Antonio Conte: Did Manchester United appoint the wrong man?
The Ralf Rangnick experiment has not gone to plan.
The disastrous nature of Manchester United’s collapse in the second half at the Etihad on Sunday was a new nadir, a moment we may look back on as the defining image of this tame, limp, and weirdly directionless interim spell between Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and whoever comes next.
The ex-Man Utd posse on punditry duty set the narrative, deciding this was entirely an issue of attitude; of lazy and entitled players disgracing themselves during a second half in which they held 21% possession and touched the ball four times in the Manchester City penalty area.
But their response was hyperbolic, and as usual focused far too much on the symptoms rather than the cause; on an output that is so disordered, and built on so many years of structural failures, that it gives the appearance of a team not trying hard enough.
For the most part, Man Utd are simply nowhere near as good as Man City either technically or tactically, and once Riyad Mahrez scored the third goal the visitors were broken mentally.
There is no doubt the dressing room at United is toxic, but there are many factors at play here – and the biggest one is a lack of joined-up thinking over the last ten years.
Many have wondered if United should have appointed Antonio Conte when they had the chance; a serial winner whose fire-and-fury management style could have whipped the squad into shape and changed the culture inside the club.
That may well be the case, although with a new team upstairs it is anticipated that United wish to hire a long-term project manager like Mauricio Pochettino.
But it speaks to the chaos at Old Trafford, to the disorder and mismanagement in all quarters, that even this is not set in stone. It is just as likely they will be swayed by what is fashionable, by narratives that emerge in Sky Sports studios over the next two months.
In other words, a big win for Conte on Saturday evening could put him back in the frame for the Manchester United job.
Certainly Conte goes into this game on a high following a 5-0 win over Everton on Monday night, making the tactical battle at Old Trafford an opportunity for the Italian to show the Man Utd hierarchy what they are missing.
Rangnick will be wary of Kane-led counters
Rangnick’s first ‘Big Six’ clash ended badly but started brightly.
He made a surprise switch to a 4-4-2 with two false nines, Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba, dropping deep to act as Harry Kane did in Tottenham Hotspur’s 3-2 win at Man City, and for much of the first half City struggled to adapt. Rodri was overwhelmed by the numbers in his zone and United could counter relatively effectively.
But that game does not tell us much about how things will go on Sunday.
It is the visitors, Spurs, who will sit deeper this time, inviting Man Utd to hold more of the ball and waiting for chances to counter-attack behind them.
We are back to square one in terms of our understanding of how Rangnick will approach the bigger matches: will he be conservative, as Solskjaer was, or look to continue playing on the front foot?
The answer is likely to be the former. Knowing the threat of Kane and Heung-Min Son on the break, and knowing his Man Utd side are incapable (or unwilling) to learn his hard-pressing system, Rangnick will have to keep things tight in a midblock and hope to encourage a slower tempo.
Throughout his tenure so far United have shuffled across in a strangely lacklustre formation, unable to press for long periods or attack with much verticality – save for the rare occasion an opponent pushes high and hands United the chance to release Jadon Sancho and Anthony Elanga in behind.
Since Conte’s Spurs will not do that, and United will fear being too aggressive, this match is likely to mimic the kind of tactical battle we used to see in the 2000s era of Jose Mourinho and Rafael Benitez sparring.
Quick transitions should mean an open game
However, that kind of essential cageyness does not tend to work in the modern game of quick transitions – as we saw in Tottenham’s 5-0 win over Everton on Monday.
The speed with which both United and Spurs like to play, either on the break or by attacking quickly with direct and vertical football, means that both sides holding off the press may serve to decompress the pitch.
Rather than the restrictive and claustrophobic ties we can get between, say, Chelsea and Liverpool, whose high lines and hard pressing mean there is rarely space for goalscoring opportunities, the way Rangnick and Conte are looking to hold their shape risks creating passivity; a flat-footedness that is open to sudden sparks of forward momentum.
That is what happened to Everton at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and it could happen again here; confidence is extremely low in an error-prone Man Utd defence following Sunday’s defeat.
Conte’s counters more likely to work
Through Kane, Son, and Dejan Kulusevski it is Tottenham who pose the greater threat.
Fred and Scott McTominay continue to look confused and overworked in the middle of the park, which means Kane can drop into midfield and dictate the tempo of this match.
That is the most important battle, and one exacerbated by the mismatch between Tottenham’s speed in behind up against a stumbling Harry Maguire.
What’s more, on Monday we saw Matt Doherty excel in a tweaked role, coming into central areas of the pitch almost like Joao Cancelo to play excellent through balls.
Should Tottenham again cram the middle column with bodies, it is unlikely Man Utd will be able to cope – especially with Bruno Fernandes and the returning Cristiano Ronaldo unable to prevent the line-splitting passes from Eric Dier and Ben Davies.
As for United, the depth of Conte’s defensive line and their increasing invulnerability, thanks in no small part to the brilliant perfomances of Cristian Romero, should stop Sancho or Elanga getting on the end of any attempts at long passes into the channels – which is the only attacking tactic working with any success recently for Rangnick.
His side are rudderless at the moment, far too lackadaisical in their passing and disconnected from one another, reflecting the sense of a club drifting between projects and a squad growing more poisonous by the day.
Would Conte have done any better than Rangnick? Probably not. The issues run too deep. And yet he might still get the chance to answer that question directly.
There is a strong possibility Conte will outwit his opposite number on Saturday. Should that happen the pundits may well decide United should have hired the Italian all along; may well trigger a recalibration in Manchester ahead of yet another huge summer for the club.