Why Does Nothing Seem to Change With Manchester United?
Manchester United feels like a club that takes one step forward before falling back down an entire staircase, consistently moving closer to the championship rather than returning to the Champions League. With managers coming and going with the likes of Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, and Erik ten Hag all managing to give the fans hope for their first season, maybe second at a stretch, before things take a nose-dive off a cliff and suddenly they are sacked, and the cycle continues.
However, under Ruben Amorim, things feel different with last season being mostly forgettable after having a 15th place finish in the Premier League and despite performing really well in the Europa League, going unbeaten throughout the competition (14 games to be exact) till the final, where Man United were defeated by Spurs and had their hopes of playing in Europe destroyed.
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Nonetheless, some fans saw this as a positive. They felt a break from European competition, along with a decent pre-season, could help. The coach could explain his expectations and drill the team in how they needed to play. This could turn around Man United’s Premier League fortunes and at least push them for the top 4, similar to Napoli’s bounce back after a year out of Europe. During the transfer window, there were signs of optimism.
Signings like Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, two of the Premier League’s best performers, joined Man United. Benjamin Sesko, one of the Bundesliga’s best youngsters, also arrived. Man United seemed to solve their attacking problems, as Cunha and Mbeumo scored 35 league goals between them.
This was only nine fewer than the whole Man United squad managed last season, when they scored 44. On top of that, some fans felt the club got rid of toxic dressing room players. They also offloaded players who did not fit at Old Trafford. Heading into the new season, fans were buzzing to see what would happen.
Cue the opening match vs Arsenal and Man United despite losing came out from the game with a good feeling of hope seeing as how they were able to dominate arsenal for large periods of the game controlling the possession, creating multiple chances, having 22 shots in the game to Arsenal’s 9 shots which was just 2 shy of Man United’s 7 shots on target against a team that’s considered to be up there in terms of title challengers.
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Factor in that they also hit the woodwork twice, and Arsenal’s only goal came from a set piece, and most Man United fans were eager to see the team perform at that level week in and week out. Then came an away draw against Fulham, where Man United had the lead before blowing it, then the Grimsby nightmare, then an unconvincing win vs Burnley, then a derby defeat vs Man United and now most pundits and some portions of the Man United fan base seem to want Amorim gone, but is Man United really as bad as the media says they are???
When we look at the data, Man United are actually really good at creating chances, sitting top of the table for xG and shots taken, and if you want to exclude xG from penalties, then Man United are third only behind Man City and Crystal Palace so what does this mean? Man United is really good at chances and getting the ball forward; however, poor finishing is still a big problem at the club, with Man United having the biggest difference between xG and actual goals at -6.8.
For context, the second-highest difference between actual goals vs xG is Crystal Palace with a -3.2 which, even if you double that, it’s still a slightly better under-performance than Man United, so the finishing is really underwhelming. On top of that, Man United have been really sloppy defensively with the back line seeming confused in their roles and not too sure when to step and back off from attackers.
The end result is that Man United sit 4th in the table in terms of xG against and 2nd if you say npxG (Non-penalty expected goals) which shows despite creating lots of chances they also concede a lot of chances due to players seeming lost in defense and long balls seemingly catching defenders off guard and sadly most Premier League teams wouldn’t under perform their xG like Man United.
It’s the kind of system where you create chances that the team isn’t able take but you also concede a lot of chances that the opposition is taking and so it leaves Man United in a situation where they concede lots of goals, generate lots of chances but don’t capitalise and end up falling to get results hence causing the fans to start questioning the manager and some calling for the sack.
So some fans do believe that now is the perfect time to sack him and go look for a replacement, while others feel like he should at least be given the season to try to turn things around, and you can notice it online with fans being tired of the constant sackings with no real stability at the club.
Honestly Man United did probably have the toughest run of opening fixtures or at least one of the toughest runs of opening fixtures and now with things coming into a point where momentum can be built I personally feel Ruben Amorim should be given a chance and if things don’t seem to improve around November/December then yeah that’ll probably be a good time to change the manager to bring in a short term solution while searching for a long term fix. Ultimately, only time will tell how the club will handle it and how Amorim’s time at Man United will be remembered.
By: Sekwila Mumba / Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/s3kwila
Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Justin Setterfield / Getty Images