After Manchester United began their season with a 1-0 win over Fulham, Alex Keble looks at why this performance will have pleased Erik ten Hag.
Manchester United have won their opening match of the season, but Erik ten Hag will know the result was not the most important part of their 1-0 victory over Fulham.
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This time a year ago Man Utd also began the campaign with a 1-0 victory. Only on that occasion, the story of the match was a wide-open midfield, a disorganised press and Wolverhampton Wanderers attackers streaming through on the counter-attack.
It was a sign of things to come. Ten Hag will hope the same is true of Friday’s win.
For the first 15 minutes Fulham were the better team and the old patterns threatened to re-emerge, but once Man Utd got a grip of the contest their compressed shape and effective press pushed Fulham deeper and deeper.
Things went chaotic after the hour-mark, when substitutions and a formation change left both teams stretched, but United did enough to deserve the three points - and certainly there was enough in the first 60 minutes for Ten Hag to be satisfied that progress is being made.
Casemiro, Mount and Martinez lead revitalised press in new system
The headline feature was United’s pressing game from within a new formation: a strikerless 4-2-2-2 in which Bruno Fernandes and Mason Mount alternated dropping off the front line.
It had its downsides. United struggled to create clear openings because there was no focal point up front, no runners in behind and few bodies in the box when dangerous situations arose.
But the pluses were many.
On the ball, wingers Amad and Marcus Rashford stretched Fulham’s defensive shape, in turn opening up space in the middle for Mount, Fernandes, Casemiro and Kobbie Mainoo to dictate the play, slowly pushing Fulham back.
Man Utd held 58 per cent possession in the first hour (after which the formation was changed, as we’ll come to), while Opta’s “average positions” graphic from the first half shows their compression between the lines, number of bodies centrally and their territorial advantage.
The main reason for all of this, however, was what United did off the ball.
This was arguably United’s best out-of-possession performance of the Ten Hag era. Lisandro Martinez’s aggression, a superb display from Casemiro and the tireless energy of Mount combined to make United excellent in the press.
They harried Fulham all over the pitch, getting tight in a man-to-man open-play pressing system that disrupted the opponents' passing and led to United camping in Fulham’s half.
United won 20 tackles, one short of their record in 2023/24 (21 v Crystal Palace), and made 17 interceptions, a score bettered only twice last season (20 v Aston Villa, 18 v Chelsea).
That says it all. Ten Hag’s defensive line was higher, the midfield benefited from the support of two dropping “false nines”, and individual players won their battles.
“We defended and pressed very well,” Ten Hag told Sky Sports. “After 10 minutes we found our spell in the game and we kept them under pressure.”
Fulham were uncertain in their own new formation
Analysis of every football match contends with the same conundrum: was one team good, or the other bad?
Did Man Utd push Fulham back, or did Marco Silva’s side drop too easily? Did Man Utd force turnovers with their pressing, or were Fulham sloppy building out from the back?
We may ultimately choose to give Man Utd the benefit of the doubt, but it is noteworthy that Silva attempted a new 4-3-3 (last used in October 2023) with Emile Smith Rowe and Andreas Pereira as dual No 8s.
This was a surprisingly attacking move, and it didn’t really work.
Both Smith Rowe and Pereira looked too weak receiving the ball, although they weren’t helped by Fulham’s desire to play risky passes out of defence, until a change of tactics half an hour in, when Bernd Leno started going long.
Both players are better as No 10s, receiving the ball in space later in the move, and it showed.
Perhaps spooked by how easily United were taking the ball, Fulham dropped deeper and deeper, inviting pressure by letting their hosts carry the ball into their half.
Ten Hag substitutions and formation change cause chaos
On the surface, debutant Joshua Zirkzee coming off the bench to score the winner, assisted by another substitute Alejandro Garnacho, suggests excellent in-game management from Ten Hag.
In truth, Ten Hag’s double change on the hour-mark totally destabilised the tactical pattern of the match.
Changing to a 4-3-3, Man Utd missed having the fourth attacker centrally to stop Fulham from counter-attacking, stretching the game into chaos, as we can see from United’s wild second-half positions.
Tiredness was perhaps a factor, but more important was the way Garnacho remained high and wide while Zirkzee failed to perform the defensive tasks like Mount.
Fulham had several excellent counter-attacking opportunities, most notably a two-on-one that Pereira fluffed.
But ultimately United benefited from the end-to-end encounter. The build-up to Zirkzee’s winner was the direct result of both teams stretching as they ran back and forth.
“When the game becomes open we should have kept the balance and kept compact,” Silva said to Sky Sports. “But in those moments we lost emotional control and that allowed them to score.”
Fulham can be pleased with first 15 minutes and post-Palhinha defence
There is no reason for Fulham to be too disheartened.
In the first 15 minutes they were on top, Adama Traore regularly finding space to burst beyond the United high line after Fulham broke up possession in midfield.
It didn’t last long, although even beyond the first 15 minutes there was plenty to like in Fulham's defensive work.
Man Utd were restricted to few chances, an important note given that Fulham lost Joao Palhinha to Bayern Munich over the summer.
Sasa Lukic filled in admirably, although considering Fulham actually picked up 12 points from the five Premier League matches that Palhinha missed last season, perhaps that should not have been a surprise.
Silva will be happy with what he saw, and indeed on another day Fulham could have scored from one of those counter-attacks and left Old Trafford with a 1-0 win.
Not that we would have changed our analysis if they had.
Man Utd won 1-0 at the start of last season but were rightly criticised for playing poorly.
This time, even putting the result to one side, we saw a performance that promised a brighter 2024/25.