Manchester United win yesterday allow them to keep on their improvement track!

Good news!

However, Ruben Amorim was fast to come to the post-match press conference to make sure everyone keeps their feet on the floor.

“We cannot be too excited now, or too depressed when we lose. It’s about the process more than win or lose”, he said.

And, for now, besides being playing with many players that we all know to be second, third or even players that will not continue at the Club for next Season, he’s absolutely correct.

it’s important to win, of course.

But the signs that the team is showing, the way they are getting compact, understanding moments of pressing and, on the other hand, the passing options and where to expect the teammates to be, are all very positive signs.

I have been pointing here for many times the similarities between the process over what Ruben has gone through at Sporting CP, when he arrived at the Club and the past few months at United.

At Sporting CP, Ruben installed the mentality of “Game to Game approach”.

This mean that, before stating “we want to be champions” or anything similar, he simply said “the next match is the most important, before longer plans”.

And, although indoors, the speech may be different at times, he’s doing the same as he did.

Installing the Culture, prepare for bigger achievements.

From yesterday’s match versus Leicester, an important note on the compactness of the team.

Remarkable.

In a 1st half where United presented a more dominant approach, with more control over the ball (even with the ball being on the defenders for the majority of the time) to a clear medium-low block and explore the counter-attacks that the home team was allowing with ease.

Even though the opposite approaches, the team was always stable, always calm.

The Game is more fluid, players know where to expect each other, the changes of sides – one element of the Game that is so hard to defend if done correctly – are greater than ever because of that fluidity and understanding of the positioning.

More importantly, the team is getting a crucial element on their veins – they are starting to score in the right moments.

And this elements is a differentiator in High-Performance Football!

The data, as the performance, wasn’t perfect and went through the ups-and-downs of the team’s approaches in both halves.

The 3 attacking players – Eriksen, Garnacho and Højlund – were not very efficient on the duels, with an average way below 30%, but kept an average of almost 80% in their pass accuracy.

On the other hand, the remaining players sustained the team in terms of duels – specially Dalot, Bruno and Heaven – and passing accuracy.

If you ever wondered why do I give such importance to both aspects – passing accuracy and duels – is because Ruben’s Style of Play, and in Modern High-Performance Football in general, is heading to a man-to-man approach is many occasions, the so-called “Total Football”, which includes high-pressing, control and dominant approaches merged.

Almost all top teams are pressing in a very similar way, where they kind of risk a man-to-man approach in order to get the benefits of recovering the ball in their oppositions defensive third and be very close to score.

We seen it with Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City and even yesterday, at FA Carabao Final, with Newcastle being super proactive on pressing Liverpool.

On the other hand, these teams are also creating new formats of playing, less connected to the names at the positions itself, but the positioning being more important. This is deeply connected with the birth of more and more “Global Players” which is a term that I personally use to explain the tactical awareness that the great majority of top-players have that allow them to navigate into different positions throughout the Game.

As an example, yesterday we had Mazraoui, Dalot, or de Ligt being positioned in different positions without the gap on their performance being notable.

Or, Bruno stepped into the defensive line, specially during the 2nd half, to create almost a line of 4 defenders, to provoke Leicester’s Defensive Model and create instability.

Or even, looking at other players and matches, we can observe how fluid PSG Game Model is, with Vitinha, Joāo Neves, Dembele or Ruiz enjoying freedom to create different ways to avoid the opposite’s pressing approach.

Not to mention FC Barcelona, because we all expect that creativity from them already.

Therefore, to come back to the point, the passing accuracy is a metric that, without being perfect (as any data-point alone is) allow us to understand the fluidity of the Team’s Game, at the same time that the duels, allows us to have an idea about how successful was the overall defensive performance of the team, because when man-to-man is the law, duels become extremely important, naturally.

Again, data-points without context can be misleading, but they are a guide towards evaluating performances, recruitment, etc.

Therefore, we must use it carefully and to give context to what the data is telling us.

Now, international break.

A few players will be out, but most importantly, there will be some time to recover players, rest others, and train together.

After this, United has important matches ahead, starting with:

. Nottingham Forest

. Manchester City
. Ol. Lyon

. Newcastle
. Ol. Lyon 

Exciting, yet challenging times ahead!

Will United be able to pursue their Europa League goal?
How will the next 3 EPL Matches define the rest of the Season?

Many questions for a team that, for now, is clearly developing, but still with many questions marks attached and in need to win!

Let me know your thoughts on United’s performance and ability to fight for Europa League title!