United in Attack – What’s going on?

Manchester United under Erik Ten Hag have had many problems – but one that has been notable has been their struggle to consistently create chances and score goals. After the first 3 games of the 24/25 PL season their xGD (according to Understat) is around 0.2, indicating that they should be scoring the same as they should concede.

So why can’t United create enough chances?

The Setup

Ten Hag typically sets United up in a manner to win the ball high and attack quickly by getting the ball forward as fast as possible, be it with long passes or quick short passing forward. In previous interviews he has mentioned how he wants United to be strong in transition. To do this, United employ a 424 press, detailed in the thread below.

The 424 is very aggressive and commits many men forward to win the ball – and in possession there’s a similar story. Ten Hag often uses a 3-1-6 in possession, committing a whole number of players forward to outnumber the opposition in forward areas with rotations.

By overloading one side of the pitch with players, Ten Hag can isolate his wingers on the opposite side and then quickly switch the ball to them, either with a long pass or a sequence of short passes.

So in essence Ten Hag wants:

-          To attack quickly

-          To have his wingers in 1v1 situations

-          To be strong in transition.

What’s happening on the pitch?

In the 3-0 loss against Liverpool, United had a number of transition opportunities that were squandered, with some examples shown below:

Although these attacking scenarios do seem dangerous, because there is no shot on the end of them, they aren’t measured when we look at chance creation stats. There are many situations where United’s attackers either make poor decisions or fail to execute their intended pass well enough.

This also occurred in the 2-1 loss against Brighton, with a lot of situations breaking down before the ball reached the box, by way of poor execution or passing.

Despite all this, United have still created 8 big chances in the PL - but they have only scored 2 goals.

United have a pretty young forward line, with new addition Zirkzee being thrown in despite not having a preseason. Over time, the confidence should grow, and the decisions and executions of the players should improve too. Wait and see.