Manchester United must stop giving up preventable goals to avoid Diego Simeone's 'dark arts'

Under Ralf Rangnick, Manchester United have strived to improve defensively and cut out the easy shots they had been allowing opponents before his appointment.

The Champions League fixture against Atletico Madrid was seemingly a game where they decided to take a night off in that regard, with a complete breakdown of the team's structure and communication leading to Joao Felix opening the scoring in the seventh minute for the Spanish side.

We decided to use images courtesy of WyScout to break down the goal and show just how United failed to prevent what was a perfectly executed move, but something they could have avoided

The set-up

Firstly this chance comes from United defending a corner, hence the number of bodies in the box. Victor Lindelof heads the ball away, but given the lack of a United player to receive it, Renan Lodi is able to collect it easily and turn back towards the box.

Here lies the first mistake. As the image shows, Fred runs out to engage his fellow Brazilian. What he should do here is pressure the left-back and try and win back possession, but instead, he seems to stand off him and allow the defender space to work with.

Lindelof starts to move out to cover the wide player as well, but he too stops short of committing.

By giving Lodi space, the defender moves past Fred and into a large amount of space just outside the box where he has two major options.

Firstly he could play the ball down the line and have Jose Maria Gimenez cross to one of the runners who have not been picked up by United or hope that one of Atletico's players already there gets their head on it.

However, the movement of Felix makes his mind up for him.

Felix, spotting the gap on the inside of Harry Maguire, runs away from Luke Shaw and