Mauricio Pochettino knows all about the threat posed by Manchester United, and speaking in his press conference today he was happy to say exactly how he was preparing his team. He noted one particular strength of the Red Devils:
“The pace of their offensive players, we can’t allow them to transition…. we need to be clever. They have quick players like Garnacho and Rashford.”
By clever, he presumably means lots of tactical fouls to break up their attacks when they break. That kind of thing has cost us 2 red cards in 2 games, so we hope the players know to spread the fouls around.
Just watch a bit of footage of Pep Guardiola teams, they’re the masters of preventing counter attacks with clever fouls from their attacking players just as the ball turns over.
But it’s not just about stopping United. As Pochettino went on to say, it’s also about “playing in their half.”
United can be very shaky defensively, and we will need to put them under pressure and really cause the home fans some concern if we want 3 points from a tricky fixture. It will be a tough balance to strike, and we’re very curious to see how it’s done.
