As many people felt after the 1-1 draw with Stoke City last weekend, Manchester United’s splendid performance deserved better than the point they ended up with after Joe Allen scored late on to rescue a point for Mark Hughes’ men. This was a sentiment shared by the manager as reported by the Manchester Evening News as Jose Mourinho said, “It’s simple – the best Manchester United performance of the season. It could have been 3-0 or 4-0 at half-time and six or seven at the end of the game. I can’t believe the result is 1-1. It was very undeserved.”

So it seems like it really is a matter of time before the sum of United’s parts starts to deliver results on a regular basis. Clearly the squad are still getting used to each other as there were four big name signings in the form of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Paul Pogba and Eric Bailly plus a number of players left, players like Luke Shaw are working on coming back from serious injury and the manager is still working out what his best starting XI is. Of course the squad are still adjusting to what the manager wants from them individually and collectively.

Despite the inconsistent results in the early part of the season, United are in a decent position, sitting in 6th spot only 3 points out of the top four. The form of Marcus Rashford is still a massive positive as the youngster has shown that his form last year was no fluke as he has continued to score goals and is showing that he is going to continue to give the manager the headache of fitting him into the starting XI plus he has been restored to the full England squad for the upcoming internationals. Another plus for United is that Jesse Lingard has been called up to the full England squad for World Cup qualifiers which can only give the young wideman more confidence and shows that United are still bringing through quality players from the academy. Another player getting recognition for his form is Ander Herrera who has been called up to the Spanish team for the first time.

So United fans should still be very optimistic as the team are yet to hit top gear but there are clearly some very positive signs: Ibrahimovic has hit the ground running, Mkhitaryan and Pogba have looked good in patches while still not hitting top form yet, Eric Bailly has shown that he is meant for the Premier League and as mentioned the form of Rashford, Lingard and Herrera has been impressive.