No one can have missed that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer seems to be on the brink at Manchester United and clinging onto his job as the club’s manager. It’s being reported that the Norwegian needs positive results in the coming matches to remain in charge of United, highlighting United’s indecisiveness regarding their managerial situation. Surely, if the club officials were 100% behind Solskjaer, they would keep him regardless of the result at Tottenham on Saturday, or Manchester City next week? Equally, if they doubt him, why is he still in charge?
This piece does not take a stand in regards to Solskjaer’s future. We have made clear in the past that we doubt his ability to instil the type of methodical approach needed to compete with the best teams in England and Europe, but have also made clear that the problems could be eased with quality coaches around him. This piece is therefore not one that argues for the Norwegian’s dismissal. Not at all. Instead, this piece engages in a hypothetical scenario if he is replaced. One of the candidates available, Antonio Conte, has been reported in Italy as having been contacted about the job. As such, this piece investigates the suitability of such an appointment, focussing on Conte’s tactics and their transferability to the current squad at United.
What do United want and which obstacles are there with Conte?
Let’s get the negatives out of the way. When Solskjaer arrived as the interim manager in December 2018, the levels of toxicity within Manchester United were high following José Mourinho having burnt every bridge imaginable. One of Solskjaer’s greatest achievements to date is the “cultural reboot”, as the club calls it, he has overseen. Conte is an abrasive and confrontational character who has acted up in the past when he feels wronged. He also demands a lot from his players, meaning he might ruffle a few feathers and upset some players. Given the lacklustre nature of some of United’s performances this season, his ruthlessness will not be appreciated by those who cross him. As such, conflicts are sure to arise. This is not limited to the players; Conte will demand a lot from those above him and that might be troublesome by a leadership that has criminally underperformed for close to a decade.
Yet, while that may be seen as an obstacle from people at the club, from the outside looking in, Conte’s winning mentality and demands for high performance in all areas might be what takes United to the next level. Solskjaer has done well in restoring United to being closer to challenge than when he inherited the club, but Conte is a serial winner who might take them to the level required to compete with Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea. Conte’s competitiveness can be problematic at times, but it seems his demanding nature could be welcome at a club that hasn’t challenged for the Premier League title since 2013, having won five league titles in the seven seasons preceding Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement.
United talk about wanting to plan long-term and Conte has never been a long-term manager. His combative nature means he would come in, probably perform very well over 18 months or so and then leave after two seasons due to some conflict with the club hierarchy or the playing squad. It could be argued, though, that the time he does spend at the club could see them be elevated even higher, as demonstrated by the league titles at Juventus, Chelsea, and Inter. In many ways, United are a winning club that has forgotten how to win, and Conte has won everywhere he’s been. Making a short-term appointment that would almost guarantee success can have huge rewards for the young squad even if Conte is replaced after two years.
United consistently communicate that they want to be a club that upholds their “tradition of giving young players a chance and playing attacking football”. If we think about the statement of playing attacking football, United never tell us what this attacking football is. Is it victorious football? Sir Alex Ferguson’s teams were focused on one thing and one thing only: winning. If the best chance to win was attacking endlessly then that’s what they did. However, if the best chance to win was to defend deep and counter-attack then that’s what they did. The Champions League semi-final against Barcelona in 2008 is a case in point where United were ultra-defensive but got a good result and then won the home leg. Victorious football. Similarly, United were very defensive away at Olympique Marseille in 2011, but got a goalless draw in France and then finished the job at home. The end justified the means. As such, the past United keep looking back at is one where the focus was on winning and nothing else. Naturally, in most games, that meant attacking endlessly since United had better players than most teams. Sometimes, however, the pragmatic nature of Ferguson proved to be an issue, such as the title decider at Manchester City in 2012 when he sent out a very defensively minded team to play for a draw, only to lose 1-0 and eventually lose the league title. All managers get it wrong at times, but to say that Ferguson’s United always attacked, as United often communicate, is remembering a past that never happened. United won games and titles since they had one of the most pragmatic managers we’ve ever seen.
In this way, Conte’s unfair label of being a ‘defensive’ manager is misdirected. Conte wants dominant teams, but more than anything he wants to win. He is pragmatic and, again, the end justifies the means. Sound familiar? His Chelsea team in 2016/17 outscored all but one team and recorded a then league-record of 30 wins. His Juventus team went a season unbeaten in 2011/12 and won 33 of their 38 matches in 2013/14. His Inter team scored 89 goals last season, bettered only by Atalanta’s 90.
The one worry is the other part of that United slogan. Since Conte is very much a short-term manager, he has no record of persisting with young players that might come good in a few years. He wants to win now, not tomorrow, and given United’s crop of excellent young players, such as Amad and Hannibal Mejbri, he does not strike me as the obvious coach to mould them into first-team regulars. To be fair, neither does Solskjaer, who has failed to consistently utilise his highly-regarded youngsters. Being the pragmatist he is, Conte will, however, include young players if he believes them to be good enough. The perfect example can be found in his first season at Inter. In the summer of 2019, Inter signed Diego Godín to much fanfare. However, as the season went on, Conte ousted the Uruguayan veteran from his starting eleven in favour of the young Alessandro Bastoni simply because Bastoni made the team better. The following year, Bastoni was a mainstay in the Scudetto winning Inter while Godín had left for Cagliari. Sir Matt Busby, United’s legendary manager, once said that “if they’re good enough, they’re old enough”. It seems Conte would agree with that.
