Quote Originally Posted by Andy1981_2 View Post
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I never said Man Utd sit back and defend, I just said it's a totally different game tactically.

Mourinho's teams don't tend to press games from the front - his sides usually set up to control/flood the midfield, keep possession, and grind teams down. His style depends on an effective central midfield 2 or 3, and he didn't have that against us, hence Pogba and Matic getting the hook after 45 mins. Mourinho's usually happy to take this approach to get a single goal and then see the game out without offering a huge amount of attacking intent beyond that. I think a lot of people know this about him, and it's a common complaint from fans of the clubs he manages. It didn't work against us because Shelvey and Diame took the initiative in midfield and controlled the game by repeatedly making tackles, winning the ball back, breaking up play, or just pressuring them into making mistakes. We won the midfield battle, and that won us the game.

There are a small handful of teams that use a 'high press' (a de facto front 3 closing down the opposition back 4) in the PL, with Liverpool being the team that's the best at it (arguably Spurs are the best, but we'll see what the league looks like in May) and Bournemouth are another one of those sides. So, different tactical approaches might be needed against two teams that set up totally differently, and Rafa has a tendency to mix things up so I fully expect changes. There's no point just setting Shelvey and Diame up to close down their centre midfield players instantly like we did against Man Utd if we can't get the ball out of the feet of our back four and into midfield to begin with. For me, that's what we have to figure out - how to use the ball effectively from the back when under pressure.
Quite a post, and I kind of get where your coming from but I would check Manures scores this season up to now.Certainly before you start banging the 1-0 drum again..