El_BeatleSince Rooneys return and the "rise" of Anderson Manchester Uniteds 4-4-2 had a pretty clear organisation.

Lets begin with the strikers. Dimitar Berbatov plays furthest forward and his main task is to make runs into the penalty box. In addition to this he occasionally drops deep to start attacks and help with the creative work. Rooneys position is one of the most important in this team. He is the playmaker behing Berbatov and sprays passes to the wingers and attempts a lot of through balls. He also helps the central midfielders to keep the ball if necessary.

Now lets take a look at the wingers. In contrast to "old" United teams we don´t have traditional winger in this formation. Both Nani and Park prefer to drift inside and look for a one-two or a dribbling.
That said both occasionally hit a cross into the penalty box. Another trademark of this formation is that Park plays in a more restricted position than Nani. He often drifts inside to help out the 2 central midfielder to cope with the central midfielder of the opponent. Nani on the other side plays a lot more offensive.

The central midfield in this formation consists of Anderson and Carrick. Carrick plays a very importan figure in this case. He is the holding midfielder who plays the safe passes and covers Anderson and the back four. Anderson is more or less a box-to-box midfielder in this formation and especially his dribbling ability is vital therefor. His dribblings are very often the start of good attacks and one of his manny through balls to the strikers and especially Nani. Apart from this he is also the first of the 2 central midfielders to hassle the opponent in the centre and cause some errors.

The last important part of the formation is the defence. As you can see Evra plays a lot more offensive than Rafael. That´s a result of Parks restricted position. He is also the main source of crosses on the left side with his overlapping runs (even if he isn´t a good crosser). Rafael on the other side plays in a more defensive position to cover Nanis more offensive approach (which doesn´t mean that Nani does no defensive work) and doesn´t make overlapping runs very often because of Nanis habit to dribble inside of the box. His offensive attempts mostly consist of early crosses or a surging run inside.

The central defensive is the main reason for Uniteds good defensive record. Ferdinand and especially Vidic are nearly unbeatable in the air and they complement each other very well. Vidic acts as the aggressor and attacks his opponent very early whereas Ferdinand covers him and possible runs from another striker.

I don´t think Van der Sars role in the team in the team needs to be explained. ;.)

19.12.2010