Last season, United were some way short of what I’d expect of a team filled with the ability it has. Despite adding Owen Hargreaves, Carlos Tevez, Anderson and Nani to what was already a Championship winning side, we finished two points behind our total from the season before.
Even with all the goals Ronaldo scored, we were still a few short of our goals tally from the previous season.
When I watched Chelsea, looked at their players, looked at how they were playing, I couldn’t believe we were toe-to-toe with them for the closing weeks of the season, particularly when considering the tactical ineptness their manager possessed.
Of course, we won the league title and the European Cup, making 2007-2008 the second most successful season in our club’s entire history. I’m not going to slate them because of points or goals, certainly not. However, I felt like there was so much more for our team to give.
Losing to the likes of City (twice), West Ham and Bolton isn’t good enough. Not that I expect us to go through the season unbeaten, or feel like we should even strive for that, but we had shoddy performances too many times last season and it’s something I think we can definitely improve on. And I don’t believe that it’s reliant on us signing a new striker.
However, some people are already writing us off, believing Scolari has what it takes to lead Chelsea to the title, but I just can’t get my head around why!
For starters, our most effective players last season weren’t older than 23-years-old. Next season, the likes of Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, Anderson and Nani will all be a year further in to their careers.
They’ll have a year’s more experience, a year’s more confidence, and for some of them, a year more of acclimatising themselves to Premiership football. I expect most if not all of these players to improve on their form last season.
Secondly, United have won consecutive league titles, won the European Cup and made the FA Cup final without buying a replacement for Ruud van Nistelrooy. For some reason though, this is forgotten.
Louis Saha contributed next to nothing last season, getting just a couple of 90 minute stints under his belt, meaning Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez were our only traditional forwards, with Ronaldo contributing more than his fair share of goals.
For two seasons we’ve managed to outscore every other team in the league without having an out and out striker fit for the duration of the season, so even if we don’t sign Berbatov/Santa Cruz/Huntelaar/(Henry), I don’t see why there should be a problem.
Barnay Ronay, who writes for The Guardian and When Saturday Comes, seems to believe that United’s glory days are temporarily over, and has penned us in for a second place finish this season. (Although, it must point out that this is the man who was left cold
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