Written by : @ConorCulver

Monday night was not a pretty game. Although at times we played some beautiful football, it just never led to anything. The front four in that game were highlighted by the BBC as not creating many opportunities and it is hard to disagree.

The main culprit behind this has to be Anderson – he just had a bad game. Whenever he got 1v1 against the Right Back he seemed to just bide his time and wait for Masuaku to join him in attack rather than drive at the defender and try to make something happen. We’ve already seen this season what happens when he drives at defenders, taking them to the by-line – he pulls them back for Haller to score easy tap ins.

Speaking of Haller, there cannot be too much criticism. His holdup play was once again excellent and he was a handful for Mings and Engels even when up top on his own when we had 10 men.

Lanzini had a good game and was making key passes throughout the match looking to probe and find the runners. Yarmolenko was less effective and never really got into the game and didn’t look at his dangerous best. The key thing here is that when our wide players don’t play as well as they can, we seem to struggle, but the same can be said for any team in the league. This hurts teams like us more though as we rely on crosses and pull backs for Haller to score the goals in his way. He is unlikely to run in behind all too often and so playing narrow and through the channels only works when the runners in the channels are the wingers. When the wingers aren’t playing at their best then this can be a real problem in terms of creativity and service. Would the game have ended differently had Masuaku not been needlessly sent off? Who knows; but the wide players had an off night and it showed.

Looking ahead to Man United though we can expect a great showing from both players. Anderson was majestic in this fixture last year and Man United have some serious injuries throughout the squad. If Anderson can be that bit more positive and if Yarmolenko can find his way into the game more then they could cause some serious problems especially with Haller keeping Maguire occupied and Lanzini (should he play) creating chances in the pocket behind them.