Rotherham United 0-2 Manchester United (U21s)

Rotherham United 0-2 Manchester United (U21s)
EFL Trophy
Tuesday 6th August 2019

This was an impressive display (in some ways) by Manchester United’s Under 21s as they secured three points on their EFL Trophy debut.

United’s youngsters demonstrated a ‘pass, pass, pass’ mentality and had a real zest, fluidity and pace when breaking and attacking; moving the ball out wide quickly and effectively with Angel Gomes and particularly James Garner catching the eye.

Strikes by Ethan Laird and Largie Ramazani settled the encounter and, on this performance, there’s every reason for United to be confident they’ll escape a group which also contains Doncaster Rovers and Lincoln City and thus make it to the knockout stages.

Whilst Neil Wood’s team could have won by a bigger margin in the end, there were also times at 0-0 where Rotherham SHOULD have punished their youthful counterparts - and I’ve no doubts there’ll be frustration amongst their players that they didn’t.

The visitors played out from the back far too frequently - more often than not inviting pressure on themselves before they conceded possession in their own third, whilst also struggling in aerial battles against the Millers’ frontline.

The first half, which ended goalless, was short on chances but packed with incident and surprise - largely because you never knew which way referee Graham Salisbury would point when he had to make a decision.

Rotherham’s chief threat, Freddie Ladapo, twice drew saves from Matej Kovar, once having outmuscled centre-back Lee O’Connor to catch sight of goal, during the first 45 minutes whilst at the opposite end, Tahith Chong enjoyed the Red Devils’ best opening with a sweetly-struck strike from distance that was parried away by Lewis Price.

Salisbury made a string of ‘questionable’ decisions, seemingly wanting to protect the Premier League youngsters from any modest physicality, and his inept half was summed up when he blew for the interval just after Chong showed an exquisite bit of skill to get through on goal.

In the early exchanges after the re-start, United looked the better side but were indebted to their goalkeeper again as he made an instinctive save to prevent Carlton Morris’ low shot from finding the target.

The visitors enjoyed quite a bit of play in and around the Rotherham box but struggled to get anything on target until the 70th minute when Laird let fly with a sumptuous and thunderbolt left-foot shot that nestled in the bottom corner.

Buoyed by the breakthrough, United were now on top and their midfield soon architected another brilliant move which culminated in Ramazani being afforded time and space to fire home a low shot, following a slick passing move which cut the Millers defence to pieces.

A comeback never seemed likely at this point and Dylan Levitt almost added a third goal with a powerful drive which ricocheted off the base of the post, whilst Price also thwarted D’Mani Mellor in injury-time.

Whatever your stance on the EFL Trophy nowadays, it’s undeniable that the competition has come a long way since the ‘wishy washy’ introduction of academy teams three years ago.

It’s evident that these sides are here to stay and it will only be a matter of time, maybe even this season, before one progresses all the way to Wembley.

However, what I sincerely hope is NOT here to stay in the long-term is this ‘playing out from the back’ b*llocks/philosophy which has infiltrated football since Barcelona successfully implemented it around a decade ago.

There’s a time and place to ‘play out from the back’ and doing it EVERY time without fail is predictable as it is boring and more often than not when United did this they ended up inviting unnecessary pressure on themselves before ultimately conceding possession.

For me, defenders are there to defend - not attempt to replicate Xavi!

Clearly, it’s an instruction by the coaching staff, which then has to be respected as they’re the professionals and I’m just an opinionated numpty writing a blog.

It was the same when Manchester City’s youngsters drew with Barnsley in the EFL Trophy last year, but surely using this ‘tactic’ on every occasion possible won’t work in a senior set-up, a couple of divisions lower on a bobbly pitch in the middle of winter?

Given the influx of foreign players to the Premier League, year by year, the lower divisions are inevitably where many of these youngsters will filter down to and you have to have the ability to ‘mix it up’ a bit when required to do so.

United’s idea of ‘mixing it’ tonight was a three-yard roll from the ‘keeper to the nearest defender as opposed to a three-yard pass.

Coincidentally, Rotherham ‘keeper Lewis Price booted his kicks downfield and, although the Millers didn’t get the result they wanted, they certainly had a good success rate in the air.