Tactics
Let’s now turn our eye to the way Conte plays. He employs his own version of positional play in which his players are positioned in certain zones where they can cause maximum danger for the opposition in an attempt to control the match with and without the ball. Normally, Conte uses a nominal 3-5-2 formation but revolutionised English football with a 3-4-3 at Chelsea. Out of possession, Conte’s teams are among the hardest-working teams you’ll see. His fitness regime is famous in Italy and players press opponents aggressively in an attempt to win the ball back high up the pitch. Normally when they press high, Conte uses man-orientations, as seen below.
Conte’s press high up the pitch is usually man-orientated.
However, if the press fails or when Conte deems it to be a better approach, he will have his team defending in a more positional manner where they prioritise compactness and look to prevent opponents from playing through them, as seen below.
When deeper, Conte’s teams prioritise compactness over pressure and work to block spaces centrally and force the opponent wide. When the ball is moved, all players move across in unison.
In attack, Conte looks for methodical build-up play where he wants to attract opponents to press high and then use quick, vertical combinations to cut right through teams. In these, his midfielders are key, as I highlighted in this video a few years back.
Conte’s 3-5-2 often becomes 3-3-4 in attack with very high wing-backs. Often, though, Conte wants to occupy the opponent’s defence with five players: normally his wing-backs, his two strikers and one midfielder pushing up and then use the other two midfielders and three centre-backs to provide the base as a rest-defence to prepare for a defensive transition, as highlighted below.
Conte’s 3-5-2 has often included one central midfielder pushing higher. At Inter, this was normally Nicolò Barella. As such, a 3-2 rest-defence was formed behind the front five. In other games, Conte would line his team up in a 3-3-4 in the attacking half with the wing-backs really high and the midfield three behind the front four.
In his Chelsea 3-4-3, he pinned the opponent’s defence with the wing-backs wide, the two wide forwards in positions around the half-spaces and the central striker in the centre. Often Cesar Azpilicueta would move up alongside the two midfielders to create a 2-3 rest-defence structure behind these five. This setup can be seen below.
At Chelsea, the right-sided centre-back would step into midfield to create a 2-3 rest-defence which allowed Chelsea to get immediate pressure on the ball in all three central spaces as well as gain an extra player higher up in possession.
Finally, Conte’s teams are very methodical and use automatism. One of these involves the wing-back playing early passes into the striker when pressed from the outside, another involves the two strikers using combinations to drag defenders out of position by the ball-near striker letting the ball run past him into the other striker who then looks to play his partner through, as highlighted below.
Automatism 1 to bypass pressure: wing-back with an early ball into the striker who then receives support from a forward-facing teammate.
Automatism 2 to bypass pressure: one striker leaving the ball to let it go into the deepest player who then lays it off to his strike partner who is now facing forward.
Finally, Conte’s positional football would represent a massive change from Mourinho and Solskjaer’s ‘freer’, individually-focussed attack. He would instil structure and order to the attack, and tenacity, compactness and aggression to the way United defend. As Hazard once noted, Conte is very different to Mourinho, who in turn is quite similar to Solskjaer:
“In tactics and training, we do more with Conte. We work a lot of tactical positions and we know exactly what we have to do on the pitch, where I have to go and where the defenders have to go. With Mourinho, he put in a system but we didn’t work lots.”
United’s squad and how they’d fit
United’s squad isn’t perfectly compatible with Conte’s style of play due to the lack of wing-backs, the shortage of high-quality central midfielders and the abundance of wide forwards such as Rashford, Sancho, Greenwood, Lingard and Martial. However, how Conte would utilise this squad is very intriguing from a tactical perspective. Since Conte almost always uses three centre-backs, besides from his early career devotion to 4-2-4 and his first few games at Chelsea using a 4-3-3, let’s start with how his back-three could look.
In Victor Lindelöf, Harry Maguire and Raphael Varane, United have three excellent centre-backs. Naturally, they would be the starting three. Lindelöf has been fantastic for Sweden ever since coming into the national team in 2016 and Sweden’s defensive setup is very similar to how Conte works in his own half. The attention to covering spaces and covering teammates requires the ability to read the game well, and Lindelöf does this brilliantly. He is also United’s best ball-playing defender and would be perfect for the right-sided centre-back slot where he could act as Azpilicueta did and move into midfield and look for either crosses to the striker or diagonal balls over the top to a runner from the left. Maguire has usually played on the left of a three for England, but Conte would probably use him as the central one with Varane to the left in order to use the Frenchman’s speed to deal with the wide channels if the left wing-back is caught out. Luke Shaw could be an option at left centre-back, Eric Bailly and Phil Jones are around and Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s lack of attacking threat could see him used as a right-sided centre-back to deal with defensive transitions. This position seems sound should Conte come in.
