Seventeen rounds into the 2024/25 season, Manchester United are 13th in the Premier League table, with a meagre tally of 22 points, having lost more games than they’ve won. Had anyone at any point of the Sir Alex Ferguson era suggested anything like this would ever happen, it would’ve been classed as an outrageous statement.
On October 27th, United were beaten by a struggling West Ham side and that result sealed the fate of Erik ten Hag at the club. Ruud van Nistelrooy was given the interim role before the club finally appointed Ruben Amorim, but not much has changed in terms of results since, despite what now seems to have been a brief spark of winning energy in the beginning.
Amorim will be aware of the size and difficulty of the task he’s been given – for a start, to get the 20-time English champions anywhere near to competing for the Premier League title again, or at least to playing Champions League football regularly. There is plenty for the former Sporting Lisbon coach to work on, but set-pieces are arguably one his team’s most-glaring weaknesses and most-urgent problems he and his staff need to address.
United have conceded nine goals through set-pieces this season, a number worsted only by 18th-place Wolverhampton Wanderers. Also, over a third of set-pieces given against them leads to the opposition taking a shot, which is an alarming rate.
Manchester United’s glorious past was strewn with aerially dominant players – Jaap Stam, Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, just to name a few. Even in more recent years, there were Johnny Evans, Raphael Varane, Eric Bailly, Scott McTominay, Paul Pogba, Edinson Cavani, Nemanja Matic – obviously not all defenders, but all perfectly capable of contributing to defending their own box when threatened by a set-piece situation.
Now, however, only Harry Maguire and Matthijs de Ligt fall into that category, and when one of them isn’t playing, an opponent who analyzes their weaknesses and prepares their attacking set-pieces carefully will have a field day.
Lisandro Martinez certainly doesn’t lack aggression or courage, but he simply cannot do much against taller, stronger players when a cross comes in. The goal Nikola Milenkovic scored after less than two minutes of Nottingham Forest’s victory at Old Trafford at the start of December was a perfect example of the Argentina international getting brushed aside in his own box.
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The January transfer window is about to open, and United would certainly do well to look into signing one or two players who won’t allow themselves to get pushed around or beaten in the air so easily.
But quite apart from individual shortcomings of the players defending set-pieces, Amorim, or rather the man he’s put in charge of that specific segment, Carlos Fernandes, should reconsider the way the players are arranged in the box. Like many other teams, United tend to put some bodies inside the six yards and others to block potential runners into that area, but more often than not, the latter group leaves spaces here and there, spaces which opponents study and eventually exploit. Against Bournemouth on Sunday, for example, United conceded the first goal when Cherries defender Dean Huijsen attacked the space between Joshua Zirkzee and Bruno Fernandes at the near post.
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Set-pieces certainly aren’t the only problem Amorim has to find a way to deal with, but going back through the basics of that particular segment probably wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
