[Analysis] /r/reddevils' Best XI of the Season - Day 4

PLAYER OF THE DAY: LUKE SHAW (LEFT-BACK)

AVERAGE RATING: 6.89 - TOP PERFORMANCE: 8.38

RIVAL: CHELSEA, APRIL 18 2015. STAMFORD BRIDGE.

Sensible soccer: It's not hard to conclude that Shaw earned his top rating of the season in big part thanks to his attacking intent in this match against Chelsea, completing 2 shots on goal and creating 3 goal-scoring chances. So how did these plays come about? Well, the core idea was quite simple: double up on Ivanovic (with Young) and be aggressive if the Serbian was. If Ivanovic was not alone, Shaw shouldn't make an attacking run. Here you can see that one big chance we got in the third minute. Notice at what point Shaw starts running: as Young is about to receive McNair's pass, Shaw notices that the condition is met (i.e. Ivanovic is alone covering the flank) and sprints on his back. Although none of these chances ended up with a goal, we saw very similar sequences as the match went on. In fact, the following instance happened just 2 minutes later. Once again, you can see that as Young receives Rooney's pass, Shaw moves forward with attacking intent because Ivanovic is effectively alone on our left flank. However, please re-watch the sequence and see how as Rooney sends the long pass, Fellaini (who is being man-marked by Zouma,) starts moving into the left channel but then goes into the box. As a consequence, not only we had the towering Belgian on the far post ready for a cross, but Zouma also followed him and so he failed to support Ivanovic. And here we have it again: As Young is about to receive Fellaini's pass, Shaw (off the screen) notices that Ivanovic is alone and sprints. Although the Serbian did well blocking Shaw's cross, I think these 3 sequences are enough evidence of a play that was methodically practiced in training and that was put to good use by Young and Shaw. Also, the fact that Young is right-footed and Shaw is left-footed puts the opposition's right-back in a tough spot, and you can see this particularly well in that last sequence. Ivanovic approaches Young but his body is ready to follow Shaw; if Young decides to cut inside instead, Ivanovic would be out of balance and would leave Young free to put in a cross into the box. Or the other way around: if Ivanovic showed Young into his weak foot, if Shaw runs past him he would be out of balance, unable to track Shaw who would be absolutely free to reach the byline.

Pseudo-left-center-back on a temporary back 5?: OK; I thought this was very, very interesting. At least during the first 10 or 15 minutes of the game, when we were out of possession our defensive formation resembled a back 5, composed of Young, Shaw, McNair, Smalling and Valencia. And, either Shaw was in charge of Drogba or Drogba was targeting Shaw, but something odd was definitely going on. Please have a look at this first piece of evidence and notice how deep Young is located, always following Ivanovic's possible run on our left. Also, see how our defense looked at that point: Shaw seems to be marking Drogba, Young is protecting the space which Ivanovic could run into, and McNair is almost a sweeper, while Smalling is protecting his side of the defense. McNair role as a sweeper in this clip can be seen more clearly here: Young is with Ivanovic, and as Drogba moves behind Shaw, McNair takes him. In this next sequence, once again Young is playing deep; although Shaw is with Drogba, it's McNair who tries to head the ball away (the sweeper role also theoretically 'allows' for him to move in front of the defense as needed,) and Shaw moves back to defend from Oscar's attack, as if he were a left center-back. As Young then recovers possession and moves upfield, it gives us a chance to see how we transitioned from this temporary back 5 to our regular back 4. In this sequence, we see how Young passes the ball back to Shaw and our defense moves the ball away from the Chelsea players, slowing down the tempo. By the time Smalling has time on the ball, notice that we are completely back to a back four. Shaw and Valencia are hugging the touchline and our players are spreading out. In summation, I think this demonstrates the detail with which the coaching staff prepared this match, trying to come up with solutions for possible problems. Shaw's defensive discipline meant that if Drogba wanted to dribble into the box, he'd have to go through Shaw and McNair. If Drogba tried to flick the ball behind Shaw, McNair was there. And if Hazard was coming from the left? Valencia and/or Smalling were on it. And I thought Luke was great in this role, which demanded a lot of concentration and dedication, to go from left-back to left center-back, to left-back again and then to an attacking sprint 20 seconds later... really remarkable.

It's all about that space... for improvement: Let's change things up a bit and finish off with one of the possible low points of his performance, or better said, one of the improvements we might see next season. Let's go back in time to October, when United faced West Brom. As mentioned in my analysis of that game, Shaw was a liability when he pressed on midfield. We have this play, which left a huge gap behind his back, and we have this other one, which ended up with a goal against us. In the Chelsea match, we saw it again. As he followed Oscar into midfield, once again he failed to put enough pressure into his opponent, prompting a one-touch pass from Matic that could've caused us more trouble. However, Herrera read the play perfectly and intercepted the lay-off... that was aimed to Oscar. It is important for me to mention that I'm not entirely sure what are the factors that determine how high you should follow your man if he's dragging you into midfield, nor how you're supposed to press him properly. However, we've seen Smalling and Jones getting better at it throughout the season, so I'm sure Louis van Gaal et al will be working in order to improve this area of Shaw's repertoire.

I'm sure that at the beginning of the season I wasn't the only one interested in finally seeing this young player perform for our team. Although I had read about him a lot, I don't think I had seen him play more than 6 times for Southampton. And while the Football Manager, PES or FIFA games aren't necessarily horribly wrong when it comes to their assessment of football players, we must always keep in mind that these games are not real life, and that these are real people. And from what I've seen this season, Shaw really gives me hope for our left-back position in the long term. Not only because of his attacking intent or defensive skills alone, but because he has shown true discipline and commitment to both the club and the manager. van Gaal said he wasn't fit enough? He sucked it up and worked hard. There was talk about the fact that he was a Chelsea fan? He either got his own good answers or he was very committed to the media guidance of the club. He also hasn't complained for not getting as much starts as he may have expected. He looks professional and keen not so much to impress per se, but to actually do a good job. This is a very young man - 4 months younger than Januzaj, if that works as a reference - who is adapting extremely quicky to all that entails being at a club the size of Man United. I cannot wait to see him, hopefully more often, in our starting XIs next season. For a season summary, you can check out his profile at WhoScored.com.

And as a final comment, I thought it was somewhat interesting that amongst the 11 best rated performances of the season, the lowest 4 belonged to our defenders. Now, it's time to move on to who knows what other area of the pitch...

As always, thanks for reading and your comments. All your feedback is welcome. I hope this post also helps some of us get our act together before today's match. God damn it.

(See you next Tuesday for Day 5!)

^Credits:

^/u/welbzy ^for ^the ^properly ^good-looking ^infography.
^/u/Pimp-My-Alpaca, ^/u/welbzy, ^/u/tammodi, ^/u/zaran10, ^/u/DatGuyRich ^and ^/u/okunenju ^for ^their ^respective ^duties ^in ^the ^collection ^and ^presentation ^of ^the ^players' ^ratings.

<<< Day 3 - Antonio Valencia | Day 4 - Luke Shaw | Day 5 - Michael Carrick>>>

Posted May 9, 2015, 1:17 PM UTC · edited

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