PSG played with 4-3-3 line up.
Manchester United played with 3-4-1-2 line up.
When PSG tried to make game, they played with a 2-3-5 line up. Full backs went to the wings, Herrera and Gueye came to the half-spaces in the midfield.
Herrera’s and Gueye’s role was to make game. They were in half-spaces, so they could go to the wings to make game too. And when they went, they could be free because Manchester United had only wing backs to cover wings. So they had numerical advantage in the both wings with 2 vs 1.
But they couldn’t use this advantage. First of all, to understand, let’s look at the attack sides. They tried to attack left side with %47 percentage. Because Mbappe came to the left wing and Neymar closed to the midfield to take the ball and make game from the left wing. So they tried to use their talent usually.
I want to say, they didn’t use Herrera to make game much. They used Gueye. In the first half, Herrera had the ball with %4.7 and Gueye was %6.4.
But Gueye wasn’t a good player about making game and his dominant foot is right foot. To make game from the left wing, his dominant foot should be left. So he couldn’t make game from the left wing greatly.
PSG used 4-1-4-1 line up in the set defences. Pereira covered Bruno Fernandes, Di Maria and Neymar took position in the half-spaces.
Manchester United used 2-4-4 line up in the set attacks. Alex Telles became the left winger, Martial closed to the right wing and Bruno Fernandes closed to the centre forward. Shaw became the full back.
This attacking line up didn’t work. Because there wasn’t any numerical advantage in the pitch. Sometimes Shaw could be effective against Di Maria but it wasn’t enough for Manchester United.
When Fernandes closed to the forward line, Danilo followed him and between PSG’s midfield and defense line was free. But Manchester United couldn’t use this free space.
First half both sides couldn’t control the game. They could find goal opportunities with individual talents.
Second half Tuchel substituted Moise Kean and Gueye came to the bench. Line up changed 4-2-4.
It worked because now they attacked from wings with 2 vs 1 with the free full backs.
But then Pogba came to play instead of Alex Telles in the 67th minute and Manchester United’s line up changed to 4-1-2-1-2.
This tactical change changed everything. Because now Manchester United could cover the opponent’s full backs. Actually in the midfield they had numerical disadvantage with 4 vs 3. But it wasn’t important to Manchester United because Pogba and Fred took position in the half-spaces. It means they could cover centre midfield and wings at the same time. PSG should have passed quickly in the midfield to use numerical advantage but they didn’t have enough energy to increase tempo and they lost the advantage.
Now Manchester United could possess the ball more because when they possessed the ball, in the centre midfield they had numerical advantage with 2 vs 4.
And because of this advantage, they could score the second goal.
In this position, Pogba has the ball. Sarabia and Rafinha are covering Pogba, Danilo is covering Fred. Rashford is free and when Pogba passes to him, Rashford can find enough space and time to take shoot.
Tuchel made a great tactical change before the second half started. But then Solskjaer found a great solution and with some luck they won.