How important is possession?

We see so many people on here obsessed with buying midfielders to dominate the midfield but some of the best teams in Europe deliberately play a style which concedes the midfield battle and beats teams on the break.

I saw a great article on another site earlier this season saying that this year Arsenal and Liverpool have on average much less possession this season than they did last because now they're trying to absorb pressure, let teams come on to them and then hit them on the break.

Dortmund do this to and ironically Arsenal, a team that this season have done so well hitting teams on the break fell into Dortmund's trap and attacked them well into the second half and camped in the Dortmund half allowing themselves to be picked off on the break.

Look at the Chelsea/City game on Sunday. City had a 5 man midfield and were dominating the central midfield area but Chelsea defended well and won the game on the break.

United have been playing this style for a long time but this season our biggest problem has been a combination of many things.

A poor defence which is a huge problem as having a solid defence is a massive part of using a system which involves counter attacking. We also have poor wingers who don't break quickly enough and also our finishing has been poor.

Most people think we played badly against Saints but what they don't seem to realise is that letting Saints have the ball in midfield didn't hurt us. We had plenty of chances and tactically we played our game perfectly and Januzaj and Nani did their jobs well. The thing that let us down was bad finishing. And what let us down against Stoke was bad defending.

Dominating the midfield isn't the be all and end all of winning football games. There seems to be a certain style that people on here want United to play and it does involve winning every midfield battle but it's really not the only way to skin a cat.

If we could bring in a player like Reus and shore up the defence somehow we could be very successful playing this style of game. Against Real Madrid last season we defended brilliantly until the Nani sending off and had RVP and co remembered how to shoot we would have won that comfortably and that style which is employed by Brazil, Dortmund, Chelsea and Arsenal amongst others can be seen as a great way to set up your team.