A 4-0 aggregate drumming by Barcelona over two legs in the Champions League exposed fragilities throughout Manchester United’s first team.
One of the biggest was their inferior defence.
At the Camp Nou on Tuesday night, the Reds lined up with a back four consisting of Ashley Young, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Victor Lindelof.
Although the average age of that back line was just 28.25, this is largely down to 24-year-old Lindelof. The other three United defenders are aged 27 and above, with Ashley Young now 33 and in the twilight of his playing days.
Notably, three of that back four lined up against Basel in the Champions League way back in 2011 - albeit Young in a more advanced position - illustrating the lack of transition within the defence on the previous seven seasons.
Not just an ageing back line, there is also no evidence to suggest that the defence is performing at suitable standard in comparison to their rivals.
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In the Premier League this season, the Reds have the worst defence of any side in the top six, conceding 44 league goals - that is more goals conceded than the likes of Wolves and league strugglers Newcastle United.
Looking at Expected Goals Conceded (xGC) - which is a metric that assesses the likelihood that a shot would lead to a goal based on numerous factors such as the shot distance allowed and quality of the assist granted - United are as high as 42.78.
In comparison, Liverpool xGC total for the season is 27.36 and Manchester City’s is just 24.57. This would suggest United are allowing the opposition nearly twice as many quality shots on their goal than the Premier League’s top sides.
In light of the same, unsurprisingly the Reds haven’t kept a clean sheet in their previous ten matches across all competitions.
Not just uninspiring defensively, United’s defence don’t seem able to replicate other top sides in terms of their ability to play out from the back.
The modern blueprint for all the top sides across Europe is their ability to play out through the keeper and into their defence. Notably to do this, there has been an enormous investment on keepers by the Premier League’s top sides in recent seasons.
Man City parted with £35m to bring in Ederson last season as Pep Guardiola sourced a keeper capable of implementing his ball playing style, meanwhile Liverpool and Chelsea splashed out a combined £135m in their bid to secure the same this season.
As a result, the trio of Ederson, Alisson Becker and Kepa Arrizabalaga can boast impressive passes per 90 minutes averages of over 20 and a success rate in those passes of around 90%.
Yet David De Gea averages just 14.85 passes per 90 minutes with a significantly reduced success rate of just 80.7%.
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Additionally, all three have an average pass length of below 30 meters, suggesting they often favour short passes out to centre-backs rather than long upfield clearances.
However, De Gea has an average pass length of 36.42m per 90 minutes. This all likely illustrates the Spaniard's lack of comfort in playing out from the back; his bias tends to be to play the ball long and clear any potential danger to his goal.
And it isn't just the stopper. Unlike their rivals, United’s centre-backs aren't known for their ball playing ability.
In fact, according to Wyscout, in terms of centre-backs with the most passes per 90 minutes who have played over 1000 league minutes this season, the highest ranked United defender is Phil Jones in 19th place.
The top ten is made up exclusively of defenders from City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham.
Due to their inability to play out through the centre-backs, if they don’t go long, United will often look to build attacks through the wings, usually relying on the likes of Luke Shaw on the left or Ashley Young on right to commence these attacks.
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At just 23 years old, Shaw have proven a key component to United’s attack and should be a mainstay in the defence for years to come. However, on the right side, an ageing Young is proving liability.
Once a formidable winger, Young was initially deployed to fill the gap vacated by a sidelined Antonio Valencia, yet the poor form of Matteo Darmian and inexperience of Diogo Dalot has seen the former Aston Villa man make the position his own.
Too many times though this season his defensive weaknesses have been exploited; notably it was he who gave the ball away which allowed Lionel Messi to capitalise for the first goal on Tuesday night.
Whilst always expected to be defensively fragile, the benefit of playing Young is supposed to be his offensive threat. But again this has diminished in recent times.
Now well-documented, the Englishman attempted ten crosses against Barcelona at Old Trafford, and all ten failed to find their target.
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His attacking inferiority is further outlined when compared with some of the talent United’s rivals have at their disposal.
The above compares the attacking influence of both Young and Liverpool’s 20-year-old right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold in the league this season.
As can be seen from the above, the youngster outperforms Young in virtually every department. He has better numbers in terms of xG per 90 minutes, shots per 90 minutes, assists per 90 minutes, xA per 90 minutes, key passes per 90 minutes and xGChain, which values the possession each player is involved in per 90 minutes - basically measuring their influence in the build up play to a team's attack.
With the full-back positions now such a pivotal part of the modern game, United can no longer afford to simply plug a hole, specifically when their rivals can boast such a wealth of talent in the same positions.
With Ole Gunnar Solskaer now fully at the helm, he must oversee a big transition period at the club, starting in the summer.
If United truly want to compete with those above, they must develop a young and vigorous side capable of replicating their rivals in style and ability - upgrading their below-par defence will act as a good starting point.
