The basic technical error that sealed Manchester United’s brutal derby day defeat to Man City

Another day, another humbling defeat for Manchester United – one of several this season, but one that will hurt rather more than all the others. Erik ten Hag’s side was outmanoeuvred, outplayed and outgunned both individually and as a team. A short stretch of shopping outlets and drearily identikit apartment blocks is all that separates the two sides on a map of the city, but the gulf in class is wider than the Irwell is long.

None of that is new information, of course, especially given that United have backslid on so much of the progress they made last season. The question is what Ten Hag and the United hierarchy as a whole will learn from a one-sided defeat that would have been more humiliating still had André Onana not put in his best performance since arriving in the summer. The ease with which Manchester City won owed plenty to their individual quality, but it was the system that was the real star. United, by contrast, barely seem to have one at all.

The difference between the two sides could be summed up, in part, by the way that the two teams made use of one of the less appreciated cogs in football’s strategic machine - the humble backwards pass. For City, it is an undervalued cornerstone of the gameplan. For United, it is simply undervalued.

Beginning with the raw numbers – City and United passed the ball backwards a broadly similar amount. For the hosts, 170 of their 391 passing attempts went towards their own goal (43.5%). For City, it was 281 of 605 total passes (46.4%). But the tale is told in who was making those backwards passes, and the circumstances under which they were made – and while the pass maps may be rather dry series of marks on a chalkboard, they reveal a great deal about the way the sides are set up, and how differently the two teams operate in possession.

At almost any time City had the ball, there was always a backwards passing option, whether it was for the midfielders as they looked to move the ball into the final third, or for the wide forwards when they were given chances to find space out wide. If Phil Foden, say, got the ball in a dangerous area but couldn’t immediately find a pass or cross that he liked the look of, he was always able to knock it back down the line to Kyle Walker. If Bernardo Silva or Julián Álvarez tried to find space in front of the box but found the angles for a final ball closed off, he could turn and pass back to Rodri.

These are options that are used frequently. If the final ball or the shot isn’t on, City’s players simply turn back and play a simple pass away from goal, allowing the team to recycle possession and continue probing for an opening rather than taking on low-percentage plays from difficult angles. If United defended one situation well and prevented City from finding their way through, they could simply start again and have another go and picking the lock.

By contrast, whenever United got the ball up towards the City goal, their forwards were almost immediately isolated. Time and again, Marcus Rashford or Rasmus Højlund found themselves haring down blind alleys, left one-on-one (at best) with defenders who are too good to offer easy paths to goal. Both found themselves attempting shots and crosses from narrow angles which were never very likely to end up with Ederson picking the ball from out of the net.

Part of the reason that United’s forwards were so often left lonely in the final third was because there was frequently a great deal of space between midfield and attack. They have players who are more than capable of getting quick, quality balls forward, but those players are not then able to get up and support the attack at speed. They attempt passes from too deep and too long, and don’t have midfielders who dribble the ball effectively as they transition from defence to offence – a mode of attack which allows teams with that capacity to play balls into the final third with support immediately at hand should the strikers not be able to create immediate space. The lack of pace and ball-carrying skill in United’s midfield meant that there was often a huge rift between the front three and players like Christian Eriksen and Sofyan Amrabat, and that left the forwards bereft of options when they got the ball in advanced areas.

For most teams who lack those qualities in the heart of midfield, the solution is typically to build up more patiently – something City excelled at but which United rarely tried to do. Whenever City are moving up the field, they make sure they have backwards passing options – the defence move up behind the midfield, John Stones steps up into middle when the ball gets further up the pitch, and when United’s defence took up strong positions (which they did quite often), there was always another pass, always an outlet and a means to recycle possession and go again. United’s players seldom looked for opportunities to do the same thing.

To evidence this assertion, let’s quickly run through some relevant players’ numbers – in midfield, Amrabat made six backwards passes over the course of the match, and Eriksen 17. Their counterparts for City, by comparison, made many more such plays, with Rodri playing the ball back 38 times and Bernardo Silva 37. The same comparison is true with the wingers, with Foden making 27 backwards passes to Bruno Fernandes’ 11 and Jack Grealish making 18 to Rashford’s six. City had more of the ball and had many more passes in total, of course, but proportionally there is still a substantial difference in the way the ball was used.

United not having those backwards passes on their record speaks to their disjointed system, and to the mistakes made in recruitment which have lumbered them with a midfield who don’t connect well with the players ahead or behind them. Their system, such as it is, creates far too many one-on-one situations and too few moments when United have the odds stacked in their favour with overloads. Against lesser teams, they have been able to eke out wins because they have players good enough to win in those low-percentage situations. Against a squad as good as City’s, they created very little of value.

It also doesn’t help that United were very narrow when they did have the ball. Backwards passes are one way to recycle possession, but the midfield three of Eriksen, Amrabat and Scott McTominay were often so close together that there wasn’t an option in wide areas either – and that also contributed to the isolation the front three struggled with. The full-backs didn’t generate overlaps and the midfielders weren’t in proximity to allow United ways to ply the channels or reset when the City defence got across to cover. City had options everywhere, United almost nowhere.

Ten Hag needs to remould his squad such that it all slots together a little more smoothly. Right now, we have Fernandes forced into wider areas because of a lack of good options on the wing, and nobody filling the creative void left at number ten. The midfield ends up too deep and too narrow, but lacks the patience to pick their way up the park slowly to compensate for that. Something has to give, or United will simply continue on the same path they’re on now – leaving matches against theoretically lesser sides as coin tosses and games against the best teams as hidings. There are so many issues at Old Trafford, from boardroom to bootroom, but without a coherent plan on the field which suits the players in the squad there is little chance that they will turn the ship around and make it into the top four again.