How United’s new trio is striking fear into the opposition
On the surface, the above may seem like an odd statement, but let’s delve a little deeper. Last season United scored a total of 44 goals in the league, fewer than even Everton or West Ham. United this season have 12, so already more than a quarter of last season’s total. So on that basis it is about goals. But that’s not the full story.
It can easily be argued that last season United simply carried no fear factor for opponents. Even leaving aside the issues in midfield the simple fact is that opponents had no fear about attacking United in numbers because they weren’t worried about conceding. Even if United were able to break on them, opposition sides were simply not worried by the likes of Alejandro Garnacho, Rasmus Hojlund or Antony. Most of the time it was simply a case of stop Bruno Fernandes, stop United.
But this season, we’re starting to see that has become less and less the case. Benjamin Sesko, Bruan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha are a significant upgrade of the aforementioned trio, and United are starting to look capable of scoring every time they attack. Last season we saw Hojlund have more interest in fighting with defenders than running in behind, Antony, who seemed to check back every time he beat a man and Garnacho who, though he was often able to get in behind teams, lacked any real product.
In short, whereas last season, United were a one dimensional force and a blunt one at that, now they can hurt teams in multiple ways. Stop Bruno and Cunha or Mbeumo can hurt you and so on. Teams may not yet have fully caught on but as the games go by we will start to see it being recognised, which, in turn, may actually help the defence as teams become less willing to commit men forward as they know United can hurt them. This has been backed up in various ways such as their improved XG and so on.
We’ve also seen these signings bring a new attitude. We United fans have become used to seeing the team crumble at the first sign of adversity. But even in the bad times this season the likes of Mbeumo and Cunha just kept going and we’re starting to see it throughout the team. We saw the team face adversity against Liverpool and Brighton and, instead of crumbling they took inspiration from the new boys and found a way to see it through to claim a precious six points with Cunha, through his ability to protect the ball and his use of the dark arts, against Liverpool and Mbeumo with his ruthlessly efficient finishing, against Brighton, being key.
It might not yet be showing in the goals or assists column, but United’s investment in their new attackers is already having a major positive impact.
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