Ten Hags Vision for Manchester United: Transition Football

During Manchester United’s 2023/2024 pre-season tour when Erik Ten Hag was asked about his vision for his Manchester United side he said that he wants his team to be the “best transition team in the world”, but what exactly is transition football? We’ll talk about that and more in this article.

A lot of people confuse transition football with counter attacking football but they are two very different things. Transition in football refers to the brief moment where possession changes hands from one team to the other, during this period the team that loses the ball is often disorganized and vulnerable because they aren’t in their defensive shape and this can leave them susceptible to dangerous attacks. While counter attacking football often means that teams sit in a mid or low block, relinquish possession and set pressing traps for the opposition and break with pace and precision when they win the ball back. The major difference is that counter attacking football doesn’t involve as much front foot pressing and proactiveness as transition football.

A lot of managers use transitions to their benefit whether it’s during defensive transitions (getting from attacking shape to defensive shape) or during attacking transitions (getting from defensive shape to attacking shape). Managers like Pep and Klopp are renowned for their use of transitions when playing, Pep has previously spoken about “controlling transitions” with a strong rest defense. See https://okechioji.wixsite.com/thefootballstand-1/post/understanding-pep-guardiola-s-3-2-2-3-formation-a-tactical-breakdown for more

HOW TO CREATE TRANSITIONS

As much as transitions are a natural occurring phenomenon in football they can also be created artificially through pressing the opposition when out of possession and baiting the opposition to press you when in possession of the ball and then playing through that press. Playing this way for full 90 minutes can be very risky because you can lose control on the game and it requires certain personnel/profiles to play like this effectively.

HOW CAN MANCHESTER UNITED PLAY THIS WAY

Looking at the situation with a casual eye it makes sense if Ten Hag wants his United team to play this way, with the pace of Rashford and Hojlund upfront and the killer pass of Bruno Fernandes it seems like a match made in heaven but that’s not the case. To play transition football you need very hard working players out of possession to press effectively and tirelessly and you also need very good players in build-up as well as a good build-up structure to bait the opposition press and then play through it.

Ironically Manchester United are notorious for not having enough hard workers in their team in recent years, they are often outrun when playing “lesser opposition”, a prime example is the 4-0 loss at Brentford last season. Manchester United also had a dysfunctional build-up structure last season with defensive errors in build-up being a norm, from De Gea kicking the ball out of play due to the opposition’s press to costly mistakes like the one(s) in Seville.

Ten Hag and Manchester United entered the market in the summer to mitigate these problems by replacing David De Gea with arguably the best player in the Champions league final last season in Andre Onana. They also added Rasmus Hojlund, Mason Mount, Sofyan Amrabat and other players to improve the physicality of their team as well as add some more technicality that players like Fred, McTominay and De Gea lacked.

So far it looks like Ten Hag intends to play with 2 number 8’s in order to allow his side to press with numbers and a structure. This can allow his front 3 to press the opposition to one side of the pitch, force errors and win the ball back to create these artificial transitions.

Manchester United also build-up in a very fluid structure which allows for different shapes in the first phase, they have used a 3-2,

4-1 (keeper joining build-up and right back inverting high up the pitch)

and 2-3 (fullback inverting to join build-up)

build up shape with different players inverting and sometimes playing very high, all this is to confuse the opposition/leave them disorganized as well as bait their press in order to create these artificial transitions.

WHY ARE UNITED HAVING PROBLEMS PLAYING THIS WAY

So far Manchester United are enduring their second worst start to a Premier League season since 2019/20 season, with 4 losses from 8 games with 9 goals scored and 12 conceded. What has exactly gone wrong? It is worth noting that last season Manchester United played the most games in all competitions out of all the teams in the Premier League and with minimal rotation last season it looks like they are suffering the consequences of that this season with several key players missing due to injuries. Two of Uniteds most technical players in Luke Shaw and Lisandro Martinez have suffered injuries which has seriously hampered the quality of their build-up, despite having Andre Onana who is having a rough start to life in Manchester and Diogo Dalot who is also very good in the first phase, they aren’t enough to play the way Ten Hag wants to. Having players who can comfortably retain possession and play through presses are very important to play transition football and that is definitely a factor.

Another issue is Manchester United have been very easy to play through, this only highlights that their pressing and counter-pressing isn’t very good. With Ten Hag using two advanced 8’s and Casemiro as the lone 6, the Brazillian is often left to defend acres of space when the press is being played through and that isn’t one of his strong suits. Now I’m not saying Casemiro is the problem but he isn’t the solution either because he is being asked to play a role that doesn’t suit his skillset at all.

Manchester United also have a problem scoring goals this season with the team only scoring 9 goals from 12.82 xG in the league this season, perhaps this is just a symptom and not an actual problem as the team are struggling to adjust to this new play style but with several key players like Rashford and Bruno yet to recapture their form of last season and with first teamers like Sancho and Antony missing certain games due to various reasons it might take a while before this is solved.

And lastly Manchester United have conceded a lot of shots and subsequently goals this season (12 from 13.3 xG faced) and a lot of these goals have been conceded in an almost comically similar way, cutbacks. The reason why United have conceded these goals is simply because their midfielders don’t track back all the way to the edge of their 18 yard box. Are they being asked too much to press high and also track back to their own box? I don’t think so, this seems to be an issue of fitness levels as well as desire.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION

Just like I mentioned earlier, any manager in the world will find it hard to play their type of football with the amount of injuries the team have suffered and Ten Hag is no exception. However that isn’t a big enough excuse for underperforming players and poor performances (collectively and individually). I do think a lot of work has to be done in the training ground to nullify these teething problems and that is down to Ten Hag and his coaching staff.

The squad also lacks the required profiles to play this type of football in certain key areas. The number 6 position, CB, RW and RB need upgrading to take this squad to the next level, the recruitment last summer was somewhat encouraging but the board/owners need to kick on and be more pro-active in the market.

Overall I do think Ten Hag needs more time and support as he’s having to work in a very unstable environment with the takeover saga going on for what seems to be an age and drama behind the scenes with players throughout his tenure. Football is a very cruel and unforgiving sport so he’ll have to repay the faith very quickly.