This United article is from TSB contributor Robbie Dunne.
It took a moment of clarity from Manchester United striker Robin Van Persie to cool panic from certain Manchester United forums after their Charity Shield victory against Wigan and a display that saw him net twice in typical Van Persie style.
When asked about the third favourite tags which have been placed on United, he calmly and coolly made the point that “I don’t want to be funny but, we are the Champions”.
It was not funny and it was not a lie. They have written of the red half of Manchester before a ball has been kicked. It has been done to United
before and they have responded to critics in kind… by winning trophies!
The truth about it is that neither City or Chelsea have a strikeforce that rivals Rooney or Van Persie. Alone or as a tandem. More on City in a second but Chelsea, for a start, are still trying to convince themselves that Fernando Torres was not a waste of money with talk of him changing his role and being important with his work rate. Chelsea have Romelu Lukaku back.
They did not spend £50m to play as Torres has been. They bought him to score goals, crucial goals, scrappy goals, set piece goals and at the end of
the day, it is something he hasn’t delivered.
Torres has now played 82 games for Chelsea with 15 goals. He scored almost double that (29) in his first season in Liverpool. They also have misfiring Demba Ba who has only scored 2 goals in 14 appearances for the club.
They added talent in André Schürrle and Marco Van Ginkel but one of these players will replace Frank Lampard and replacing his goals and creative flair will be difficult to do, not impossible but more difficult than a a lot of pundits seem to be mentioning.
Manchester United boast the premier league’s top goalscorer in RvP. The players closest to him from either of the two teams mentioned as “real”
title contenders are Frank Lampard and Edin Dzeko. Subtract Tevez from the situation and you are looking at making up the dividends through Negredo, a player who does have a great nose for a goal and Jovetic, a deeper playing forward who makes goals as opposed to scoring them.
Frank Lampard is looking at less playing time after turning 35 this summer, with the rigours of life at the top in the Premiership and his style of play, one wonders how much is left in Frank’s tank?
In relation to attacking football, Manchester United scored 20 more goals than Manchester City in 2012/13, United also scored 11 more than
Chelsea. They conceded more but a lot of these were in the earlier stages before they had a fit back four and before the return of Nemanja
Vidi, their spiritual leader.
Manchester United only lost five games and could have picked up more points if they hadn’t walked with such ease over to the blue side of Manchester to reclaim the Premier League Trophy.
Manchester United signed Wilfried Zaha, a man who has played in the lower league, Championship, and is an Englishman. No time needed to learn the language or fit into his surroundings, which is a problem not enough people give foreign players time to adjust to. They will also have a fit and healthy
Shinji Kagawa, a player who I could not speak highly enough of in a piece I wrote for TheSportsBank.net earlier in the preseason.
Whatever happens with Rooney and Ronaldo and every other player linked in and out of Old Trafford, United will strive to continue to do what
they do best, the same thing as they did last Sunday in Wembley…win trophies.
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