Manchester United's Underwhelming Start

Karan Ahgun

— 3 min read
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Manchester United's Underwhelming Start

In the last post on this blog, we asked whether United were ready for the start of the season and going off their performances in the first 5 Premier League games of this season, it's clear that they were not ready. A chastening defeat to Hull City in the opening game plus some pretty turgid performances against Man City and Fulham have ramped up concerns amogst United fans and the pressure is starting to pile up on Michael Carrick.

In all their games this season, the team have looked far to sluggish and lacking any urgency. This was most evident in the last three games against City, Brighton and Fulham. And this is backed up by the stats. United rank 20th place in a lot of the out of possession stats including the amount of sprints and the distance covered at high intensity. In the three aforementioned games, it was particularly frustrated to see how lethargic the team was and how slow they looked (especially in comparison to Brighton). Against City, United just looked void of ideas and even though the goal Haaland scored shouldn't have been allowed, they probably still wouldn't have taken advantage of the fact that Foden had been sent off. The EFL Cup tie against Brighton was probably the worst performance by a United side in a long time. Despite going 2-0 up in the first 10 minutes, there was yet again a sense of complacency in the performance which allowed Brighton to work there way back into the game pretty comfortably and become the first side in 50+ years to beat United after they had a 2 goal lead. And that lack of urgency carried into the Fulham match yesterday. United only really stepped it up after conceding but the main takeaway from the game was the amount of walking there was during the game and the team being devoid of any intensity.

While this lack of urgency is clear for fans to see, Carrick has been defiant in batting those suggestions away. One would hope that he's taking this stance in public to defend his players and in private he is more angry than he's showing because if performances carry on this way, all the good work he did in the second half of last season will be undone. One immediate change Carrick can make after the international break is to stop play Matheus Cunha upfront and put him on the left, which is where he scored the equaliser against Fulham from. Marcus Rashford has come back and looked lively in some games but hasn't produced enough. Also, by moving Cunha, Carrick could play Sesko up top or Mbeumo (provided Amad is fit) both of whom were critical to Carrick's early success. And of course, there is still the issue of finding a place for Carlos Baleba in the team. His energy and tenacity will bring more life into the team but picking who he replaces is difficult as both Tielemans and Mainoo haven't really done much wrong.

United and Carrick need a change in approach when they come back from the international break. Their run of fixtures is quite tricky with games against Spurs, Atletico Madrid and Chelsea all coming up in quick succession. If the pressure is to be relieved, they will need some good performances and results to put these concerns to rest.

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