Progress Report - Part I: Overview

With the tedious international break upon us, I would like to take the opportunity to run a series of articles reviewing the season so far. They will be broken down as follows:

Part I: Overview
Part II: The Defence
Part III: The Midfield
Part IV: The Attack
Part V: Our Rivals

With no further ado, let's crack on.

Re-cap

These are the 10 games we have played so far:

(PL in red, CL in blue, others in green)

v Newcastle (h), draw 1-1 (Fletcher)
v Portsmouth (a), WIN 1-0 (Fletcher)
v Zenit (n), lose 2-1 (Vidic)
v Liverpool (a), lose 1-2 (Tevez)
v Villareal (h), draw 0-0
v Chelsea (a), draw 1-1 (Park)
v Middlesbrough (h), WIN 3-1 (Ronaldo, Giggs, Nani)
v Bolton (h), WIN 2-0 (Ronaldo, Rooney)
v Aalborg (a), WIN 3-0 (Rooney, Berbatov 2)
v Blackburn (a), WIN 2-0 (Brown, Rooney)

Looking back

Running your eyes down that list of fixtures, there are a few patterns that leap out:

• We only won once in our first six competitive games, which is on first glance an appalling start to the season. In fact, if you look closer, it's still below par - if the games against Liverpool and Chelski had finished 15 minutes early, we would have taken 4 points from our two hardest away games rather than 1. Equally, we could have beaten Villareal 2-0 if even the totally uncontroversial decisions had gone our way.
• That's a tough set of fixtures by anyone's standards. Playing Liverpool and Chelsea at their own places; starting off our CL campaign against the hardest team in our group; away at Pompey and Blackburn, two games we have struggled in over the last two seasons.
  
• Neither our attack nor our defence has been up to last season's standards, something we will look at in more detail later on this this series. Suffice to say that we conceded too many goals and too many easy goals, whilst failing to find any fluency going forward (the last two games excepted).
• The trend is upwards in the last few games, with our forwards making onto the scoresheet more often and clean sheets starting to arrive.
  

In addition to this, there were two problems dragging us down throughout this time, the injury crisis and the Berbatov saga. I should hardly need to remind you of the horrific details of either of these - we struggled to put out a matchday squad against Newcastle, and even once Berba finally arrived his integration into the team has been difficult.

The signs are, though, that these problems are easing. In both defence and attack, Fergie has selection headaches that must be worse than many a hangover - it is only in midfield that we are really struggling, with Carrick and Scholes out with serious injuries and Hergreaves still struggling with his tendinitis. Equally positively, Berba has broken his scoring duck and is starting to find the wavelength of his teammates.

And ther realy positive - despite all this, if we win our game in hand against Fulham, we are only three points off the pace in the PL, through to the next round of the Carling Cup and decently placed in our CL group. So, to quote Eric Idle, always look on the bright side of life...

Looking forward

In the next articles of the series, I will set out "goals" for each of the units (defence, midfield and attack), but here I'm going to stick to giving you a flavour of what is to come. Here are the upcoming 10 fixtures:

v West Brom (h)
v Celtic (h)
v Everton (a)
v West Ham (h)
v Hull (h)
v Celtic (a)
v Arsenal (a)
v QPR (h)
v Stoke (h)
v Aston Villa (a)

Not quite so scary, are they? Six games at home, including all three of the promoted teams. Away at Everton, whose confidence is shot and whose defence is leaking horribly. Even the harder games have causes for optimism - away at Arsenal, who are showing the same inconsistency as at the back end of last season; and away at Villa, who maintain their poor record against the top four.

At the same time, we can expect Ronaldo to get closer to his best form and Berbatov to show us why he was worth the money; Rooney to continue his recent hot streak, and Tevez to fight for a place; Carrick to return from injury to pull the strings, and our defence to build back up it's formidable steeliness.

I can seriously imagine looking down that list in 7 weeks time and writing WIN next to every fixture. Here's hoping.

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United 2-0 Bolton - Report Part I

The result that we wanted, although nobody can deny that the breakthrough was "lucky" (read gifted to us by the ref). There are plenty of places where you can read a blow-by-blow account of the match, so instead I'm going to examine whether we met the goals I set out in my preview. Then, I will look at each player's performance in detail. This will be the usual format of match reports here - please let me know what you think in the comments.

