The Unbearable Dullness of Manchester United’s Double Pivot
The pursuit of this article started with a simple tweet from Fabrizio Romano, that to put simply, Manchester United’s strive towards a defensive midfielder would be contingent on the future of Van de Beek and Pogba, two players who wouldn’t know what the role is even if you hit them with it.
The natural thing to do upon the arrival of this very annoying piece of information of course, for any sane human being, is to open their spreadsheets overflowing with data, spend days [and annoy other people in the process too, thank you Ram] creating new metrics and visualisations to prove exactly why Manchester United are, well, wrong. And that’s what I did. I converted my inexplicable rage and fairly toxic relationship with this club to very useful information.
What’s the point, you may ask? Well, we all know Manchester United’s double pivot is an inadequate one, we’ve heard it time and time again. What I attempt to do here is show you why. I focus on one specific facet of a defensive midfielder that this club in particular has been crying out for: passing. I know, you’d think it’s quite simple a concept, after all, it’s the most common and important action on the ball. A pass is very important, and we often see it embody different characters. Sometimes it’s the knife that splits a backline in two, sometimes it’s the get out of jail free card to prevent from conceding a goal. You know what they say, attacking is the best form of defense. Having the ball protects your opponent from having it.
So with that in mind, you’d think Manchester United has had enough of watching our centre-halves struggle to find our double pivot in good positions. Apparently they didn’t. You know, I’m quite tired myself, of seeing compilations of our players passing back and forth aimlessly. Without a good defensive midfielder, Manchester United will fail.
Please note: from this point forward, all analysis is with regards to the performance of this pivot as a marriage, not sole criticism of individual players.
In actuality, it’s a very simple concept. If your midfielders struggle to move the ball forward, how can you create chances? Manchester United can splurge all they like on the Sancho’s and Cavani’s of the world, but it won’t matter if you don’t have players getting them the ball. With this current pivot, you don’t.
Pass sonars show us the frequency and length of a player’s aggregate passing for every angle. What does it tell us? A player’s passing tendencies: the distances, angles, frequencies. What does it tell us about this pivot? Both McTominay and Fred struggle both moving the ball forward in frequency and distance. They can’t switch enough to exploit defences cheating their way towards the ball. They pass backwards at an alarming rate, and both of them have their highest frequency coming laterally. Their highest recipients of their passes in their own half, is well, [funnily enough] themselves. This doesn’t penetrate defensive structures – not low blocks that allow them to maintain the three C’s: compact, compressed and comfortable, or high presses that allow them to maintain intensity and force errors.
But, Maram! A defensive midfielder’s role isn’t to progress, it’s to protect the backline! Well, no, not at all. The midfield of the pitch is often the one most suffocated with players, especially now, with more and more teams now pressing high to force turnovers. So, if both players are not comfortable with the ball, you’ll likely be susceptible to dangerous errors in your own half, struggling to create and well.. not protecting your backline.
The natural question that thus follows: how do Manchester United’s current double pivot pass? And more importantly, how do they pass in one of the most important phases: buildup? What’s the purpose of buildup you may ask? In very basic terms it is getting the ball forward to the attacking players in favourable conditions.
Let’s talk pink, or in other words, sideways. Let’s first note, passing sideways is not always bad, but it has to be purposeful. Sometimes, passing back and forth to your partner in midfield is an attempt to lure players in a press, to create space, to find angles or find forwards running at the opposition backline. When does it become concerning? When it’s your highest type of passing cluster in buildup, and that’s the case for Fred, or rather the entire pivot. It’s a game of hot potato, both players essentially hand it off to another to try to figure it out themselves. While they are to blame for a lack of imagination, this isn’t entirely their fault, it’s also Manchester United’s bad buildup structure that places emphasis on individual contributions rather than rehearsed cogs in a machine.
It also further leads Fred, who himself isn’t great at central progression, to go further wide. We now go purple and turquoise, and it’s here we see best than elsewhere how dependent this team’s fragile structure is on Luke Shaw. He’s the top 3 across the entire squad for ball progression, and in a 4–2–3–1, or any formation really — it’s problematic. Fred’s two passing tendencies involves either finding him wide, or combining in the defensive third.
There is weak central penetration in the pivot, which ultimately forces Manchester United’s forwards even further wide, and specifically, left. Just look at Bruno Fernandes, who should be a free roam 10, but instead spends most of his time wide, and dropping unnecessarily deep to compensate for a lack of progression. And we can see that in how much Fred’s distribution, and presence, is concentrated out wide. It’s disjointed.
But, Maram! Fred is one of our best progressors according to FBref. Well, no. And no, I’m not calling them liars either. It’s just, according FBref’s calculation for a progressive pass, they exclude the first 40% of the pitch [and well, that’s a very important area left out for our double pivot]
So, where is Fred accumulating these great progression numbers? It’s quite simple. I looked at the start and end location of his progressive passes [25% closer to the centre of the goal] and found that he initiates and completes them in both the opposition half. That means, most likely, in transitions. So, while that’s great supplementary value, that’s not the primary value you need from your double pivot.
