Out of control, not good enough, clumsy. These were the terms thrown around by an increasingly disenchanted set of Manchester United players who have suffered through the club’s joint-worst start to a new Premier League season.
The last time United collected just four points from as many games was back in 1992, when Sir Alex Ferguson was at the helm of a side which was still reeling from a late collapse in the previous campaign’s title race. Rather than lamenting a second-place slump, United’s modern iteration are trying—and largely failing—to improve upon last term’s 15th finish.
The familiar flaws of Ruben Amorim’s side were ruthlessly exposed by Manchester City on Sunday in a desperately limp 3–0 derby defeat. Bruno Fernandes was once again installed in a midfield two which started brightly before wilting like cardboard in the rain at the first sign of any dynamic movement.
“We have to be more in control of certain situations,” United’s beleaguered captain fumed post-game.
While other displays this season have offered flickering glimmers of hope—most notably the opening-weekend defeat to Arsenal—Sunday’s shoddy showing was as grim as the Mancunian weather. “I am feeling bad,” a sodden Noussair Mazraoui sighed to .
“[I’m] disappointed in myself, in the team, and disappointed for the fans that we couldn’t bring the performance we did lately. A derby makes it more special, more emotional, so if you lose and you have played good and you have the chances we created in the last games, you can maybe accept it because there are still improvements. But [against City] was just not good enough.”
Centre back Matthijs de Ligt was singing from the same bleak hymn sheet. “We have to get better,” he moaned. “We have to prove it, otherwise it’s no use. In the first half, they [City] were the better team…In the second half, they scored the 2–0 pretty quickly.
“But then we went 3–0 down in a rather clumsy fashion—we played better in the second half but they were definitely much better.”
Yet, for all the doom and gloom—of which there is plenty to go around—it hasn’t been an entirely irredeemable start to the new campaign.
As De Ligt pointed out, United had clear sights of City’s goal. “I felt we had a lot of opportunities to create chances,” the Dutchman pointed out. “We just couldn’t make the last ball count.”
Fernandes rightly identified this as a recurring issue. “We keep creating chances to score and we are not able to score as many as we wanted,” he lamented. “All we have to take from this game is to look at what we need to do better and go forward to the next game. We need to score goals and not concede. It is the main thing of football.”
United have, somewhat surprisingly, taken more shots this season than every other Premier League side. Only Barcelona, Real Madrid and Real Betis—who have played one game more—can top the Red Devils for efforts on goal across Europe’s top five leagues. Yet, their conversion rate is woeful.
Of the 71 attempts United have mustered, just two have been scored—one of which was Fernandes’s stoppage-time penalty against Burnley. A total of 23 players across the continent boast more league goals individually than United as a collective despite a summer outlay of £200 million ($272.3 million) on new forwards.
History suggests that the goals will eventually flow for a side which continues to create clear openings, but Manchester United have made an unwanted habit of subverting historical precedents lately.
