When the ball is wide with Rashford for Manchester United, and he is ready to pass, I like the run Bruno Fernandes made, running well offside beyond Aston Villa’s high line. All Fernandes has to do is stay behind Hojlund for a two-on-one with the keeper.

I’m not sure why more teams don’t coordinate this specific movement more often against high defensive lines. One run initially, the second run from deeper to stay onside for the pass, and then the finish two-on-one.

The risk with making a run this far offside is that for several seconds, if the ball is not played behind Aston Villa’s defense, Manchester United are essentially down to ten men because Bruno Fernandes is very far out of the play.

Marcus Rashford has to commit to sending the ball the moment Bruno Fernandes commits this hard to that run, in the same way Rasmus Hojlund has to be ready to win the foot race to the ball.

In this example in-game, Marcus Rashford hesitated with the pass, and the timing was thrown off. United gave up possession soon thereafter.

Many center-forwards purposefully stray offside against a high line, and it is effective, but not to this degree. This seems like it would be more effective if you have even a moderately quick center forward.

The positive is that if Rasmus Hojlund has the speed advantage up against center-back Diego Carlos, which I argue he would if Rashford times the pass correctly, then this ends in a goal seven times out of ten.

The hard part, in my opinion, falls on Rashford to put the correct amount of weight on the pass to not allow goalkeeper Emi Martinez to come out and sweep the ball away from danger. The easy part is making those two runs.

Match: Aston Villa 0-0 Manchester United, 6 October 2024