It has been that sort of a season for Manchester United which compelled you to feel glad about it coming to a close with the club flailing to its lowest ever league points tally in 22 seasons. Several records and stats came into existence (or were rather shattered) following unceremonious defeats at the hands of fortuitous opponents. The fact that David De Gea was voted the Player of the Year speaks volumes about the team’s disastrous campaign.
Meanwhile I indulged in a number-crunching exercise to further analyse the collective as well as individual failures in the Red Devils’ camp after Sir Alex’s departure. Apart from the expected dearth in quality on several fronts, it surprisingly resulted in a few heartening outcomes as well.
Home record
One of the very obvious and spiteful drawbacks of the Moyes era was the shear demise of the club’s prowess playing at home. A collection of opponents who earlier feared visits to the Theatre of Dreams cleared their backlogs facing David Moyes’ men at the fortress. Apart from back-to-back 3-0 embarrassments against Liverpool and Manchester City at their own backyard, the 2013 champions also handed Newcastle their first win at the Greater Manchester facility since 1972.
Looking back at the apocalyptic season, a shock 2-1 result against the Baggies at Old Trafford in September was the point when things began to nosedive. At the conclusion of the dreadful spell, 7 defeats combined with 3 draws resulted in United dropping 27 points at home. This would surely have been a blasphemy of sorts under Sir Alex, whose side dropped merely 9 points at Old Trafford the preceding season. The 34 point-total collected away from home is however still respectable and nears the tally that Fergie’s side managed in 2012/13. Interestingly, the period of play coined as ‘Fergie time’ has also produced five goals less this season. Five crucial wins possibly?
The Robin van Persie impact
Talking of performances home and away; one of the pivotal figures in United’s 20th title triumph was Robin van Persie who marked a total of 36 appearances and amassed 26 goals and 8 assists in the campaign. Call it Moyes’ misfortune or RvP’s haunting injury record, the former Arsenal man’s lack of action certainly made a massive difference to the team’s fortunes in front of goal, which reflected in the results. The 2013 Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year clocked 1584 minutes on the field, almost exactly half of what he had done in Sir Alex’s last season at the helm. Owing to the same, the Dutch international was able to create just 16 critical chances as opposed to his 71 in his debut season as a Red Devil.Central Midfield
Fellaini: Yet to justify the amount Manchester United shelled out for him
The Players’ Payer of the Year last year, Michael Carrick has slipped from being one of the world’s best in his position to a situation of utter ambiguity, which finally resulted in his axing from the 23-man English squad for Brazil. In spite of a passing accuracy almost identical to last year, Carrick failed to live up to his reputation following a career-best season (4 goals, 3 assists) with meek performances (1 goal, 0 assists) in the ‘transitional’ season. The situation truly highlights the fact that how one bad season for a player can affect the entire team’s fortunes.
But the bigger problem lies in the fact that of all the central midfielders, Carrick has been the best; which means that the remaining three don’t even produce one key pass per match. Last minute buy Marouane Fellaini bears the lone assist from the quartet in the entire season. Voices have been demanding his head; pointing towards his inability to justify his loaded price tag in spite of playing in his more favoured position. His fitness or rather the lack of it has done him no good either. As for Cleverly and Fletcher, the less said the better. Moyes’ preferred 4-4-2 formation has added further misery to a central midfield without a consistent pairing. A 4-2-3-1 would have provided more control in the centre and possible opportunities to counter. Noticeably, United lost a considerable number of games on account of the same.
Wingers
Talking of the 4-4-2, it often reminds you of the triumphant Manchester United outfits riding on the success of their nippy wide men. But gone are those days. Jokes about the Fuham game this season where United attempted 81 crosses from the wings will reverberate for several years to come. Nani, Valencia and Young have been disappointing to say the least.Meanwhile, Mata and Kagawa are not natural wingers, so it would be foolhardy to expect them to excel there every week.
The silver lining to appear inside the side-lines is the one dimunitive young lad that metamorphosed into Adnan Januzaj. With the highest key passes per match ratio among all the United wide players, the Belgian international has out-passed his rather experienced colleagues. Also with 4 goals and 3 assists to his name, a lot can be expected in the coming years from the 19-year-old.
Youth
James Wilson shined in his opportunity against Hull
Speaking of positives, there is an assortment of young players impressing far away from the shadow of the blues for the senior players. Jesse Lingard has been shrewd and incisive for Birmingham City on both the flanks. His defensive abilities often go unnoticed but he averages an astounding 4.5 tackles per match. With 5 goals and as many assists, Jack Barmby is already a ‘talismanic’ figure at Hartlepool. Nick Powell meanwhile has been the highest scorer(12) in all competitions for his loan home at Wigan. The club’s foreign exports Bebe and Angelo Henriques have earned plaudits during their respective loan spells at Portugese Paços de Ferreira and Segunda side Real Zaragoza respectively.
As for the reserves, a win during last night’s final over Chelsea would have been fitting but still nothing should be taken away from them. James Wilson and Tom Lawrence combined well for the former to score, like they did against Hull City earlier this month.
With three world class No 10 options in the form of Wayne Rooney, Shinji Kagawa and Juan Mata behind the likes of van Persie, United have a formidable attacking force with the young attackers also on the rise. That said, central midfield and vacant places in defence remain major areas of concern and are needed to be sorted out as soon as possible to avoid a similar pattern of distortion of the glorious numbers of one of the largest clubs in the world.
