Manchester United's Crumbling Fortress

When you are the Premier League titleholders, boast some of the world’s greatest current players and call the biggest club ground in the UK your home, you should be a team to fear.

But for Manchester United, the absence of Sir Alex Ferguson this season seems to have diminished the fear factor at the Theatre of Dreams.

In their five home games this season, the visiting teams have left with five points between them. While not the most alarming statistic, it doesn’t quite tell the whole story.

In recent seasons, teams arrived at Old Trafford nervous, tentative and perhaps a little pessimistic. Now however, they arrive confident and determined to leave with a good result. With league leaders Arsenal, a team currently revelling in their positive, impressive start to the season making the journey north, David Moyes and his men must change that trend.  

When West Brom made the 84-mile trip north to Manchester United’s 75,000 seated stadium, they made sure the trip wasn’t in vain, escaping with all three points. Yet it wasn’t necessarily the result that had the critics voicing their doubts about United’s quality under Moyes; the manner in which their opposition conducted themselves was the thing to worry about. West Brom never looked intimidated and belittled like we have seen so often in the past. They were allowed to play open football the way they wanted to, even managing to score on the counter-attack; a reversal of so many classic Old Trafford goals.

Three weeks later, Southampton ushered a sense of déjà vu around their Old Trafford ground, when Adam Lallana’s late goal earned the travelling saints a valuable point. So often the instigator or late, game-changing goals, Man United had become the victim. Once more they had failed to control the game as much as they would have and should have liked to. Southampton grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck, and Man United were far too accepting of this.

When Stoke came to town, there was a huge expectancy, or perhaps more of a hope, that Man United would brush aside the visitors with ease in a much-needed hammering. But poor defending saw Stoke 2-1 up at half-time. Perhaps then, with United stealing all three points thanks to two late headers from Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernandez respectively, it signified a restoration of order.

Interestingly, the introduction of a singing section, where fans were urged to "sing loud and proud" seems to have had a positive effect to the ground’s atmosphere. While current UK laws disallowing standing sections in football stadia are still in place, the atmosphere will struggle to reach the same intimidating volumes seen at Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion home, but the new measure should be the catalyst for a promising change.

A change, I may add, that comes just in time for their upcoming home fixtures against Arsenal and Tottenham.

Arsenal are showing signs of becoming the next generation of "Invincibles," with crucial, deserving victories against Liverpool and Dortmund intensifying the comparisons. It was a Manchester United side that denied those Invincibles a milestone 50-game unbeaten run in the Premier League at Old Trafford in October 2004. Amid a background of recent fiery battles between the two sides, Old Trafford was in full voice, and on the pitch, Man U shut out a deadly Arsenal attack.

What Manchester United had then was a fortress, a place players feared to visit. What we have now are the crumbling remains of that fortress. If Man United are going to be the side to put a spanner in the works of another devastatingly in-form Arsenal side on Sunday, they must rebuild this fortress. 

It’s still early in the season, but the result of this game could prove to be monumental.