MANCHESTER UNITED FALL SHORT ON EARLY PREDICTIONS OF THE PREMIER LEAGUE POTENTIAL CHAMPIONS FOR 2019/20 SEASON
The loyal fan base of Manchester United football club is planning to boycott the club so to speak unless the team starts putting up positive performances and positive results much more frequently. This appears to be the unwritten message floating around at Manchester United at this point in the season
Less than an entire season completed and Manchester United manager Ole Gunner Solskjaer might be facing the minor possibility of being out of the job before the start of next season. The injury crisis at Manchester United continues to pile on with English native Jesse Lingard being the latest inductee into the list of injured players this season with Anthony Martial, Luke Shaw, Paul Pogba and a few other players already sidelined with the injury. Lately, the news regarding Manchester United appears to paint the Red Devils as a football club that continues to spiral down in the early part of the season.
While Manchester United's recent history with the negative press has always been more of a strategy used by the media to poke a hole in the strong Manchester United side, in the case of the current Manchester United side, the question should be rightfully asked is are the critiques right? Is Manchester United good enough to be a legit threat in the Premier League this season and why? While a lot of eyebrows will be raised with questions as to why teams are being rated so early in the season on their potential to lift the Premier League most of the inquisitive fans will want to know where their team currently stand in this seasons ranking of teams to be crowned potential champions come end of the 2019/20 season.
According to forbes.com, Manchester City have been tipped to finish this season as 2019/20 Premier League season with Tottenham and Liverpool pegged to battle for 2nd and 3rd spots come to the end of the current Premier League campaign. In not so surprising news, Manchester United was placed to battle for the 4th and 5th spot against teams such as Chelsea, Arsenal, and Everton. While a few Manchester United supporters will argue that the club deserve the respect of being placed in the category of a 3rd place team, the last three seasons of consistently failing to finish 3rd in the table is a clear indication that as difficult as the truth might be to diggest, Manchester United is barely a 4th place team at the moment. There is no denying this because the statistics do not lie. Ole Gunner Solskjaers team, whilst started off the season in amazing fashion by registering a 4-0 victory to Chelsea on the first match of the season has just as quickly lost the winning formula by winning three games out of the last eight in all competitions.
As gloomy as the picture looks this early in the season, there is little doubt that the Red Devils continue to enable their omission out of the top five spots in the ranking for potential Premier League champions by failing to make the right improvements to the squad at the right time. The signs are there and the signs say that the current Manchester United team is not good enough to join teams such as Liverpool, Manchester City, and Tottenham in the Premier League tables upper class. Big money needs to be spent, the right level of quality players need to be signed and Manchester United has failed to do what it takes to return to elite status even though the club continues to be rightly regarded as one of the richest clubs in the world.
The trend of not having a strong squad capable of qualifying for the coveted Premier League Trophy has been the Achilles heel for Manchester United over the past number of seasons after the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson vacated the position of Manchester United manager. A series of trial and error has since taken place at Manchester United as the club searches for the right manager to take the club back to the pinnacle of success. While Manchester United appear to have the created the clear intention of having manager Ole Gunner Solskjear succeed in this his 1st term as the permanent manager of the football club, the Manchester United upper echelons appear to have left the Norwegian manager high and dry in regards to improving the level of performance delivered by the Manchester United squad this season through strong investment during the 2019 summer season.
Analyses of Manchester United's activities during the 2019 summer window would suggest that Manchester United board made a poor decision in the level of budget offered to the Manchester United manager to be used in the 2019 summer window. However, upon further consideration an important question comes to mind, is 200 million really that little of an investment? Putting all the cards on the table, considering the fact that Manchester United had not had a single dependable defender in the club since the exit and retirement of reliable duo in Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand, blaming manager Ole Gunner Solskjaer for spending most of the allocated funds for the 2019 summer transfer window on signing English center-back Harry McGuire is highly unwarranted. Yes, there is a definitive argument that the Manchester United team is clearly lacking enough quality in the midfield which raised the controversy of which part of the Manchester United squad needed more attention the midfield or the defense?
Comparing the Manchester United team of last season without English center-back Harry McGuire to the English team of this season, the verdict would appear to be that Manchester United made the right choice in spending 60 million to sign their man. Finally, the main point of concern this week is surprisingly enough not on Harry Mcguire or any of the Manchester United defenders but on another big-money signing that arrived early in the summer of 2020 Fred Rodriguez. While Fred was expected to be a Brazilian player that lifts the burden of creativity of the shoulders of Paul Pogba it appears that has not been the case so far.
Inconclusion, as the January transfer window looms closer Manchester United will be looking to sell one or two midfielders and end the January transfer window by signing one quality midfielder in hopes of salvaging the hope of making the top 4 in the Premier League table and there are suggestions that Fred might be on his way out of Old Trafford come January 2020.
