Statistics show Manchester United were in decline before David Moyes arrived

Nothing, perhaps, is ever the result of one man. It’s easy to pinpoint a hero or scapegoat, to believe that one great or dreadful individual has alone turned the tide of history for better or for worse, but it’s rarely, if ever, accurate. Individuals shape events, of course, and bear a responsibility for them, but as they are shaping circumstances so circumstances are shaping them. This will be the worst season Manchester United have had since the Premier League began and David Moyes has taken the blame, but a glance at the statistics shows two things: firstly, that while some aspects have declined under his management, there are a number of misconceptions about what he has done to the style of the team. And secondly, that certain elements of United’s decline were in place before he took over.

Let’s start with the misconceptions. The 2-2 draw at home to Fulham led to much mockery about the overreliance on crosses: United attempted 82 in that game, which was, quite rightly, taken as a sign that they had run out of ideas, that, bereft of confidence and unable to conjure anything more subtle, they just kept slinging the ball into the box. That match, though, was an exception: United have averaged 27 crosses per game this season, only two more than last season, the same figure as in each of the two seasons before that and fewer than the 31 per game they tallied in 2009/10.

Some have suggested United have become more direct, but that’s not the case. It’s true that this season United have played 11% of their passes long as opposed to 10% last season, but over the past five years that figure has hovered between 10% and 12%: there’s nothing particularly unusual about this campaign. Equally there’s been a feeling that United aren’t trying to play through teams as they were, that the shape has become more 4-4-1-1 than 4-2-3-1, but final-third passes, a decent measure of how patient a side is, have remained relatively constant. 111.7 this season is lower than for any season for which figures are available (since 2009/10) but not dramatically so: it was 115.1 last season, 128.4 the season before and 116.7 the year before that.

What is startling, though, is the drop-off in shots resulting from a counter-attack. Figures unfortunately aren’t available before 2011-12 so there must be some caution in drawing firm conclusions, but that season United produced 0.58 shots per game on the counter and 0.51 in the season after that. This season, though, they’ve managed only 0.21.

In practical terms that probably only equates to a goal or so over the course of an entire season, so in that sense the impact is negligible. What the figure does do, though, is confirm a perception that United under Moyes were sluggish, that they lack the brio and dynamism of old. And, of course, there are knock-on effects: if an opponent is no longer afraid of United’s counter-attacking, they can push higher up the field and commit more men to their own forays.

Although pass success rate as remained relatively constant – 84.1% against an average of 83.2% over the past four seasons – possession has declined: over the previous four seasons, United had always had one of the four highest possession rates: this season they’re seventh. Defensively, it could be argued United have improved, with a shift from tackling to intercepting and a drop in shots conceded to 12.4 per game from 12.9 per game last season and 13.4 the season before, but it’s in shots per game that United have really declined.

What’s fascinating about that decline, though, is that it has been ongoing for five years: from 18.3 shots per game in 2009/10 to 16.3 in 2010/11 to 17 in 2011/12 to 14.8 last season and to a low of 13.4 per game this season: only the ninth best figure in the league. Shots on target, similarly, have dropped, to only 4.7 per game, again the ninth best, United having not been out of the top five in the previous four years.What feels telling, though, is that last season 14.8 shots per game produced 5.6 shots on target per game, an unusually high proportion that yielded 2.26 goals per game as opposed to 1.65 this season. To an extent, the potency of Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernandez papered over the cracks.

Moyes cannot be absolved from blame and he may even have made the situation worse, but United, for all they won the title last season, were in decline before he arrived at Old Trafford.