Sporting Life
Alex Keble match-ups - Ward-Prowse Caicedo

Alex Keble's Premier League match-ups: Manchester United, Erling Haaland and Moises Caicedo

By Alex Keble
Football
Sun August 20, 2023 · 1y ago
  • Alex Keble (@alexkeble) is a football journalist who specialises in tactical understanding, analysis and predictions of all aspects of the game

New signings significant

The two most high-profile new signings made in the Premier League over the past week happen to be central midfielders on opposite sides this Sunday, as James Ward-Prowse and Moises Caicedo are handed debuts by West Ham and Chelsea respectively.

Caicedo is obviously the bigger news story and yet Ward-Prowse is arguably just as important a signing for West Ham. Replacing Declan Rice is impossible, but in Ward-Prowse they have at least found somebody as energetic in the box-to-box role that Rice grew into.

More important still is Ward-Prowse’s brilliant set-piece delivery.

Over the last three seasons, as West Ham slipped from sixth to seventh to fourteenth, their number of set-piece goals diminished from 16 to 14 to 11 last season.

David Moyes has always relied upon strength at set-pieces and therefore the introduction of Ward-Prowse might just catapult the club back into the top half.

Caicedo’s brilliance can transform Chelsea.

Sitting in a double pivot alongside Enzo Fernandez, Caicedo will provide Kante-like defensive anticipation to shut down counter-attacks like those we saw Liverpool produce at Stamford Bridge last weekend.

In possession, he is an intelligent passer comfortable escaping the opposition press and weaving balls through the lines - which is exactly what Mauricio Pochettino wants in a number six.

Caicedo should be as pivotal as Moussa Dembele was to Pochettino’s Tottenham, only substantially better, and possibly the difference between a slow Chelsea rebuild and instant qualification for the Champions League.

Sharp-shooter stand-off

This should be an explosive, riotous match at The Etihad.

Kevin De Bruyne’s injury leaves Manchester City uncertain while Newcastle’s 5-1 victory over Aston Villa has raised the bar, putting both clubs in intriguing positions ahead of a match that may tell us, decisively, what each can expect from the 2023/24 season.

There is a straightforward match-up in this one: a shootout between Erling Haaland and Alexander Isak, both of whom scored braces on the opening weekend.

But what underpins that rivalry is a little more complicated: as in the 3-3 draw between the two sides last season, the game could become an end-to-end contest of the sort that pure strikers like Haaland and Isak relish.

Man City were surprisingly easy to ruffle at Burnley last weekend, when Vincent Kompany’s man-to-man press forced misplaced passes and created a stringy, dazed opening half hour from Man City.

This gives Newcastle a clear template to follow, one which Eddie Howe – who likes his team to snap aggressively into challenges in the middle third and then leap forward in the transition – is naturally inclined to follow.

With Sandro Tonali snarling high in midfield Newcastle should be even better at enacting the press (as Villa found out last Saturday) and Man City seem vulnerable to it, particularly without Ilkay Gundogan or Kevin de Bruyne to take control of things.

Assuming Newcastle’s pressure causes similar disruptions to Man City’s possession, there will be chances for Miguel Almiron and Anthony Gordon to gallop forward and release Isak in behind.

But that kind of stretched-out way of playing elongates the pitch and creates room for Man City to counter-punch, which – based on the long balls played up to Haaland last weekend – is something Guardiola is increasingly comfortable doing.

Alexander Isak should get chances on Saturday

Hence this will be a battle between two strikers likely to be released behind the back line over and over again.

The better finisher on the day can win his side the points - and tell us just how big or small the gap between Man City and Newcastle has become.

A tale of two systems

An important midfield battle comes at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, a direct head-to-head; a tussle for space that should ultimately decide the outcome.

Erik ten Hag’s team got off to a terrible start on Monday night despite the result.

Man Utd were extraordinarily easy to dribble through as Matheus Cunha and Joao Gomes cut through Mason Mount, Bruno Fernandes and Casemiro, and Ten Hag should be very worried about the reason why that happened: his tactics.

Last year United were surprisingly conservative, reactive, and individualistic in their tactical approach, presumably because Ten Hag decided to focus on changing the culture of the club before he went all-in on those Ajaxian principles.

He began to turn the dial substantially during pre-season and sure enough Man Utd pressed much higher and harder against Wolves.

Mason Mount and Bruno Fernandes didn't gel against Wolves

That was the problem. By pressing aggressively – but also chaotically – it was easy for Wolves to spin the first tackle and suddenly find themselves on the counter-attack with most of the United team behind them.

It wasn’t so much a case of Mount and Fernandes not working together, as many pundits have suggested, but that the team was not coherent or compressed in their overall shape when out of possession.

Ange Postecoglou is renowned for an attacking brand of football

Ange Postcoglou will have liked what he saw.

His inverted full-backs will crowd central midfield, potentially creating an overload that allows Spurs to pass around the onrushing Man Utd press, while Yves Bissouma – superb at Brentford – has the quality to dribble and weave through the visitors, having completed the second most take-ons (5) across the Premier League last weekend.

Postecoglou’s commitment to bold attacking football should clash spectacularly with Man Utd’s new front-foot approach, particularly if Ten Hag’s team are just as passive, producing the kind of performance and atmosphere the home side will crave for the new manager’s debut.

What happens on Saturday evening will be about the two systems. But the biggest tell we will have is in the interactions between Bissouma and Mount, the former reborn in the new regime and the latter a ghost on his Man Utd debut.

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