Arne Slot confronted Manchester United’s direct approach after a match in which United prevailed by playing a higher volume of long passes. United\u2019s opening goal came after Bruno Fernandes gobbled up a loose ball following a long punt forward. Slot did not disguise his displeasure in his post-match remarks. “It\u2019s always difficult playing against a team that plays a low block and long balls,” Slot sniped after the 2\u20131 defeat . “It\u2019s even more difficult when you concede a goal in the opening minutes with a man lying on the ground.<\/p>\n
“When you play United, with all their talented players, and they\u2019re playing a low block at our home and playing long balls, the last thing you want is to go behind because it gives them even more confidence,” Slot later added, the bitterness dripping off his words.<\/p>\n
Slot also pointed to the difference in playing style compared with recent opponents. “The biggest exception for me was, today compared to the other games we\u2019ve played, was the playing style of our opponent,” Slot explained, the smile back on his face after the end of a four-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
The statistical contrast was stark. According to FBref, Manchester United attempted 91 long passes compared with 58 by Eintracht Frankfurt; 28 percent of United\u2019s pass attempts were long, versus 15 percent for Frankfurt. United conceded one goal and allowed six shots on target; Frankfurt conceded five and faced 14 shots on target. The report also notes Eintracht Frankfurt were less reliant upon long balls but were thumped 5\u20131.<\/p>\n
Belgian goalkeeper Lammens became the focal point for United\u2019s direct plan. Of the 47 passes he attempted on Sunday, 45 travelled at least 30 yards. He explained the rationale succinctly. “You have to be realistic,” Lammens reflected.<\/p>\n
“They [Liverpool] are going to go man vs. man [off the ball], so coming to Anfield it is quite difficult to build up.<\/p>\n
“So, we made the decision that we should get more of a long ball and try to win the second ball, even though we didn\u2019t really have a target striker. We did it quite well, so that\u2019s how we could still push them away.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot criticised United’s long-ball approach; statistics highlighted heavier reliance on long passes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,175,1083],"tags":[1162,299,342],"class_list":["post-3978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-liverpool","category-man-utd","tag-analytics","tag-arne-slot","tag-bruno-fernandes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}