What we learnt from first 10 games of the premier league season : Part 3/3

Before United played The Toffees in the first match of this season, there was some optimism. They signed five players in Robin van Persie, Shinji Kagawa, Nick Powell, Alex Buttner and Abel Henriquez.

After a trophy-less season last year, Sir Alex decided to splash the cash on the biggest name in the Arsenal line-up. A dejected RVP pushed the exit door as he was reportedly making around 70,000 pounds a week, which is less than what Wayne Bridge made at City.

Ferguson threw in a 24 million pound offer and offered a salary of 220,000 pounds a week to lure the Dutchman and succeeded- for which Persie was bashed by many Arsenal legends for being money minded; despite recent reports that say City offered him 300,000 pounds a week at the time. Well, so much for it.

August 20th finally came and United didn’t exactly start well after Rafael’s undoing with the ball led to Fellaini powering home the winner.

And since then, United were given some stick for their defensive performances. Both Jones and Smalling were out and were soon joined by sensational Serb Nemanja Vidic.

But the picture looks different now as they are standing on the top with 8 wins and 2 draws- knocked out of the League Cup but have have a success rate of 100% in Europe.

RVP has already scored 8 league goals and 3 in the Champions League. He is firing on all cylinders and Rooney has been equally fantastic himself, even after having compromised to play in a deeper role.

There are plenty of positives, but there are also defeats to show against The Toffees and The Spurs. However, Rafael has improved a lot and the Spurs defeat was largely because of Fergie’s poor tactics. The midfield was overrun by a pacy Spurs midfield.

But United compesated with important victories over Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool- however controversial the circumstances were.

Another positive is that Valencia and Rafael look like they have turned into the best right side pairing in the Premier League. To add to that, the sensational Rooney-RVP combo is making other teams tremble with fear. The defense is little jittery at the moment, but time will heal the problem(and their defenders).

The three things that United could do to almost ensure the winning of the title and- possibly- the treble are:

1) If Ferguson stopped messing with the team’s tactics ahead of important games like the one against Spurs,

2) If they stopped conceding early on in the game and,

3) If some of the younger players like Wooton and Keane were given some more playing time in the inconsequential fixtures that remain in the Champions League group stage, as they need some insurance on their reserves bench.

Part-1 and Part-2 can be found here.