Anfield point a positive but Man United remain a team of contradictions and compromise
Erik ten Hag insisted United could be “proud” of their draw at Liverpool despite a very defensive performance
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Your support makes all the difference.In the Anfield away dressing room after the match, Erik ten Hag’s message was rather simple. “We should do this more often.”
Many watching on might disagree with that, given this was a dismal 0-0 nobody will want to watch more than once - but you got the point. There was at last some light for Manchester United, even if it was just a sliver.
After a dismal week and a bad run of absences, they went to a game where they were expected to get a beating and came away with their dignity intact. More important was really that there was a semblance of stability again, that offered Ten Hag breathing space. It just calms the mood, halts the negative spiral.
The great question - and it’s not the first time it has been asked this season - is whether they can actually use this to kick on; to do something more.
United are in an admittedly strange place when a 0-0 draw at Anfield after being dominated is considered something worth being “proud” of, as Ten Hag put it.
There were a few more positives than just that. Kobbie Mainoo was again excellent, backing up the suggestions that he can be the Frenkie de Jong that Ten Hag never got in 2022. Jonny Evans was again solid, while Raphael Varane looked back to controlling form beside him.
And yet the latter is one of many facets that obscures the view. Varane went through a period when he wasn’t being picked because Ten Hag didn’t think him as effective at left centre-back, and where it was felt he was giving away possession too much. Has that all changed after this match? Is Varane now back in?
A touch more troublingly, would United still be in Europe - or even the Champions League - had Ten Hag persisted with a defender who is clearly his most accomplished?
It does speak to some of the issues that informed the mood around this game, beyond the form and injuries. One reason the list of absences didn’t completely feel as ruinous as it could be is because Ten Hag still doesn’t seem to know what his best or even preferred XI is. There have been so many abrupt changes, even when players are fit.
There are very few squad members you would even say are above that, and would definitely start. Andre Onana is clearly one, even if that comes with questions of its own. There are then Diogo Dalot, Luke Shaw, Bruno Fernandes and - almost beyond anyone - long-term absentee Lisandro Martinez. Otherwise, even Marcus Rashford has felt more at risk, this week’s illness notwithstanding. Scott McTominay has started more games than all but three of those players, but that comes after Ten Hag wanted to sell him in the summer. The midfielder, like Harry Maguire, has creditably forced his way back into a team that just hasn’t been functioning.
It still feels little more than a compromise.
That’s fine and, despite going out of the Champions League, United do remain within viewing distance of the top four.
It’s just that compromise can’t continue indefinitely. As this very match against Liverpool illustrated, there is a constant sense of United trying to get through difficulty until the next time. That raises another frustratingly circular question. How much are the circumstances preventing the implementation of a tactical ideology and how much is the lack of ideology affecting the circumstances?
It’s why there can be sympathy and some criticism for Ten Hag, all at the same time. The one thing that can be said is that it’s rare for an ideologue of a coach, which he is supposed to be, to compromise so much in the modern game. Most tend to persist with a system despite problems, because it actually helps further ingrain an idea in a squad. This is what a variety of different managers have proven over the past few years, including Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Eddie Howe, Andoni Iraola and Ange Postecoglou.
They’ve all insisted on core principles regardless of what else is happening. Ten Hag, by contrast, is looking like he will always completely compromise until he has the team exactly as he wants it. And it’s difficult to say what that team exactly is.
That did actually serve United for this trip to Liverpool in a roundabout way. They had no choice but to dig in. There was also the fact that Klopp himself isn’t yet playing a best ideal of this Liverpool, which again made them look unconvincing. This sort of game has probably been coming for some time.
It did take United to force that, mind, even if they were fortunate at Liverpool’s sloppiness. There was still a resolve there. This is one aspect with Ten Hag that shouldn’t be overlooked. His side have never completely spiralled, and that despite some real humiliations in his brief time. They have always rallied.
That is to the manager’s credit. It stopped a beating here, and restored humility. Once INEOS come in, though, they're going to have to show more, much more often.
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