Great point yesterday and a great performance. I noticed Match of the Day chose to focus on Untied's failings as a big reason as to why they were unable to leave the Stadium of Light with all three points. In this article we'll explore as to why United's failing was more down to how Sunderland dealt with the opposition and limited their threats. United set up with a 352, With Darren Fletcher(later replaced by Januzaj late in the first half) and Tom Cleverly taking up the Central Midfield positions with Juan Mata taking up the CAM role setting up the tasty clash of Catts Vs Mata. Sunderland set up in their familiar system of 433 with Catts in the holding role with Larsson and Rodwell filling the CM births. please log in to view this image MOTD'S MIDFIELD MYTH It's import to point out that MotD chose to focus Man United's passing in the middle of the park as their failings, and then came the replay's showing a montage of misplaced United passes. This of course is codswallop. Time to dispel the myth well and truly on United's 'dreadful' passing On the day. Manchester United boasted an impressive 89% passing accuracy overall to Sunderland's 84%. Not much in it in terms of passing from both sides. But as we can see from the image below that united had the better of us, both in terms of success rate and quantity of passes played. please log in to view this image So Man U won the midfield battle right? Wrong! For the second game running Lee Cattermole excelled in the CDM role. Motd managed to point out Catts improved passing but completely missed his his organised defensive performance and the hard work put in by his fellow team mates Jack Rodwell and Seb Larsson who both grafted with Catts to nullify the attacking threat as we can see from this combined heat chart of the three Sunderland midfielders below. please log in to view this image As we can see from Mata's passing chart, he was in most part restricted from supplying his front two and was limited instead into attempting to stretch play. But with Van Aanholt again impressing, this time defensively, managing to keep Valencia quiet most of the afternoon and on the opposite side Vergini, with the defensive assistance of Will Buckley, restricted the shameful Ashley Young to auditioning as an extra in a film on the Normandy landings. In fact when you look at all four of United's CM's combined passing chart it shows them passing along the line of an invisble brick wall which i've marked with the red line. IN SUMMERY It was an organised and hard working Sunderland side which actually more than dealt with the 150m United line up and not the so called shocking passing from Manchester United as accused by the BBC and their so called experts. And while the BBC may have the rest of the nation fooled with misrepresentations of what really happened. We Not606er's know and appreciate the excellent, organised and disciplined Sunderland Midfield who won the battle in the middle of the park without having anywhere near as much of the ball. Lee Cattermole, Seb Larsson and Jack Rodwell I salute you!
Excellent post although facts are not what people like MOTD appreciate. You could make a compilation of any teams's misplaced passes, from any match, and make them look poor. The script was written well before the match kicked of and you've ripped it up, well done.
Couldn't believe what I was seeing on match or the day like. An absolute shocking assessment of the game. So far wrong it's scary.
anti sunderland blinkers on mate, btw, cheers for introducing me to tees, another face to a name , is that where your seat is for the season?
Yeah mate, same row just in front of the camera scaffold. You and Tees were stood so close without even realising, it tickled me. He loved that area like. Who doesn't want to be able to stand all game without being told sit down? Love that area of the ground me.
i wouldnt wanna be anywhere else, was deffo louder than last year, our lass commented on how loud it came accross on the telly, didnt think to record it for me though
I was chatting to a Man U fan(from Barnsley of course) on the train going home, he claimed they out sang us from start to finish. I told them that I doubt it but from where the away fans are placed compared to where we make most of our noise there's no way of knowing whilst actually there. But on Match of the day you could only here Sunderland like.
Sorry to say it, but I have to agree with the Man U lad...Our singing was piss poor again yesterday although the general atmosphere and noise levels were OK..
South East Corner... My brother and son were in the East Stand and regarding the singing could only hear the Man U fans..
Nice one Bri. The combined Utd passing chart is a good un - does say a lot as to how organised we were in keeping them at bay/frustrated. And Catts was the most progressive midfielder on the pitch (the least sideways of the lot) by a long way.
Absolute brilliant analysis, perhaps you should send it to the BBC and educate them on their inability to give an appropriate assessment.
We will never get the credit we deserve from the twats on MOTD. We kept man utd at bay and had the better chances to win the game. Catts controlled the midfield and was the best player on the park. Our organisation and hard work was why we got the point and without Sebbs momentary lapse we could have had all 3
