Football is not a 1v1 game..
You may think you have your man under control, but if one of your teamates isn't in control, that's when the spaces come about.
In order to fully contain a striker with good movement you will need both your LB and RB to have the measure of their respective winger -to stop the ball coming in.
You also need your CB partner to have the measure of their own striker, and the midfield to track all late runs into the box (that could distract/block you from your own man.)
If they dont do this, then players will be run ragged and spaces will come about...
You seem to think playing CB is simple, and a case of simply "closing down the space". There's alot more to it than that..
So i'll ask... Do you/have you ever played lower league football?
Look, I do get your point, but with mids pressing back and the back line blocking this is very effective at reducing operationg space for all opposing forward players, you close the hole between the mid and back line, what you are talking about is when united are overrunning a team, in games of attrition that space and the counters don't happen as often. Blackburn was a good example of space being closed down, Arsenal, compared ot Marseille, miles and miles of space because their midfield went missing defensively, which is something when you look at Uniteds, don't even get me started on Schalke.
He does well when United can stretch the other team, if they cannot, ala ars Bolton Blackburn Hernandez is not a player for those type of games, Barca press like fk and I would think it a mistake to start him in that game as defensively he doesn't add anything and there will be defensive work to be done by the whole team, reminds me of Ronaldo, because United didn't have the ball he was dead weight and should ahve been taken off.
If you look at United v Chelsea, United did this very thing, they occupied their half of the pitch and left no space as shown by Torres getting the ball as with other chelsea players and 3 or 4 United players around them, no room for running this way or that and as they forced Chelsea back they pressed em back to the keeper and it worked quite wel for them, this I think it how they'l approach the Barca game though Chelsea cracked it more than once at OT but Kalou missed sitter of a header I think Barca will too.
Anyways, no surprise two fans see the game differently eh
