Well last night in United’s matchday 6 clash vs VFL Wolfsburg, LVG’s men despite scoring 2 goals and getting off to a flying start with Anthony Martial’s 10 minute goal went on to lose 3-2 and in so doing came third in Group B and will now be playing in the Europa League after PSV Eindhoven beat CSKA Moscow to secure their quaification.
On a night where the undeniably talented Anthony Martial was asked to suddenly lead the line and play in the centre of the attack it seemed like a big ask given the many other new faces in the squad/team. Perhaps more importantly is the fact that in the past number of weeks Martial has been deployed on the left wing and while he has done a good job for the team his goals have dried up after scoring 4 in 4 at the start of the campaign he now has something like 1 in 13 games. So given the extensive injuries which make no mistake left United at a total disadvantage, United certainly missed Rooney but they also missed options off the bench.
This where the issue of selling 4 strikers/forwards in the summer comes in but in particular one striker and LVG really does look to have made a mistake like David Moyes before him. Chicharito has just won the player of the month in the Bundesliga for the month of November and the former United hitman has scored 13 goals for his club Bayer 04 Leverkusen in 17 games and has banged in another 3 more goals for his country Mexico so far this campaign. What LVG would have given for a striker to come off the bench tonight to nick a goal for United – sadly he just did not have that option as we wrote previously, David De Gea was right United should have kept the Mexican goal-scorer.
As the Independent has reported, Chicharito already has bagged 5 more goals this season than the United Captain, former colleague Wayne Rooney and the newspaper reported, and speaking ahead of the Wolfsburg game LVG said following the West Ham tie, “goals will come” he promised,
“The most important thing is you dominate, create and you finish. Football is about scoring goals. The first two basic aspects of football we have done,” Van Gaal said.
Well tonight we scored a couple but for once the defense let us down which given how well they have played all year was bound to happen according to the law of averages – but why tonight?
Well the Premier League has to be our focus with the FA Cup and Europa League not far behind. Surely, now however LVG must do something in the winter window – the club just needs an injection only provided by a goal-scoring striker I think and Chicharito has scored 13 goals in 17 appearances in all competitions for his German side and he could have done a job for us tonight not to mention over the whole season.