What's Going On At Atletico Madrid And How Can Manchester United Approach their UCL R-16 Tie Against Them
The Round of 16 Draw for the UEFA Champions League came with its fair share of drama - with United being initially drawn against Paris Saint-Germain, causing a fan uproar as the prospect of Ronaldo and Messi going head-to-head again - only for the draw to then be re-done with the Red Devils being finally picked to face the current Spanish Champions, Atletico Madrid.
As I start writing this article, Atleti are coming off a defeat to Xavi's Barcelona in what was a rather underwhelming display from the Colchoneros.
Now, let us take a look at how and where these three are generating the threat from -
Carrasco operates largely from the left-wing, Lemar from the left-wing or the left half-space, and De Paul looks to be the primary ball progressor from the middle third into the final third.
The passes are mainly coming from out wide, followed by the left and right half-spaces. Corners also look to be a genuine threat-creating tool for the Los Rojiblancos, and this can be seen from the previous visualization too - with Carrasco, De Paul and Lemar successfully finding their targets with a lot of corners. This has resulted in Atleti scoring 6 goals from corners this season. This should be an immediate concern for Manchester United and Ralf Rangnick, as the Red Devils have constantly shown vulnerability from set-pieces.
As a team, Atleti have scored the fourth-most goals in the league, joint level with Barcelona, and the underlying numbers would suggest that their attack is pretty good too (fifth in the league) although they are overperforming their xG as a team.
As we can see here, the second half is where Atletico really show up as a team. They have been leading at HT in only 6 out of 22 matches (27%), and that is probably the reason they start attacking more in the final half hour of the game.
Another damning statistic against the Los Rojiblancos is that they have scored first in just 13 out of 22 matches, and have further won just 7 out of those 13 matches (with 3 draws and 3 losses).
In conclusion, Atleti's attack has been pretty decent if not amazing, and given how Simeone is not known for playing free-flowing attacking football, this is not really a surprise. When United face off against them on the 24th, United should take advantage of Atleti's slow start (which is a positive sign given how under Rangnick, United have been very good in the first half). But conversely, United also need to defend better in the second half when Simeone's side invariably turns up the heat.
United also need to close down Rodrigo de Paul, who will be the primary ball progressor via passing from the middle to final third now that Trippier has moved to Newcastle, and should then look to lock down Lemar and Carrasco in particular, who will look to drop deep, carry the ball into the final third and create chances for teammates.
However, their defence, and one player in particular, has seen a massive drop off this season, and that is what has put Atletico in a position of concern.
The Defence
A quick glance at this chart, and it can be seen that Atleti have played pretty well, and have lost games they ideally shouldn't have - most notably in their recent fixtures to title rivals Real Madrid, Sevilla and Barcelona. Their xG has almost always been better than their xGA, with the latter exceeding the former just thrice across the season - meaning just thrice Atleti were expected to concede more goals than they scored.
Usually, stuff like this can be attributed to a bad run of form, which is also true to a certain degree, but there is a thing to be noted here -
Their defence as such hasn't been bad - in fact, as previously mentioned, their defence according to xGA has been the best in the league. But the difference between their actual goals conceded vs expected goals conceded has been stark in a lot of games. So why have they been conceding so many goals?
Jan Oblak
People may have their opinions on who has been the best goalkeeper over the last decade, but unanimously, a majority of people would agree that Jan Oblak is definitely up there.
However, something is not right with the Slovenian goalkeeper this season.
This metric (from Statsbomb via FBRef) measures the extent to which a goalkeeper is overperforming. And until last season, when Oblak helped Atletico Madrid win the La Liga title for the first time since the 2013/14 season, the current Slovenian Footballer of the Year has been overperforming every season.
Nevertheless, Oblak's performances have massively dropped off this season, and are the primary reason Atletico might fail to retain the La Liga title this season. He has been probably the best shot-stopper over the past decade alongside De Gea, and Atleti have depended on him to bail them out of trouble. This season, it looks like while the whole team is working extremely hard to build a solid defence, it is Oblak's underperformance that has caused them to concede 30 goals from ~18 xGA, a drastic 12 goal difference. This means even if Oblak had just been ''average", Atleti would have only conceded somewhere between 17-19 goals, but so poor has been his form, that they have let in way more goals than Simeone would have liked.
Here is a look at the goals/shots conceded by Atletico so far this season -
It's visible how many low-quality shots Oblak has let in this season, which is surprising for a keeper of his quality. This may bode well for United's forwards like Cristiano Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford, all of who like taking shots from distance. If Oblak's torrid form continues when the Red Devils face them, United may just be able to overcome Atleti, as De Gea, who is a similar shot-stopping keeper as Oblak, is currently the best in Europe's top 5 leagues when it comes to goal prevention.
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FBRef.com
Understat.com
Soccerstats.com
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