Let’s move to other side of this bad marriage. We see that both of their highest clusters involve passing to each other in the centre of the pitch, rather than penetration. Let’s get this fair in the books: passing wide is not bad. It’s quite common, given how congested the middle of the pitch tends to be. It’s the safe option. But.. if both your pivot players are choosing the safe option, who’s breaking the lines?
The answer is twofold: your pivot is rendered as useful as an empty bag of crisps and your backline and your forwards end up compensating for such. One big testament is, well, Harry Maguire. Purple, sideways, shows us just unimaginative this pivot is. It can’t work with both players handicapped and allergic to the central areas.
All the value that Scott adds in buildup is finding AWB high, but throwing the burden on a fullback who isn’t great at progression either only contributes to the frailty of the right flank. Not only that, where Scott receives and where he lays off is virtually the same space. While he might be somewhat press resistant, this is not actually valuable if the action that he does after a good carry, is not successful. That’s the case most of the time, therefore, he does not provide distance either.
Let’s take a full snapshot now. This exactly shows us why this marriage should [and will] burn to the ground. Remember what I said was the ultimate purpose of buildup? It’s finding the attacking players in favourable conditions. This is exactly what this pivot cannot do. The central area of the opposition half, is well, quiet. It rather throws the burden of responsibility on the fullbacks. And while this hail mary works in the case of Luke Shaw.. being Luke Shaw, it doesn’t for AWB. So, not only does this pivot hinder the role it’s currently being asked to play, it hinders the players around it.
It’s a two-way street: while their weakness are being exacerbated by a poor buildup structure that does not offer positional instructions, their weaknesses are there nonetheless.
So, while looking at heat maps is all well and great, I wanted to find a way to mathematise this. I wanted to see how they contributed in definite numbers to the phases they are most important in compared to other players in the squad. I ran into a problem, there didn’t exist such a metric that looked at progressive passes specific to the first two phases of possession. While one might abandon the quest, I didn’t. The natural thing to do of course was [with the great help of Ram] create this metric myself.
Now, I know many don’t really care about the nerd process, but bearwith me, this is important. I basically calculated progressive passes, which to me are defined as passes that move the ball 25% closer to the goal made in the first two phases. I excluded passes attempted and completed in the final third. Why? Because while this might be value added, it isn’t the role required or needed from these players. So, while it’s great if Scott scores, or Fred assists in transition, it’s not what we need from them.
I then also excluded passes started and completed in the same flank. Why? I wanted to look at passes that penetrate, and such passes to the fullback do not compromise defensive structure the same way penetrative passes do. [thank you Kees] If anyone asks, I still don’t know what to name this concoction. Ok, nerdery over. Let’s look at the results.
Let’s get this out of the way: they aren’t fun. It basically confirms our hypothesis and the general rant I’ve been going on this entire article — the backline is bearing the brunt of moving the ball forward, when it shouldn’t. Harry Maguire, Lindelof, and Luke Shaw, whether it be a long ball over the head of defenders or a carry then release to a forward, they are all better at penetrating the central opposition areas better than the players actually responsible for that. Creators like Bruno Fernandes feel the need to “screw it, I’ll do it myself” and drop deep to try to get the ball rolling. This is bad because he would leave the space he needs to occupy virtually empty, and when the ball is finally into the third phase, he has to run all the way back. So.. this isn’t just harming performance, it’s harming fitness.
To make sure I didn’t make a mistake here, I cross-referenced my new metric across other clubs. Xhaka, one of the best progressors in the league this season, was the trailblazer in the Arsenal leaderboard. Rodri was in the top three. It confirmed to me that the way Manchester United operated was then, dysfunctional.
But but.. Maram! McFred may not be good passers in progression, but they definitely get into good positions! No, no they don’t. Remember how I went on and on about Manchester United’s bad buildup structure? We see it in full force here. When you don’t prescribe your players with a basic framework of positional discipline, rehearsed patterns to create numerical superiorities against high presses and/or triangular formations to combine, this is what happens most of the time. It’s rare to find players with not only great technical ability, spatial awareness and all of the flicker, but also immense tactical understanding to recognise good positions to occupy and be found in. So as long as Manchester United insist on this skeleton, McFred will fail and they will [and do] need a defensive midfielder.
With their struggle to escape their cover shadows in the central areas and their limitations in providing an outlet for their centre halves, combined with a poor structure, they will always leave the backline struggling to find a good pass.
Congratulations! If you got this far with me, it means we finally understand the reason behind those god-awful back and forth passing compilations, and we finally understand why Manchester United need a defensive midfielder.
I know I’ve spent 10 minutes, or 1800+ words explaining to you why it’s the source of all evil, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s uses. It does. We’ve seen that with games like Manchester United’s 2–0 win over Manchester City (A) where McFred is freed from the burden of ball progression, with Manchester United’s pragmatic game plan focused on ceding possession.
But, those uses [energetic, proactive off the ball, etc] just do not outweigh the many problems they come with. It is not a pivot worth starting for Manchester United, and certainly not for a side looking to build towards a title challenge.
So, while you’re watching Euros 2020[or 2021?] complaining about Southgate playing a right back as a left back, peel your eyes open and do some real good window shopping to who Manchester United should pursue, because, well, a McFred pivot isn’t it.
