People have noted this season (particularly in the wake of the weekend’s dire Manchester derby), that midfielders are playing very deep against Manchester United. The trend is so noticable it’s hard to believe this is merely a tactical choice by the opposition, it seems to be a result of Louis van Gaal’s system.

To investigate, I’ve calculated touch and pass position data for central midfielders that have faced each team this year, shown below. The numbers show the average touch, pass origin and pass destination positions for all centre midfielders that have faced each team (the scale being 0-100, with 50 the half-way line):

Team	Avg Touch	Avg Pass Origin	Avg Pass Destination
Manchester United	44.51926063	47.14841735	51.55053695
Leicester City	45.05928718	47.32132381	52.12353278
Manchester City	45.4496121	48.24134365	53.19319751
Liverpool	45.89123026	48.95034476	54.04786207
Swansea City	46.18809823	48.32293877	53.11346676
Southampton	46.25431495	49.22049595	54.61689272
Chelsea	46.50900395	49.70079151	54.99465714
Arsenal	46.8681167	50.68533242	55.81001527
Tottenham Hotspur	47.03199819	49.89996785	54.3030956
Norwich City	47.14109456	50.31740135	54.9030868
Aston Villa	47.45585136	49.54328543	53.8444452
Crystal Palace	48.13725296	51.21570527	55.9466553
Watford	48.24922592	50.75826777	56.71823835
West Ham United	48.77145302	51.10018841	56.01941418
Bournemouth	48.83120838	51.76185565	55.25849846
Everton	48.94061809	51.58424266	56.5168618
West Bromwich Albion	49.51670881	52.29698356	56.89588286
Newcastle United	49.94203841	52.23178746	56.66736148
Sunderland	50.02737643	52.0606335	57.20442918
Stoke City	50.58672432	52.27340464	56.65906781

First, average of averages klaxon, I’m actually calculating the average position of each centre mid in each game, then taking the average of those. That’s slightly naughty, but if you think of the first average as the player’s position within a system, we’re really just averaging out the systems, so I’m alright with it. I also think in at least one case, I’ve miscategorised players playing 4-1-4-1.

Manchester United sit at the top of this table – their opponents have less space to work with in the centre than any other team this year. But how are they doing it? Rewatching a few games, there are a couple of reasons.

First, it’s entirely possible that opponents are just giving Man Utd respect. If you push up against Man Utd’s centre and lose the ball, often they’ll switch it out wide and counter. Contrast Man Utd’s numbers to Everton’s above, another ostensibly possession-oriented side – if you lose the ball to Everton, Ross Barkley is just going to run into a dead end and give you the ball back, or they’re going to whack it forward for it to bounce off Romelu Lukaku with his back to goal. There just isn’t that same threat, but I don’t think this is the primary reason, and I don’t know why Man Utd would have more of a fear factor than City and Arsenal.

A second observation is that, Man Utd’s attackers have been very good defensively. Wayne Rooney has done few things well this season, but he’s actually doing a good job as a defensive forward, winning 8 of his 11 tackles in the opponent’s half, and dropping deep to press. Juan Mata has also attempted a surprising 14 tackles in the opponent’s half. It’s clear than Man Utd are defending well as an entire team.

But thirdly and most importantly, I think van Gaal has instructed his players to press in the centre of the field to the point that it sometimes looks like they’re man marking opposing playmakers. One thing I’ve noticed is that Rooney, Herrera and others are constantly communicating to pick up players in the centre:

It’s clear there’s a lot of organisation here, to keep central midfielders from having space anywhere near the centre circle, so it must be an explicit tactical instruction. But how did this all fall down against Arsenal?

First, somewhat ironically, Santi Cazorla seemed entirely happy to drop very deep, and his long passing was hitting the mark. There were also constant communication problems between Bastian Schweinsteiger and Memphis Depay over whose job it was to pick him (or indeed anyone) up. Lastly, Arsenal’s movement in the centre was just excellent that day, with Cazorla often drifting to make space for Aaron Ramsey dropping deep.

Arsenal’s first goal ultimately came from Depay wandering inside, unsure who to pick up, leaving Arsenal space to break (albeit skilfully) down the right hand side.

It’s possible you’ll disagree with my interpretation of the games, but there is no doubt that Manchester United have been very affective at driving opposition central midfielders deep, and I think the per-team data is very interesting to study going forward.