Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson once said that “attack wins you games, but defence wins you titles.” The problem is, without reliable goal scorers, a team will never be in a position to put the second part of the theory to the test, and no team has consistently failed to adhere to Ferguson’s maxim for success more than his old club.
If you want to drill down into the detail of United’s recurring shortcomings, you will find many reasons for their inability to mount a serious challenge for the Premier League over the past decade, but sometimes, a simple answer can be found underneath an avalanche of statistics and data. Manchester United just don’t score enough goals.
Five games into the new Premier League season and only three teams — Crystal Palace (4), Ipswich Town (3) and Southampton (2) — have scored fewer goals than United, who have managed five so far.
Saturday’s 0-0 draw at Palace was the latest example of the team’s lack of cutting edge. Against Palace, United created 15 chances and failed to take any of them. In the 3-0 defeat against Liverpool earlier this month, United created eight chances and drew another blank; Liverpool, meanwhile, scored three goals from 11 chances.
While Erik ten Hag’s team did register a healthy 3-0 win at Southampton earlier this month, those three goals came from 20 chances. Across the five league games, United have created 68 chances and scored five of them. So United are making chances, but their wasteful finishing is why Ten Hag’s team is languishing in 11th position, already losing touch with the leading pack in the Champions League qualification spots. Their strikers simply aren’t good enough: midtable quality at a club that used to demand the best.
