Defence needs to turn corner over making mistakes
ASK any United fan what the biggest problem for the club has been this season, and you’ll probably get one of three different answers.
The owners, the manager or the squad. Plenty would say all three.
But, following the conclusion of the January transfer window it does not look like any of those three things will be changing soon.
With those variables unlikely to change it is clear something needs to, and given the tight nature of this year’s Premier League campaign, small adjustments on the pitch could provide big alterations off it.
Even after a dire run of domestic form United are bewilderingly as high as 7th and still only six points off Chelsea in fourth spot. A win at Stamford Bridge in two weeks’ time really wouldn’t be surprising and United’s dreams of Champions League football somehow still remain intact.
When you consider the Reds have lost to Watford, West Ham, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace this season it is alarming to think just how safely Solskjaer’s side would be settled into the top four by now had they any backbone.
For a team which spent roughly £130m on reinforcing an already overstocked defence last summer, the weakness United have shown at the back has been alarming.
Individual errors have been rife ever since the opening month of the campaign and in particular United’s tendency to concede goals from corners. Virgil van Dijk’s simple opener for Liverpool at Anfield last month might as well have been turned into a meme of how one side has so effectively risen from the shadows to embarrass their fierce rivals and make it look all so easily.
United’s decision to man mark the best defender in world football with an academy full-back was so juvenile it is still hard to comprehend, and it highlighted a key issue of the club’s vulnerability from corners.
Only relegation-threatened duo Norwich and Aston Villa have conceded more from corners than United’s eight this season, with West Ham next in the line having conceded on seven occasions this campaign.
It means United have now conceded a staggering 7.14 per cent of corners they’ve faced in the Premier League, Liverpool have conceded from just 0.85pc.
Having already invested so much in their defence this season the excuse of more investment is pretty much redundant now. Maguire and Lindelof showed against Wolves at the weekend that their partnership is beginning to hit stride, and cancelling out basic errors at the back would be far more valuable than another big defensive purchase.