Tactical changes will inevitably be part of the transition between the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons at Manchester United. After all, the principle architect of last season's tactics has been replaced.Jose Mourinho has arrived in Louis van Gaal's stead, and he is tasked with addressing two specific tactical issues that resulted in United's undoing last season.The first is the plodding, desperately uninspired, safety-first approach to attacking football that caused so much frustration during the first half of last season. The second is the chaotic, rudderless approach to defending that came about when the midfield became less concerned with providing defensive stability.The first problem was exemplified in games against PSV Eindhoven, CSKA Moscow and Sheffield United at home and Crystal Palace away, which were either 0-0 draws or extremely laboured 1-0 wins.The second reached its most problematic against Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur at West Ham United on the road, all games in which United conceded three and were the architects of their own demise.Van Gaal's template will obviously be torn up, and Mourinho will write a new one. Thus the bedrock of last season's tactical approachusing possession and passing to try and work openings, taking as few risks with possession and shape as possible, with the impetus on the forwards to convert an unsustainable percentage of their chanceswill be gone.In its place will come Mourinho-ball.Sometimes, that will mean a dominant, ruthless aggression against teams United are expected to beatthe essence of his first spell at Chelsea in the Premier League.Sometimes, it will mean canny counter-attacking against possession-oriented teams with defensive weaknesseswitness Chelsea's 1-0 win over Manchester City at the EtihadStadium in February 2014 as a prime example.And occasionally, it will mean the absolute football-cliche dictionary definition of parking the bus, as embodied by Inter Milanduring theirChampions League semi-final second-leg win over Barcelona in 2010.His defensive instincts have perhaps been overstated by that game, which has become a kind of shorthand for his career. The truth is United will play plenty of attacking football under Mourinho, albeit in a different manner than they attempted under Van Gaal.Michael Cox wrote the following for the Guardian in May:Where [Mourinho's] first Chelsea side were packed with physical midfielders and functional attackers, he has recently accommodated more technical, creative footballers. He has not determinedly searched for a Claude Makelele figure, using the deep-lying playmaker Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid.The creative but positionally undisciplined Cesc Fabregas played a deep midfield role in his second spell with Chelseaalbeit rarely in big gamesand Mourinho also turned Wesley Sneijder and Mesut Ozil into world-class No.10s by freeing them from defensive responsibilities.The same applies out wide: Mourinhos most recent left wingers have been Cristiano Ronaldo and Eden Hazard, who have pinned the opposition right-back rather than tracking them.This take provides food for thought about what could happen at United. There is certainly no Makelele figure in the squad at the moment. Morgan Schneiderlin comes closest, but he was much less effective as the kind of shuffling water-carrier Van Gaal tried to turn him into than the box-to-box player he had been at Southampton.Van Gaal's central midfield was endlessly frustrating. They were adept at retaining possessionit became the kind of second nature that the Dutchman's coaching facilitatesbut there was so little urgency, so little attacking impetus.It repeatedly brought to mind a quote from Marti Perarnau's Pep Confidential: The Inside Story of Pep Guardiola's First Season at Bayern Munich (h/t the Telegraph). Guardiola had explained why "tiki-taka" did not describe his approach:I hate tiki-taka. Tiki-taka means passing the ball for the sake of it, with no clear intention. And it's pointless.Don't believe what people say. Bara didn't do tiki-taka! It's completely made up! Don't believe a word of it! In all team sports, the secret is to overload one side of the pitch so that the opponent must tilt its own defence to cope. You overload on one side and draw them in so that they leave the other side weak.And when we've done all that, we attack and score from the other side. That's why you have to pass the ball, but only if you're doing it with a clear intention. It's only to overload the opponent, to draw them in and then to hit them with the sucker punch. That's what our game needs to be. Nothing to do with tiki-taka.Van Gaal played tiki-taka, in the pejorative sense. Those overloads were not created. One of the reasons for this was how often both deep-lying midfielders were stationed behind the ball, even when United were in possession.Having one or both of those playersassuming Mourinho plays 4-2-3-1free to break forward more often, providing another passing option for the man on the ball, will be a tactical revelation.At No. 10, perhaps Juan Mata and Mourinho could work together in spite of their issues at Chelseawhere, incidentally, it seemed Mourinho was not prepared to have a No. 10 freed from defensive responsibility.There are other options. Zlatan Ibrahimovic could drop into that position, Marcus Rashford played there at youth level and Wayne Rooney, of course, remains a puzzle piece to be accommodated in spite of the lack of an obvious available slot for him.Henrikh Mkhitaryan's move to United has been confirmed by Borussia Dortmund (h/t Mark Critchley of The Independent), and he is certainly an option as an attack-minded No. 10.On the left, Anthony Martial certainly has potential to be the kind of winger who pins back opposition right-backsthat was just about the only part of United's attack that was working under Van Gaal before Rashford's emergence. And Luke Shaw's return from injury means he will have the support he needs to achieve this.Shaw was a revelation at full-back before his injury last season and is a virtual archetype for a contemporary left-back: defensively sound with the physical attributes and technical ability required to contribute in attack. His presence will allow Martial a lot of freedom.And all this should meanMourinho's game plan can be executed. It should also mean United's defence is more solid when the midfield are not offering constant protection. Daley Blind's role in the side as a play-making centre-back will surely be revised under the new manager, who will likely want to assemble a much more solid centre-back pairing.When Chelsea beat City at the Etihad in February 2014, Jonathan Wilson broke down the tactics for the Guardian, taking a look at how Chelsea's centre-backs operated. He wrote:Sides such as Bayern Munich and Barcelona deny opponents access to that key sector by pressing high up the pitch, squeezing them back in their own half and then denying them possession. Chelsea do it with guards, stationing [John] Terry and Gary Cahill within the zoneone of the reasons Terry suddenly looks so good again is that he is defending deep, playing with with the game in front of him so his lack of pace and consequent vulnerability to balls played behind him is no longer an issue.Eric Bailly has already arrived, and it would not be a surprise to see another guard-type defender brought in to play alongside Chris Smalling. Blind will be moved on or used as the kind of utility man he was during 2014-15.At the tail end of that season, United faced Chelsea. The Red Devils were resurgent. Van Gaal's influence had finally begun to be felt and United were playing some free-flowing, attack-minded possession football.They had won four games in a row, which included victories against Manchester City and Liverpool, and they had put themselves in pole position for Champions League qualification. But then they ran into Mourinho's Chelsea. United dominated possession but lost 1-0.As Nick Miller observed for ESPN FC at the time:Rooney and Van Gaal may think their team dominated the 90 minutes, but that very much depends on your definition of domination. If it means having the majority of the ball and some nice stats, then the United men can take comfort. If it means whose plan did the game most resemble, then Jose Mourinho takes home the moral victory as well as the actual one. United may have controlled possession of the ball, but it was Chelsea who controlled the game.Van Gaal's United never again hit a patch of form like they did in the spring of 2015. Almost every other manager in the league adopted the approach Mourinho had done, and Van Gaal never seemed to find a way to beat it.Now the Red Devils will be the ones using the Mourinho game plan. They will be the ones more likely to hamper their opposition and use counter-attacking as their primary weapon.To a fanbase worn down by tiki-taka, passing for the sake of passing and possession for the sake of possession, it will likely come as a welcome tactical change.
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