Manchester United boss Louis Van Gaal has suggested that his sides’ poor form from set pieces is down to the lack of height, within his current side especially at the back. Against Stoke the Red Devils lined up with Smalling at 6 foot 2, Jones measuring in at 6 foot 1 and Evans who measures in at 6 foot 1 as well.
Louis Van Gaal told reporters after the match “Stoke City deserved more the victory. I cannot say we were the better team.”
"We started very badly. When you concede from a set-play that you have prepared and they scored the same way we had told, that was a big disappointment.
"But it is difficult to defend when we are not so tall. Steven N'Zonzi is taller and Crouch is taller so it is not so easy. We have to play always those kind of games because the opponent is always taller than us. It is not the first goal we receive like that."
Defending the aerial attacks by Stoke did prove to be an issue for Manchester United who conceded from the first corner of the game, within just two minutes. An Arnautovic corner was floated in towards the big man Peter Crouch standing tall at 6 foot 7 with a costless header down towards Ryan Shawcross who volleyed home. It took just over a minute for Stoke City to fully expose the United defence and they paid the price. But it wasn’t the lack of height which was the issue it was the defending and assigned marking, for example who was the well-known aerial threat Peter Crouch being marked by? Left back Luke Shaw. That’s right the striker who throughout his entire 16 year career has caused major issues in the air, was marked by a 19 year old left-back.
Blaming it on a lack of height is not really a valid excuse from Louis Van Gaal. In recent years easily one of the best Manchester United sides was the 2007/2008 Premier League and Champions League winning side. The four men in defence in the 2008 Champions League final were; Wes Brown 6 foot 1, Rio Ferdinand 6 foot 2, Nemanja Vidic 6 foot 3 and Patrice Evra 5 foot 9. Now one of the best sides of recent times, who rarely struggled at set pieces weren’t exactly the tallest of defences.
So Louis Van Gaal needs to look at his sides marking and defensive abilities rather than blame it on their height. The fact that a young left-back was left marking Peter Crouch rather than say Smalling or Jones, is very poor but it gets worse. The fact that goal scorer Ryan Shawcross was left wide open despite being a huge centre back, doesn’t mean his height was a factor it means for some reason a main aerial target was left unmarked within the six yard box. These are defensive mistakes at their worse.
Another example from the game that it was not height being an issue was when Diouf should have scored the game’s second and his third in two games. A long ball from the back for Stoke looped over Evans head and he was beaten to the ball by Diouf after he decided not to clear it instantly. Evans is 6 foot 2 whereas Diouf is 6 foot 1. So logically since it was a long ball and going by Louis Van Gaals’ logic of height being key here, then surely Evans would have been able to head the ball away with ease? In reality what happened was he misjudged the flight of the ball, allowed it to bounce and Diouf was able to jump in front of the Irish defender and have a shot on goal.
While height can always help, with the United side at the moment it is nothing to do with height. The issue is fully at the feet of the centre backs either playing poorly or making awful mistakes.
