United we stand, divided we fall
Man United have had a rough time since Fergie left, if the truth be known, they’ve lost their identity. This is the start of another new era at old Trafford.
Table of Contents
Welcome to the next episode of the managing Man United in the first season series on FM24. We completed the first season in two parts, this was the first and second half of the season. You can check out our Man United club guide to get you started
As we all know Man United are going through a tough time in this Premier League era. The days of the dominate force, the treble winners, the class of ’92 have all gone. Numerous managers have come and gone with no one really changing the fate of the club. Mourinho was the most successful of the most recent managers and even he struggled.
In this guide we are going to:
- Look at the end of season league performance and individual performances.
- We will look at the tactics which have been used.
- Where the team will go next.
Read on to see how Man United went to war with the Premier League on FM24!
Man United results
This is section is where we discuss how Man United has performed against the club and supporter objectives on FM24. While this is all very general data it gives us an overview of the performance of the club, so we can highlight any strengths or weaknesses.
First Half of Season
As you can see from the results we have had a few good streaks over the first half of the season. This lends to our good position in the league, one of the big turning points was beating Man City in the derby. There is a certain amount of inconsistency to our results too, like losing 4-1 to Crystal Palace.
The main thing we can see is that we have won 60% of our games, which is close to where we need to be. The win ratio and our goal record both agree that we should be high in the table. We are one of the top scorers in the league scoring 2 goals a game and conceding 1 a game.
The result of all this data is that we are playing well, but need some more consistency to win the league. We need to focus on winning the games that we could lose and reduce the losses. We’ll tighten up the defence and look to add more pace in the forward line to
Second Half of Season
Straight away as you can see we have managed to break the top four and come 3rd in the league. We guaranteed Champions League football next year which means we can attract the best players. When you look at the stats you can see that we deserved our third place, but we were someway behind the top two.
We are ranked as third for most wins and least losses, we came 4th for goals scored and third for goals conceded. From that basic data we have room for improvement in the goal scoring front, but other than that very balanced. There seems to be two bands in the top four, the top two, then 3rd and 4th, we need to close that gulf.
There are two areas to focus here, either score ten more or concede ten less. According to statistics if we score ten more, we will receive another 2.3 wins and through conceding ten less we would have 2.6 more wins. As we are under performing on goals scored, I would start there.
Individual Performances
In this section we speak the individual performances of the Man United team on FM24. We can use this data to help support any conclusions we have drawn from the team data above.
First Half of the Season
Looking at the average ratings, I am surprised to see that there are only a few 7+ average ratings. Varane has been the king of the set pieces in the first part of the season. Rashford is the key player in this team and a serial match winner. There are a lot of players who are in the 6.9 average rating, so I can settle with that.
Looking into the Xg data we can see that there are a few heroes, players who are exceeding or doubling their target. Rashford is 3 ahead of his expectation, Sancho and Varane have doubled it and Hojlund has gone crazy on it too. Overall this counter attacking football is creating some tasty chances for the team as a whole.
In the pass completion standard test we only have a handful of players that have not achieved 85%. In Rashford, Eriksen and Fernandes I would have put money on them performing better. I would l say that because they are working in the final third, more of their passes are riskier.
Second Half of the Season
So in the data above we have identified that we are underperforming slightly in the goal scoring area. We can look at the Xg data as a basic form of data, as I have said before if I go any deeper this blog will be made up of millions of words. The reason we can use the Xg data is two fold, it measures our effectiveness and also the number of chances we have.
Looking into the Xg data we can see the Rashford, Hojlund and Sancho are far surpassing their targets. What we do have a problem with is that the majority of team are not meeting their goal expectation. While these are all small values, they all add up, we cannot just rely on three or four players to achieve their goals.
There is a statistic that teams which have more possession win at least 40% of their games. Although a basic stats we will use the passing completion to help us understand possession. The good news is that the majority of our defenders are achieving 85%, our midfield needs some attention as they lost balls to counter attacks.
Man United tactics
This is where we discuss the tactics that we have used with Man United on FM24. We tend to use the tactics that we designed in the day one series, but with this one we designed a new tactic. The formation is designed from the assistant reports, and was quite obvious in this case.
The way we designed this tactic was by looking at the assistant reports to create our formation. The tactic was then created by first looking at the objectives of Man United. We have no real objectives which limit our approach so can play any style.
My next step is to build the tactic from the back, we first look at the average pace of the back line. In this case our slowest player is Maguire, who is amazing in the air, why not play to his strengths. Using a deeper line requires less pace and traps faster opposition players.
When we look at the front line we have a number of fast paced players who can dribble. This is perfect for a counter attack which works perfect with a deep line to soak up the pressure and push back.
Conclusion
Man United are one of my favourite teams on FM24, they are a team in transition, a time to rebuild. They have access to some of the top players in the world and have all the resources in the world. The problem is the team are a mess, they are all from different managers who have left, like I say good for a rebuild.
The strength of the Man United team is the speed they have up front. Rashford, Hojlund and Sancho are great on the break and will punish any defence given the opportunity.
The weakness of the team is the the striker position, there is a lack of depth and quality. Hojlund is young and still developing, Martial is on the way out and Rashford is an insane left winger.
The opportunity in this team is the amount of great quality youngsters coming through, Mainoo, Hannibal, Amad and Gore. The list is endless with a number of other youngsters with high potential coming through. Another class of ’92 potentially.
The threat is the financial situation, as you will see Man United are up to the hilt in the first season. If you do not succeed in their ambitions then the club will stop being sustainable.
I hope you enjoyed this guide, now go and start your journey with Man United on FM24. Please comment any feedback below.
Fancy playing as someone new, manage Bologna today.