Sancho
Manchester United are in quite a fascinating zone. You can look at parts of the team and see title challengers and then parts and see maybe a Europa League team.
The Three Headed Trio…plus Ronaldo
With Marcus Rashford missing via injury, the eyes would have been on new signing Jadon Sancho to provide an early season boost for United’s attack. He has not really been unleashed yet but Mason Greenwood paired with the Pogba/Fernandes duo to lead the way. In shot buildup involvements the top 3 have 49% of the entire teams, which is right at the top with Spurs, Wolves and Watford.
This sort of
Martial Continues to Confound
He’s in the 92nd percentile over the past year for penalty box touches but yet under 50th percentile for shots and xG while being right around average for xA. This year he’s got 8 penalty box touches with just 1 shot from them, Timo Werner, Solly March and Joe Willock are the others with just 1 shot from as many penalty box touches.
He started last year the same way, taking 3 shots with 0 key passes from an incredible 26 penalty box touches to start the year. He gets into dangerous positions but then just…doesn’t shoot or key pass.
Bruno’s Role Reduced In a Big Way
Last year Bruno had 273 yards of progressive passing per 90, this year that’s down to 135. He’s attempting almost 20 fewer passes per 90
A representative game from last year
vs this year
Fernandes’ placement in the upper middle of that attacking chart above when it comes to shot buildup involvement is a drop from last year when he led the entire league in that stat. Some of this is clearly from Pogba’s increasing influence, up from a Redmond/McNeilesque 6 shot buildup involvements per 90 toward the elite level he’s started at this year.
Fernandes is simply not going to be able to dominate the ball like he did last year, especially now with Ronaldo coming into the picture.
Ronaldo
His receiving was excellent, it was Newcastle of course but his Fields Gained receiving numbers were 60% above other attacking players like Sancho, Greenwood and Martial season-long rates. He had 4 lines of supply:
One thing to watch since Ronaldo has arrived is United have stagnated just outside the Danger Zone.
Part of this is United have totally dominated possession in this time period: no one has more completions, and dominating to that extent naturally leads to passing around to try and beat a low block. Some suspicions of Ronaldo’s lack of buildup play might sneak into this though if they continue to stagnate here.
Danger Zone is 1/2.
Ronaldo is progressing as well though, not just a receiving hub…there are 11 players at the top end at all 3: progression, receiving and shot buildup involvement. Only Salah joins Ronaldo as a player who is a true “forward” as in expected to be the furthest forward player for big chunks of the game.
Tough Through the Middle Defensively
It’s quite tough to move the ball well through the center of Manchester United.
Only Aston Villa have allowed fewer yards per ball won back through the center of their defense.
Established Possession Struggles
United are second in the league in most yards gained per ball loss in the first 10 seconds of a possession, behind just Man City. But they are 13th in the league in the same metric after the 20 second mark of the possession, behind teams like Watford and Everton. They also don’t create a ton during this phase. What’s the problem with United’s extended possession work?
Pogba for two years now has been a transition creator but not a Rodri/Cancelo type of player who creates and progresses against a set defense, when you couple that with another couple midfielders in Fred and McTominay who tend to just pass backwards against a set defense and don’t progress late in possession and you can see some of the problems.
This links back a bit to the “cloggage” or stagnation outside the danger zone since Ronaldo has joined.
Sancho Yet to Settle
One thing Ronaldo’s ability to come in and dominate from minute 1 has done is made Sancho’s struggles a bit clearer. Of the 50 attacking players with 150 or more minutes, he is 46th in shot buildup involvements per 90 minutes. He’s progressing the ball fine but that’s not why he got the huge transfer fee…2 shots just won’t cut it. It might be tough for him to carve out a clear starting role with Pogba, Bruno, Ronaldo and Greenwood humming along and Rashford coming back soon.