At wing-back, we stumble into problems. Shaw and Alex Telles are both potentially of the right profile for the left wing-back slot but there is no standout option on the right. Wan-Bissaka might struggle with the attacking workload but can of course improve by the simple act of proper coaching. Diogo Dalot might have a better chance since he is better going forward, but his defensive play has been atrocious this season so there is work to do with him too. Conte could, of course, do what he did with Italy at times in 2016, which is use a winger at wing-back with the ball but defend in a 4-4-2 out of possession with the same winger defending as a midfielder. In such a setup, Rashford could be used at left wing-back in attack with Shaw as left centre-back, but then Shaw would defend as a left-back and Rashford as a midfielder.
In midfield, Nemanja Matić was a favourite of Conte’s at Chelsea and might see more game time. It all depends on whether Conte would use a double pivot behind three forwards or a midfield trio behind two strikers. Paul Pogba was a revelation in Conte’s 3-5-2 at Juventus but that Pogba, who was young and easy to mould for the fiery Italian, doesn’t exist anymore. If Conte would go with a 3-5-2, Bruno Fernandes and Pogba could play either side of Matić in an attacking but disciplined midfield. If not, it’s difficult to see Conte using Pogba in a double pivot behind three attackers. In that system, Scott McTominay would probably be a favourite of Conte’s due to the Scot’s combative nature and ball-winning ability. McTominay, like Rashford and Greenwood, has established himself in United teams under Mourinho and Solskjaer that have often lacked structure and compactness where he is forced to defend huge spaces, so it would be very interesting to see how he would develop under the guidance of a very tactically-driven coach. Fred and Donny van de Beek also fit the system quite well, with the Dutchman capable of playing in a three or as one of two attackers behind a striker further up.
Whether Conte would implement a 3-5-2 or a 3-4-3, his arrival would mean United sacrificing one attacking player for a defender. That doesn’t mean United would be less attacking, but the competition for places would harden even further. However, Conte carries no passengers, so if players wouldn’t perform or play the way he tells them, they wouldn’t play. Given the options at his hypothetical disposal, I think Conte would opt for something akin to his Chelsea title-winning 3-4-3/3-4-2-1. He toyed with a 3-4-1-2 at times at Inter with Christian Eriksen as the 10, which he might use again to get Fernandes into that role, but a 3-4-3 would be my bet. In the right-sided slot, Bruno Fernandes is the obvious candidate, but Greenwood and Sancho would also be very good options. On the left, Rashford is the standout choice as the left-sided attacker due to his quality coming into the left-sided half-space and his counter-attacking threat makes me think Conte could use him in an Eden Hazard-type role. Again, Sancho is another alternative, having played in these positions at Dortmund for long spells. Pogba, of course, would be an option too.
Up front, Conte wouldn’t hesitate to drop Ronaldo if he can’t fulfil Conte’s requirements. Everyone is discussing whether Ronaldo can press or not, and Conte coming in would be the litmus test. Edinson Cavani is a much more natural fit since Conte’s teams have often included a target man to help bypass opposition pressure when needed. Cavani’s work rate would also tell in his favour. Of course, if Greenwood would receive Conte’s coaching he would be an outstanding option up front since his link-up play is better than both Cavani and Ronaldo’s.
A potential Conte-led United XI.
United’s squad isn’t perfect for Conte, but there is a good mix of experience, energy and pace in the side. I think he would need to strengthen at wing-back and in central midfield, where Aurelien Tchouameni would be excellent, but the playing squad could fit Conte’s tactics better than one might first think.
Conclusion
If Solskjaer was to leave, United should seriously consider hiring the serial winner that is Conte. He almost guarantees success, exudes winning mentality and could help elevate the talent in the squad into winners. He would bring thunder and demands, he would implement structure to the side and make sure that United are hard to play against and very difficult to beat. In a winning club that has forgotten how to win, he appears to be the perfect medicine. Sure, he might not tick all the boxes, but, really, who does?
There is a line in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending which states that “what you end up remembering isn’t always what you have witnessed” and that really encapsulates the current Manchester United. The club keeps looking back to Sir Alex Ferguson’s glory days and for every passing day, the football becomes better and more attacking, more young players were given debuts, and the club desperately wants to wind back the clock to that time. Those nostalgic backwards glances are now used as arguments for why a supposedly ‘defensive’ coach can’t be employed when, in reality, Ferguson was as pragmatic as they come. He wanted to win and he did what was needed to fulfill that aim. Oh, and only two of Ferguson’s 13 title-winning teams outscored Conte’s 2016/17 champions. Ironically, Antonio Conte might be the modern manager who is most similar to Ferguson, and might even be the one most capable of restoring the club to former glories, even if it is just for a couple of years. Then, the next person in will already have a better platform from which to build the dynasty United dream of.
Comments