"We tried to play in a different way in the second half, to press higher, but the result was exactly the same," he admitted.
"They come to press higher but sometimes when you go and press high you take [a] risk, and we know that we have a lot of people in front with quality to make the difference".
Schmidt has openly admitted that getting his players to press higher and earlier than anybody in the league – Guardiola's Bayern and Alexander Zorniger's Stuttgart aside – takes great mental fortitude.
Ranieri's two-handed gesture urging his players to press higher up the pitch was an almost continuous feature during the second period but United's miserable failure to exploit their huge share of possession left the Italian happy enough.
With an extra man, Allardyce urged his players to press higher up the pitch in the second half and Sunderland quickly got reward when Van Aanholt cut inside and thumped an 18-yard shot that took a wicked deflection off Federico Fernández's back and went in off the far upright.
It is the system coach Tony Popovic has used since day one, although they do press higher against A-League opponents and it has enabled them to maintain an outstanding defensive record on their first forays into Asia – they have kept nine clean sheets in their 13 Asian Champions League games.
