United woe laid bare as Maguire is busiest in Toon area
UNITED splashed a record £80m on Harry Maguire in the summer to be the fulcrum of their defence but in Sunday’s defeat to Newcastle he was also their most involved attacker in the penalty area, which sums up the rut the club is in.
United fell to 12th in the Premier League table after 19-year-old Matty Longstaff, ironically the younger brother of transfer target Sean, smashed in the winner from the edge of the box late on.
The result was United’s third loss of the season to cap off an awful month which has also seen turgid performances against Rochdale, Astana, AZ Alkmaar and a defeat to West Ham.
What seems to be of extreme concern is that United are struggling to make chances, let alone actually score goals.
They managed just three shots on target at St. James’ Park, though that’s three more than they had against AZ, and haven’t scored more than one goal in a game since the opening day thrashing of Chelsea.
One stat from the defeat lays United’s issues in the attacking third bare, as defender Maguire touched the ball in the opposition penalty area more than any other United player. The centrebac k touched it just four times. They weren’t all good touches either, as he should have given United the lead when he missed a header from point blank range while completely unmarked.
United’s attacking issues are well documented this season following the departures of Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez for Inter in the summer – who are both incidentally already off the mark in Italy – as well as the injury to Anthony Martial, but there are more stats that show just how much the Reds are struggling. Another defender, Marcos Rojo, who was only substituted on in the 59th minute touched the ball 25 times, which was four more than Marcus Rashford. Wingers Daniel James and Andrea Pereira attempted just five crosses between them and they were all unsuccessful. United managed the same number of attempts as Newcastle despite having 69 per cent of possession and Juan Mata only had two touches in the attacking third of the pitch. Daniel Murphy