Forced into a triple substitution, how did Moyes manage Man United’s second half?

Manchester United were forced into making an unusual change against Fulham on Saturday, when David Moyes made all three substitutions at half-time. The Red Devils were up by three goals thanks to a blistering 15-minute spell in the first half, but with Tom Cleverley, Jonny Evans andRafael da Silva all picking up injuries, the United boss had no choice but to replace the three players.The result was hardly spectacular.

As we can see from Squawka’s Performance Score, United hardly improved at all in the second half in terms of their effectiveness, and didn’t at all press home their three-goal advantage.

An unlucky Wayne Rooney deflection gave Fulham a goal, whereas United rarely looked like threatening a Fulham defense that appeared so flimsy in the first half. So why were the three substitutions from Moyes so ineffective for United?

45’ — Chris Smalling ON, Rafael OFF

Probably fair to point out that making a swap at right back didn’t really influence United at all.

Fulham rarely attacked down the right flank—which meant that Smalling didn’t have much work to get through—and when they did, the Englishman cleared comfortably. He didn’t have the chance to get forward and help out the attack as much as Rafael might have, but as we’ll see, there were other factors that contributed heavily towards this.

45’ — Shinji Kagawa ON, Tom Cleverley OFF

Much maligned for his limited playing time, Shinji Kagawa was thrown on in the second half and finally allowed to play in his roaming central attacking midfield role. As we can see from the images below, Rooney moved over to the right flank from his position in the hole to give Kagawa freedom to play that position, and yet the Japan international really didn’t deliver.

Kagawa was heavily caught with his back to goal and struggled to play United out of the middle like Rooney did so well in the first half. He didn’t link up with the wide men well (which is odd seeing that both Rooney and Adnan Januzaj were having particularly good games), with his Total Pass Map showing just how ineffective he was.

Of particular concern will be the number of backwards passes from Kagawa, which isn’t what United will want from their No. 10.

45’ — Marouane Fellaini ON, Jonny Evans OFF

As disappointing as Kagawa might have been in the second half, perhaps a surprising sight was the stellar performance from Marouane Fellaini coming on in central midfield.

Rarely was he “called into action” per se, but that’s what United actually want from their man in the middle; they want someone who has already killed the play before it needed to happen.

They want someone who can quietly go about his work without making mistakes, and that was Fellaini against Fulham—completing 39 of 42 attempted passes while also winning 100 percent of his tackles and two interceptions.

As his Individual Action Areas show, Fellaini filled the role in the middle of the field perfectly—not pressing too far forward into attack and not sitting too deep on top of the defensive line.

For perhaps the first time all season, the former Everton man actually played as a central midfielder very effectively, and surprisingly, he did it without the presence of Michael Carrick alongside him.

Fellaini’s strong performance redeemed Moyes’ second-half subs in many ways and ensured that they didn’t completely undo Manchester United’s first-half advantage over the Cottagers.

The introduction of Kagawa didn’t help United’s attack but hinder it, and had Fellaini delivered a hapless performance in the middle where he made poor choices in attack and didn’t work hard enough in defense, the Red Devils may well have let the Fulham back into the game. Fortunately, though—for both Fellaini and United—it didn’t happen like that, with the former Toffees star finally giving United fans something to suggest that he could actually be their answer in the middle of the field this season.