Manchester United have managed to maintain their spot in the Premier League top 4 for much of the season having really only dropped out of the Champions League qualification places this past weekend after they lost to Norwich and Spurs beat Southampton. In fact Spurs are only in 4th on goal difference but it is a 6 goal margin. The other slightly alarming piece of news is that Crystal Palace are only in 6th on goal difference as they too have 29 points like Spurs and United. Add to that an improving Watford side who are only a point behind these three teams if they win their game in hand and you see the all too congested situation at the top of the league and in particular around the 4th position.
The frightening thing for United fans is that they have managed to stay near the top of the league not because of their traditional strength of attacking and scoring lots of goals but because of a tight defensive unit which was backed up by a world class goalkeeper. This unit managed a high number of clean sheets in the first third of the season and managed to cover for a distinct lack of goals being scored by the attack.
Unfortunately in the past 13 games things have changed, there have been a number of injuries, some defensive players have lost form and most significantly the goals have almost completely dried up causing United to only manage 3 wins. With Rooney injured of late and not in the best goal-scoring form anyway and James Wilson on loan at Brighton, the responsibility has fallen to the just turned 20 year old Anthony Martial who is of course new to the Premier League. Martial has done his best and did score this past weekend to end a long goal-less streak but with the other attackers offering little United are headed for a record number of 0-0 draws this season.
This season, Martial and Rooney are joint top scorers with 7 each in all competitions with Memphis and Mata next on 5 and nobody else more than 3 – an output which is not the kind you expect from Manchester United. The January transfer window is notoriously hard to do business in but Louis Van Gaal desperately needs to do some magic and get some goal-scoring help in to Old Trafford this winter as at this rate Champions League qualification looks a long way off and Europa League or FA Cup or Premier League glory seem but distant dreams and sadly the decision to sell Chicharito looks like more and more of a mistake.