– Kagawas bevegelser imponerte

United v Norwich City

Premier League, 02.03.2013

Tactical analysis by manutdtactics.com, twitter: @manutdtactics

Second Gear

Perhaps with one eye on the forthcoming Champions League game United faced Norwich City at Old Trafford looking to avenge defeat at Carrow Road earlier in the season.

Personnel

In: Smalling, Evans, Anderson, Valencia, Rooney and Kagawa.

Out: Rafael, Ferdinand, Giggs, Nani, Young and Hernandez.

Key points

• This ended as a comfortable win for United, but before the first goal on the stroke of half-time it appeared as if this was going to be a difficult afternoon.

• Norwich set up to defend in depth and set United the challenge of getting through two banks of four. United struggled to do so initially, but the goal changed everything.

• The final score flattered United somewhat with the Reds scoring three late goals as a tiring Norwich was forced to chase the game.

• Kagawa had a good game and took all his goals well. Rooney struggled but let’s hope that his late contribution of a goal and two assist as he moved to a higher position helps his confidence and sees a return to form.

First Half

The United team set up as a 4-2-3-1 shape with Kagawa on the left. Other positions were generally as expected with Smalling at right back, Carrick slightly deeper than Anderson, Rooney in a central position behind Van Persie and Valencia wide on the right. Norwich’s formation was a 4-4-1-1 with Holt at the front and Hoolahan just behind, but often almost as high when they came forward. Snodgrass and Pilkington also looked to get forward when Norwich broke out, with Snodgrass having more opportunity to do so as Kagawa tended to play narrow and run inside a great deal leaving Evra exposed. Snodgrass often pushed right onto Evra and often fouled him and earning a yellow card for his efforts. This however served to restrict Evra’s impact going forward. Most of Norwich’s forward play came through Hoolahan.

Throughout the first half Norwich sat fairly deep in two banks of four, setting United the challenge of breaking through. United did not really rise to this challenge, their football being very pedestrian throughout the half. United seemed to have little urgency, their passing was not crisp enough to make an impression on Norwich and their movement off the ball, (with the exception of Kagawa), was poor. A criticism across the whole team would be that players were not playing passes early enough, taking extra touches before releasing the ball and as a consequence the side failed to disturb the Norwich defensive shape.

It took United 25 minutes to have a shot on goal and Norwich didn’t have a single shot throughout the half. The game was very drab, and the only notable feature was Kagawa’s movement. Kagawa was positioned on the United left, but he played fairly narrow and often moved to the centre, and even on a number of occasions right over to the right. Rooney and Van Persie regularly switched across in his place. It appears that Kagawa is a reluctant wide player, and on 45 minutes he popped up in the middle to grab the opening goal.

Boom! Valencia cut inside from the right, wiped in a cross which Van Persie prodded forward first time on the volley. The ball hit a Norwich defender and fell to Kagawa on the right hand corner of the six yard box to score. Kagawa was notionally playing on the left side.

Second Half

In the pattern of play very little changed at the start of the second half. Norwich perhaps played marginally higher, but then they were now chasing the game. As a consequence they won a couple of corners but these came to nothing. United continued to play a fairly laboured game.

Perhaps having taken the lead the United teams strategy was to change little and wait for Norwich to over commit.

The game became more interesting with substitutions. After 66 minutes Sir Alex removed Van Persie and introduced Welbeck. Welbeck moved to the wide left position with Kagawa moving to a central area behind Rooney, who now took on the role of the central striker. This seemed to help the team. Welbeck played narrow, as Kagawa had done but didn’t completely abandon the left hand side. Welbeck’s play was also more direct, running at Norwich and forcing them to take a step back on the left hand side, this allowed Evra to support the United attack on the left and all of a sudden United’s attack looked better balanced and more threatening. You often got the feeling that Welbeck was not completely in control of what he was doing, but then neither were Norwich.

Around the 75 minute mark there was a flurry of substitutions. United replaced Anderson with Cleverley; in terms of position a straight swap. Norwich removed Hoolahan and Snodgrass and introduced Bennett and Kamara. Norwich were now playing even higher as they looked for a way back into the game. Consequently this higher line left space behind their defence, space which United were able to exploit almost immediately.

Boom! On 77 minutes Carrick hit a searching pass for Rooney to run onto behind Bassong. Rooney ran on, calmly checked back and laid off a square pass to Kagawa arriving into the box. Kagawa was able to simply pass the ball into the net.

It’s difficult to say whether it was because Norwich were either tired or demoralized by this second goal, or a combination of both these factors, but United now threatened to overrun the visitors. United’s play was now better than at any point previously, players passed early, moved for each other on and off the ball and as a consequence kept the ball in threatening areas for long periods keeping Norwich on the back foot. In the last 15 minutes some of United’s football was the most fluent seen in weeks, with Rooney and Kagawa dovetailing, Valencia, Cleverley and Welbeck running bly and Carrick orchestrating from behind.

As a consequence United scored two late goals, Boom Boom! The first of these two completed Kagawa’s hat-trick after 87 minutes. This was a lovely free flowing first touch move through the centre culminating in Rooney playing a wall pass into the path of Kagawa who sprinted past the Norwich defence to chip the keeper. This was a fine finish and a great way to complete a hat-trick.

The final goal in time added on was a solo effort from Rooney. After a period of sustained pressure he received the ball on the edge of the box, ran laterally, dropped his shoulder to dummy a defender and curled a shot into the top corner of the net. Game over!

Conclusion

United were in second gear for most of this game, playing within themselves. They went up a gear at the time of the substitutions as Norwich began to play a higher line. United effectively picked Norwich off in this last fifteen minutes. This last fifteen minutes was almost like a different game from the first seventy five.

Kagawa had a great game and deserved his goals, all of which were finished well. Rooney’s late strike was the icing on the cake.