Man Utd midfielder Matic nails the art of not needing to tackle
You cannot win them all 4-0 – and picking up three points at the King Power is a good effort, however it comes.
And key to the victory and stopping a very good Leicester side was their Serbian holding midfielder Nemanja Matic.
There has been a lot of praise for the likes of Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard, Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial and the United full-backs since the team became more attacking under new boss Ole Gunnar Solksjaer.
And rightly so, they are the ones that are pleasing on the eye – take Pogba’s pass and Rashford’s finish yesterday.
But Matic does the unnoticed, nitty-gritty stuff that allows the front players to shine and the full-backs, Ashley Young and Luke Shaw, to get forward.
You can see from the average position map that the Serb sat deeper than every United player bar the two centre-halves yesterday.
But it is not just sitting deep, it is reading the game and then being in the right place to slow Leicester down.
Matic put in one great tackle to stop a Leicester attack with 10 minutes to go – winning the ball cleanly and snuffing out the danger.
But the midfielder doesn’t always need to put a tackle in. Or even win the ball. And he rarely goes to ground.
On many occasions yesterday it was just his presence that held the Foxes up, forced them to turn back, or forced them out to the flanks.
By guiding the Leicester play that way it bought his side time and allowed his teammates to regroup and get back into positions. It allowed Shaw and Young to recover.
His reassuring presence, that shielding, also allowed the two United centre-backs to hold their shape and not to get dragged out of position.
They were never caught beyond that width of their own penalty box. That was down to Matic.
United are committing more players forward these days and Leicester are quick on the break too, so it was a vital role to play.
Ander Herrera helped with the job but Matic – although he will not get many headlines – was the master.
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