Goal 1 - Attacking fluency - mixed success here. We had a lot of the ball in the first half, and whilst there was the odd nice move and some dangerous crosses that didn't quite find a head, we didn't look like carving apart a team with 10 men behind the ball. We improved a bit in the second half as Ronaldo started to get going, but there was a total sea-change when Rooney and Scholes came on. From that point, we ran Bolton ragged, moving the ball fast and intelligently, and looking a threat whenever we were in possession - and you couldn't ask for a better second goal.

Goal 2 - Sustained performance - well, we were at home and we ran the game for long periods of time. Again, we did move up and down the gears, but we kept knocking on the door and I was confident that the goal was going to arrive without a dodgy decision (read howler) from the ref. There was no sign from any of the players of flagging fitness levels, which has been a question mark in past performances. A step in the right direction, but there's further to go.

Goal 3 - Berbatov's integration - it is clear that the team needs to learn how to play with him as much as he needs to learn how to play for us. There were over ten occasions when he suddenly pulled back off his centre-back, wanting the ball to feet - he created a couple of yards for himself in a dangerous area, but his movement was rarely spotted. I think he will benefit greatly from Scholes or Carrick's presence in the team, since they are always on the lookout for - and are capable of playing - that precise forward pass into feet. Again, encouraging but with a way to go yet.

Goal 4 - bossing central midfield - we didn't really achieve this. Another central midfield pairing, and another ok showing. But pairing is the word to stress - I really believe in the value of a consistent partnership, where one will know where the other is and what is expected of each. I think Fletcher and Andersonare a bit too all-action to play well together. Both like to cover ground and get involved in the play wherever it is, and the both did fine, but there wasn't much sign of the co-ordination necessary to run the game rather than just compete.

Goal 5 - no goalkeeping errors - fully achieved. Granted, EVDS didn't have much to do, but it has been the simple things that have been causing concern recently. One eye-catching take from a corner which must have given him confidence - that is the sort of dominance and sure-handedness that makes the whole defence feel better about life. Long may it continue.

What do you make of the performance? Do you agree with my assessments? Lets hear from you in the comments.

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Manchester United vs Bolton - Preview

Our first Premier League home game since the first day of the season, against a solid but uninspiring Bolton team. Should be a welcome relief after two rough games on the road and a rocky start to the campaign.

Team news - this is the closest we've had to a fully fit squad this season, with Carrick our only major absentee. Expect some of those who have were rushed back during the crisis to take a back seat for a game or two, notably Scholes and Anderson. It also wouldn't surprise me if Rooney doesn't start, since he has been going solid since shaking off that debilitating pre-season virus and hasn't looked his best.

Expect Ronaldo to start his first Premier League game of the season, and Park and Fletcher to retain their places after strong showings recently. Vidic returns from suspension. The Brown / Neville debate continues to have legs, and it is unclear who will start after Neville's surprise appearance against Chelsea. It is also uncertain whether van der Sar or Kuszczak will start in goal - EVDS has looked short of confidence recently, and Fergie's use of Ben Amos in the Carling Cup game suggests TK might start with EVDS rested from the matchday squad entirely.

EDIT: Kuszczak has picked up a groin injury and so won't be available, making it certain that van der Sar will play with Amos on the bench.

Goals for the game

For each game, I will set out a list of goals for the game. These will be things that are of particular importance for this game (on top of winning, of course!). They will give you a guide to what to look for when watching the game. I will also pick up on them in my match report to give us a framework for assessing each performance.

Goal 1 - the fans (and the "goals for") column are crying out for some attacking fluency. Being at home and against weaker opposition should give the boys a good chance to express themselves, and a 2 or 3 goal margin would be welcome.

Goal 2 - after mixed displays on the road, I would like to see evidence of a sustained level of performance. We had good 20 minute spells against Liverpool and Chelsea, but we should look to dominate this game for at least 60 of the 90 minutes.

Goal 3 - continuing Berbatov's integration into the team. I'm looking for repeated involvement in passing moves and greater evidence of Berba knowing where his teammates are running and vice-versa.

Goal 4 - bossing central midfield after being outfought for large parts of the game in this area against both our rivals.

Goal 5 - The goalkeeping errors must be cut out, I want to see no errors or moments of dodginess from whoever plays. Nothing undermines a defence quicker than a lack of confidence in the keeper.

Predicted team

van der Sar
Brown - Vidic - Ferdinand - Evra
Ronaldo - Fletcher - Hargreaves - Park
Tevez - Berbatov

Predicted score

3-1 to United.

What are your predictions, and what are you looking for from our performance?

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