Manchester United drew 2-2 with Tottenham Hotspur in their last Premier League match at Old Trafford on Sunday, January 14. United are seventh in the league table with 32 points from 21 matches, while Tottenham are two places above them with 40 points from the same number of matches.
Manchester United Have Been Pretty Poor Against Big Teams This Season:
United’s performance against other big teams this season has been nothing to write home about. They only have a win against Chelsea to show for and have lost in their matches against Manchester City, Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Tottenham ( in the first leg).
Embed from Getty ImagesTrue, they also managed to draw the game against Liverpool goalless by being ultra-defensive, but that performance hardly justified their stature as a club. United have only one Europa League and an FA Cup to show for during the last decade.
Should they not be able to reverse the tide both in terms of playing style and performance, they might cease being counted among the elite clubs in the world.
Embed from Getty ImagesWith Sir Jim Ratcliffe taking partial ownership of the club and a few other changes in the club management taking place, one can expect to see some notable change on the pitch, too. However, if that does not happen, Erik ten Hag will not find it easy to continue to be at the helm.
He has to do something about his forward line, with only Alejandro Garnacho showing anything remotely similar to good form. Marcus Rashford’s four goals from 26 matches and Rasmus Hojlund’s seven goals from 24 matches (2 goals in 16 Premier League matches) are not very convincing stats, to say the least.
Manchester United have looked threatening in the recent past only when Rashford gets enough space to cut in from the left flank. Most of the teams have found that out and prepare accordingly against United.
A Few Tricky Encounters Are Awaiting Them in the League:
Manchester United will take on Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Ham United in their next Premier League matches. West Ham subjected them to a 2-0 defeat last month and they managed to scrape through a much higher-placed Aston Villa in December itself.
United should start winning matches against such tricky teams if they are to harbour any ambition of playing European football next season. If they fail to qualify for Europe next season, ten Hag will be in a precarious position. He might be so long before the season, actually, should his team’s performance go downwards.
Embed from Getty ImagesManchester United had only 36% ball possession against Tottenham despite the latter missing Son Heung-Min, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski in the match.
A lot of teams go into their matches against United with the belief that they can sneak out a win. This is detrimental to United’s stature as a club.
Wins against the likes of Wigan Athletic and Crystal Palace are fine, but it is high time for United to start delivering and winning against the top clubs.
The sooner they can do that, the better it will be for ten Hag’s future as their manager. It remains to be seen whether his team can step up.
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