Watford vs Manchester United
Introduction: Manchester United and Jose Mourinho suffered a third ignominious defeat at the hands of Walter Mazzarri's Watford. United had looked very solid up until their loss at home the previous week to Manchester City, but have since then found their campaign slightly unwinding.
United set-up
Mourinho's lineup featured Marcus Rashford as a starter in the Premier League for the first time against Watford. On paper Rashford was the left winger with Martial on the right but in reality the positioning of the two was changing constantly. Rooney was playing as a number 10 and joining Ibrahimovic in the box like another striker in previous games, but against Watford he was operating as the right central midfielder for large amounts of time, moving into the 10 space and towards wider areas as well on occasion. Pogba meanwhile had his free role and played very high up the pitch leaving quite a lot of space for just Fellaini to cover.
Too Much Freedom
It could be argued, ironically, that Mourinho gave some of his players too much freedom. The image above shows the average positioning of United's players over the match. Several things stand out. The first thing you will notice is that Marcus Rashford is playing more advanced than Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is the striker on paper. Rashford was switching sides with Martial frequently, but also making runs into the box beyond Ibrahimovic. Wayne Rooney meanwhile had the freedom to move from central midfield, to the 10 space and sometimes moving out wide or into the box for crosses. Perhaps most shocking is Martial, who is not only very central but also relatively deep. Martial was switching with Rashford frequently but struggled to really have an impact on the game. There is a noticeable lack of width in high areas from United, with Valencia and Shaw asked to take up the responsibility of providing width. Lastly there is a large amount of space between Fellaini, and his teammates further up the pitch. Both Pogba and Rooney failed to sufficiently aid Fellaini defensively and this was made obvious on two occasions, as Watford scored both their goals from near identical by-line cutbacks.
Creative Troubles:
Mourinho will have several decisions to make, and he will need to make them quickly. It appears that starting both Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney is no longer viable. Rooney has been shown to be a liability when playing in midfield and when he is playing as a number 10 he is occupying practically the same space which Ibrahimovic likes to operate in. Marcus Rashford may have seemed to be the perfect balance to this by providing depth and runs in behind but there was a clear and distinct lack of width from United (provided only by Antonio Valencia). To make matters worse, Paul Pogba also likes to use the space highlighted and there is simply too much crowding and not enough balance to make it work harmoniously. It is clear that Ibrahimovic lacks the pace to really be a threat running in behind defenses, so one option for Mourinho could be to drop Rooney completely, and start Ibrahimovic as the number 10, with Mkhitaryan moving into the team and Rashford starting as the striker. United will also have to find ways to remain defensively stable as so far Fellaini, Pogba and Rooney have shown themselves to be quite vulnerable without the ball. United's lack of creativity was illustrated by the amount of times Valencia would throw crosses into a box packed with Watford defenders. Mazzarri's 352 ensured that they had good coverage for crosses in their own penalty box, and practically all of United's crosses where dealt with sufficiently and provided no threat to Watford.
Conclusion: United have a lot of work to do. They won their first few games comfortably but City exposed several flaws in United's system which were exacerbated by Watford. For Watford fans, it appears like Mazzarri is creating a strong unit which can cause problems for most teams in the league. In particular he will be pleased with Isaac Success' brief cameo, who showed himself to be powerful, skillfull and dangerous in his short stint on the pitch. Having players like Success and Kenedy on the bench gives Mazzarri several different options to tweak his system, and one might even speculate that they could sneak into the top half at the end of the season.