No offence to the Jamie Vardy Show, and congrats to Vardy, but his opener and Premiere League’s consecutive scoring streak record setter was a poor goal from United’s point of view. Young gave him a free pass over the final 5 yards and Vardy’s specialty is scoring from that angle. United never looked like losing today, but again possession didn’t translate to goals. United had 69% of the play yet it took a set piece and some true grit from Schweinsteiger to force an equaliser.
Add today to his efforts at Watford last week and Schweinsteiger is taking some games by the throat.The Manchester Evening News quite rightly labels the German “a captain without the armband” and he looked like a man on a mission all day. Less could be said for the forwards. Martial is having a blip; Mata is going through a poor stretch; and Rooney just looks tired.
The days of Squeaky Bum Time for now perhaps should be labelled Rusty Bum Time. Things are just taking a bit more time to get going. The focus remains on defensive organization and solid fundamentals and it will probably remain so all season. After today’s game Gary Neville echoed what a lot of us have been saying, United are very close to a championship team but…..
“……they need that match-winner, that Neymar, that Luis Suarez, the one that is going to light up a game and score one or two goals to take it away, then all of a sudden they would look like a Barcelona, because they’re dominating possession, making teams look foolish.
“Even in the last 15 minutes, they didn’t fully commit to winning the game. Historically, you would like to see punch after punch, you would want to see bodies being thrown forward, but you might get caught on the counter attack and lose 2-1 that way.
We all know the no risk approach is driving some critics and fans bonkers. Probably no-one understands that more than Van Gaal. Who wants to be the manager of The World’s Most Criticized Team?
4728 miles from the Stretford End 