Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's tactical switch paid dividends at Tottenham, but what does it mean for the futures of Jadon Sancho and Donny van de Beek, asks Gary Neville
Monday 1 November 2021 17:44, UK
Gary Neville has warned Jadon Sancho could suffer the same fate as Donny van de Beek at Manchester United after OIe Gunnar Solskjaer's tactical switch came up trumps at Tottenham.
United were as good at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as they were bad in last weekend's 5-0 drubbing against Liverpool at Old Trafford, as they benefitted immeasurably from deploying a 3-5-2 formation to beat Spurs 3-0 and lift the pressure on under-fire manager Solskjaer.
Solskjaer's decision to start a Premier League match with three centre-backs for the first time since March 2020 and partner Cristiano Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani in attack for the first time in the top flight paid dividends, with Ronaldo opening the scoring and setting up Cavani for the second goal, while an improved defensive display prevented Spurs from registering a single shot on target.
"There has been that thought. Has Ronaldo been a good signing for the club? Is he the right player to come in? But if you do have someone like him in the dressing room, you have to get him in the team. And if you get him in the team, you have to play a system in a way that suits him," Neville told Sky Sports.
"There is no doubt this is not Ole's plan. Leaving Sancho, [Marcus] Rashford and [Mason] Greenwood on the bench is not the plan. That wasn't the plan in the summer for the recruitment. It wasn't the plan in the summer for Ole. It wasn't how he was thinking he was going to play.
"He's played 4-2-3-1 in the last 37 matches, so it's not his [long-term] plan to go 3-5-2. But the change of system did look like it suited Ronaldo. It took the pressure off him from a defensive point of view.
"Up against three centre-backs at Leicester then against Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate last week, he looked like a little boy. But on Saturday, he looked like it suited him perfectly to play in those moments.
"Saturday was a good day for him, not just because of the goal, but because it looked like he played in a team that he was a part of, rather than in the last few weeks where he's been exposed and asked to press when he can't do that."
Despite the success Solskjaer's system had at harnessing the talent of Ronaldo and Cavani while stifling the opposition, Neville highlighted a number of issues with its long-term adoption, chiefly where Sancho would slot in.
The England international, who was left on the bench at Tottenham, has yet to hit the heights which earned him his £73m summer move from Borussia Dortmund, failing to register a goal or an assist in 315 minutes of Premier League football this season.
Neville is concerned Sancho could go down the same path as Van de Beek, who looks completely frozen out of Solskjaer's first-team picture.
"I can't help thinking about Van de Beek," Neville added. "Who's put their name on him? Who's sponsoring that £40m that's been spent on that kid who's sat in the stands and not kicked a football now for 18 months? Sancho, if he's not careful, is going to end up exactly the same.
"Sancho has played in some pretty appalling team performances. He's come into a club that's looked completely disjointed in terms of their football. He played in a far better team unit at Dortmund. He's come in here thinking, 'what the hell am I in here, what is this?' There's no organisation, there's no structure, the defensive work rate is poor.
"When you look at the defensive running stats, of Manchester United's front players who are anywhere near, Sancho is actually the only player who has put a shift in. But he must be sat on the bench thinking, 'what am I doing?'
"Now he's thinking, 'where do I play in that system?'. I don't see him playing in a three in midfield. I don't see him in a two up front. He'll be thinking, 'where's my career at Man Utd?' and Van de Beek is thinking the same. Saturday was a good day for United but it does cause problems elsewhere."
Neville's fellow Sky Sports pundit Graeme Souness claims Manchester United's reliance on Ronaldo and Cavani illustrated a lack of foresight in the transfer market and warned sterner challenges than Spurs await in the form of champions Manchester City in next Saturday's derby - live on Sky Sports.
"There's no forward planning, with Cavani or Ronaldo," Souness said. "They got Cavani on the very last day of a transfer window a couple of years ago. They've taken Ronaldo in similar circumstances. There's no forward planning.
"This is a jigsaw that's just shuffling it around and working it out as it comes in. Sometimes it works. He might have got lucky. But it was Tottenham they were playing.
"Take that team with the same performance against Liverpool last week, they wouldn't be beaten 5-0 but they'd still be beat. That's how far they have to go. Don't be carried away with what happened on Saturday.
"There has to be a lot more than that if they're going to challenge City and Liverpool going forward. We'll find out a lot more about where United are this time next week."
Sky Sports' Nick Wright on the Essential Football Podcast:
"The bigger thing for Sancho is not so much the change of formation, but the Ronaldo signing. Even when United were playing a formation which he fits into, he wasn't anywhere near his best. Ronaldo's arrival has changed the way the team is structured and has to play.
"They spent so long pursuing Sancho, we have to believe they had a good idea how they planned to use him, but I think those plans have essentially been scrapped because suddenly they had the chance to sign Ronaldo, and he's now a victim of this super-club approach to recruitment, hoping everything would fall into place around him.
"I don't think it should come as a huge surprise Sancho is now struggling, a lot of people argued when Ronaldo came he would benefit the young players through seeing him in training and how he works, and there's an element of truth in that but fundamentally these young players need to play. Ronaldo's arrival means that happens less, not more.
"It's the same for Greenwood and Rashford, but Sancho isn't someone we can talk about as an emerging talent either. He's been playing at a phenomenal level for three seasons with one of Europe's best clubs. He needs to play in a system structured around his strengths, and he doesn't have that at United.
"That's a concern for them, and for Sancho, he will be worried. It's a real head scratcher for United, and it'll be interesting to see where it goes. The Donny van de Beek comparison is not one you want to be anywhere near, but that does appear to be where it's heading."
