You know Manchester United is having an awful season. The transition from Sir Alex Ferguson to David Moyes has been anything but smooth. At this point, Champions League is the only thing United has left to play for, and they’ll need to really step up their game to reach the top four and qualify for that. Midfield has been a crisis at times for the Red Devils, and they’re constantly being linked to all the star midfielders in the world who might be available.
Manchester United broke the bank to land Juan Mata from Chelsea. He should be arriving at the United training ground at Carrington today. Mata fell out of favor with Chelsea FC and needed to move on. However, he was the best player on the side for a couple years. Is he enough to get Manchester United back to what it once was?
For more we now turn to Sports Matrix, who offer us a statistical break down of what’s going wrong at Manchester United:
‘Crisis’, ‘Club in decline’ and ‘end of an era’ are just a few terms being used to describe the plight currently engulfing Manchester United. On January 23rd 2013, United sat at the top of the Premier League with 56 points. Fast forward exactly one year and they find themselves on a mere 37 points, out of the FA Cup, out of the League Cup and out of the title race. They are also 6 points off 4th place and crucially a place in next season’s Champion’s League.
It is clear that Manchester United need new blood injected into the team but the big question is who do they need and what positions do they need to fill? Widespread media reports are suggesting that Chelsea have accepted a bid from United for Juan Mata and a medical is imminent. Mata is just one of a number of players from around the world that are being linked with United at this time. It goes without saying that a lot of the rumours are based on a specific position as opposed to a certain parameter. Added to this, most of the players linked are those who people would like to see grace the pitch at Old Trafford.
Taking opinion and emotion out of the equation, we decided to see what the statistics had to offer in terms of what Manchester United were lacking this season, as opposed to last, and who are the best performing players in the Premier League this season within those parameters. Now it goes without saying that a club of United’s stature could and will attract good players from all over the world but in order to prevent this post from becoming a thesis, we limited our search to the Premier League. Anyone wanting to find out who the stats recommend from other leagues is welcome to contact us!
With that out of the way, let’s move onto the stats themselves. As we stated above, Manchester United have amassed 19 points less than they did at the same stage last season. Where are they going wrong? When comparing their performance last season to their games this season we found that the most noticeable differences was when it came to crosses, chance creation and breaking the second line of defence.
Head over to Sports Matrix to see the charts and graphs explaining the parameters, and the rest of the Manchester United article
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar in media studies, he’s also an analyst for multiple news talk radio stations across the country; with regular weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)