For so long this season the same comments have been muttered by pundits, ex-professionals, fans, managers and anyone else involved directly or indirectly in football. Manchester United may be top, they may be unbeaten, but they haven’t played well. They haven’t hit their stride, Rooney isn’t firing and they’re not the same team as a few years back. All perfectly understandable viewpoints, but as Sir Alex himself commented recently, “we [United] are an easy target for that kind of thing.” They always have been, with everyone preferring to slate them rather than recognise what an achievement going unbeaten thus far actually is.
By looking deeper into United’s season, a different story becomes more and more obvious. United deserve to be exactly where they are. Otherwise, it’s simple, they wouldn’t be top. Statistically United are clearly superior to the rest of their Premier League rivals, only Arsenal rival them in goals scored and conceded. United and Arsenal have both scored forty-eight goals in the league. Whilst United and Chelsea share the accolade of the League’s meanest back lines, conceding just nineteen goals.
The reason for those two league high stats has been the impeccable performances of a number of United players. The defence, marshalled by the evergreen Edwin Van Der Saar, has been the primary reason for United’s march to the Premier League summit. Nemanja Vidic is again a front-runner for every player of the year award going, but his supporting cast has been just as important. Rio Ferdinand can be slightly aggrieved at the lack of plaudits he has received so far; at the start of the season big question marks were raised over the future of the England captain. His World Cup ending knee injury was the least of his worries, perennial back problems and the resulting groin and hamstring troubles had troubled him during the entire 09/10 season. Since his return to first team action this season there have been no real hiccups at all and with fitness has come form. Rafael, although erratic, has continued to make the right back position his and although Patrice Evra seems to still be suffering from his South African hangover, he is still arguably one of the finest left backs in world football.
Going forward United haven’t been the irrepressible force that they were during the Yorke/Cole/Solskjaer/Sheringham or Ronaldo/Tevez/Rooney years. Then again, not many strike forces in world football can hold a candle to the level to those past strike forces. United possess the League’s top goal scorer in Dimitar Berbatov, scorer of nineteen league goals. Yet unlike his nearest goal-scoring rival, Carlos Tevez, Berbatov is still waiting for complete recognition. Being top goal scorer is not enough for some; they argue that it’s a falsified achievement as eleven of the Bulgarian’s goals have come in three games, leaving just eight goals in the other twenty games. It isn’t just his goal scoring that has been part of his renaissance as a United player; Berbatov has finally thrown off his lackadaisical and languid tag. The penny seems to have dropped that he needed to marry his technical ability with desire and an elevated work rate. His partnership with Wayne Rooney seems to have blossomed too and although Rooney isn’t scoring as often as he likes, nine assists for the season demonstrate the understated job that he has been doing in recent weeks.
The supporting cast for Berbatov’s star turn have also been quietly progressing. Hernandez has ten goals so far, a fantastic return given both the game time he has had and the immediacy of his integration into English football. Giggs and Scholes continue to roll back the years, you could have mistaken Ryan Giggs for a seventeen year old against Birmingham; for fifty five minutes he was untouchable. Ji Sung Park was beginning to find rhythm after a quiet start to the season and the likes of Anderson and Carrick have had good, solid seasons. Nani has arguably been the closest to Berbatov, the injury to Antonio Valencia has enabled him to regularly play in his favoured right wing position and the results have been spectacular. Nani has been directly involved in eighteen league goals (seven goals and a Premier League high of eleven assists). Whereas Gareth Bale, the subject of much hype, has been involved in a paltry eight by comparison. Only Carlos Tevez (fourteen goals, five assists) and his team mate Berbatov (nineteen goals, two assists) have been involved in more goals than Nani.
Yes, as Arsene Wenger said, they have been a little bit lucky to stay unbeaten so far; they haven’t exactly been worried by anyone. The team won’t care about staying unbeaten, all they want is their title back but every week the odds get shorter and shorter on United matching Arsenal’s “invincibles”. They are the team every neutral loves to hate and while any United supporter will agree that they haven’t exactly been superior this season, winning 7-1 against Blackburn and 5-0 against Birmingham, and being unbeaten going into February is no mean feat – maybe it’s time to start to give Sir Alex Ferguson’s men a bit of credit.
