Manchester United’s draw to Sunderland on Saturday marked their third draw of the Premier League season, all of which have come from away fixtures.
The display at Sunderland was blunt to say the least. United lacked any sort of attacking penetration and failed to break down the Sunderland back-four. An inability to play the ball through the corridor meant that Sir Alex Ferguson’s men were too reliant on the flanks and even resorted to playing the long-ball, which was easily dealt with by the flat Sunderland back-four.
Although United had the better of the possession, Sunderland created more clear-cut chances and they would argue that they were unlucky to only have come out with a point.
Indeed, this was a poor performance that did not deserve a result, however substandard.
United’s first draw of the season came at Craven Cottage against Fulham. It was not a trademark attacking display, nor a demonstration of midfield dominance, but when Brede Hangeland scored an own-goal in the 84th minute United were 2-1 up and many believed they had the points wrapped-up.
Nani was then given a chance to put the game beyond doubt when he received a penalty in the 87th minute. The penalty was consequently saved by David Stockdale and when Hangeland scored the equalizer in the 89th minute, he had not only changed the game with a Jekyll and Hyde performance, he had begun an away hoodoo in the Premier League that ‘United have still been unable to shake off.
After comfortably defeating West Ham 3-0 at Old Trafford a week later, United set-out to achieve their first home win of the season at Goodison Park.
After conceding an early goal at the hands of Steven Pienaar, United quickly established control of the game and demonstrated some fast, fluent, and attractive football that led to goals from Darren Fletcher, Nemanja Vidic and Dimitar Berbatov.
Nani and Berbatov in particular demonstrated a great deal of chemistry and technically excellent link-up play.
After an excellent 90 minutes, even the most philosophical football fans and spectators would have been saying, ‘surely not’.
But ironically, in comic fashion, United seemed to completely forget the principle of man-marking and completely lost their shape. In less than 5 short minutes Everton had scored twice and the game was over at 3-3. The scouse were jubilant, but the ‘United players, the coaching-staff and the fans felt a painful epiphany of deja vu.
The following week United dropped another lead when they faced old rivals Liverpool at Old Trafford, but Dimitar Berbatov’s third was enough to give ‘United a 3-2 win.
Before facing Sunderland, United’ were met with their fourth away fixture of the season when they faced Valencia at the Mestalla in the Champions League. In a game of few chances and in a less than convincing performance, a late goal by Javier Hernandez was enough to give United’ the win.
An ability to get a result against the top side in La Liga and then to play miserable football later that week against Sunderland is certainly saying something.
Against Sunderland it could be argued that Sir Alex Ferguson got his team selection wrong by starting Michael Owen and Federico Macheda rather than the in-form Berbatov. But this was not the case against Everton or Fulham where Ferguson fielded two strong sides, but were unable to hold onto comfortable leads.
Overall, there is no excuse legitimate enough that opposes the simple fact that a team of Manchester United’s calibre should have won all three away games comfortably. Even with a poor team selection ‘United have the depth to comfortably dispose of a team like Sunderland and have central defenders of such quality that last season other teams couldn’t buy a goal, let alone score seven after six games as had been the case this season.
With Arsenal meeting Chelsea on Sunday, Ferguson will have his Extra spearmint chewy-packets close at hand in anticipation and hope, that there is a stalemate between his sides two title rivals.
Regardless of the result though, if United want to regain their Premier League crown, they’re going to need to make amends in their next away fixture when they travel to Stoke. Or once again, they will face the familiar up-hill task of chasing one of their rivals.
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