Manchester United's Limp Win at Norwich Shows No Real Signs of Progress

Manchester United beat Norwich City at Carrow Road on Saturday thanks to a 72nd-minute Juan Mata goal. It was a performance that typified the limp, lacklustre displays they have managed away from home against the Premier League's stragglers all season.

Indeed, of the bottom seven teams in the standings, Norwich are just the second team United have beaten on the road. The other was Aston Villa—back in August 2015, an Adnan Januzaj goal was the difference in another 1-0 win.

It is this dismal record against bad teams away from home that has meant the end of United's league season is being spent attempting to scrape into the top four. Their home record is the second-best in the division, behind only the champions Leicester City. Their away record is the eighth-best.

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If they had picked up even six more points from trips to Bournemouth, Sunderland, Newcastle United, Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion, then a UEFA Champions League place would comfortably have been theirs. Instead, manager Louis van Gaal is left hoping Manuel Pellegrini's season with Manchester City's is even more disastrous than his campaign with United.

Against Norwich, the kind of game that was in store was all too obvious once Anthony Martial got injured in the warm-up. Given Marcus Rashford's absence from the squad, it meant a No. 9 role for Wayne Rooney. It is abundantly clear that should only ever be a position he plays in an emergency.

Even his assist for Mata—his best contribution all game by some distance—came after he had blown a goalscoring opportunity. His touch and movement were too laboured to make use of the space he found himself in Norwich's box, and he was closed down by Canaries defenders.

His years of experience and footballing brain were able to dig himself out of the hole, as he turned provider for Mata, but that he was in the hole in the first place told a story.

Mata's finish turned out to be United's winner, and the three points earned meant they will have a keen eye on Sunday's clash between Manchester City and Arsenal. If City drop any points, United's destiny will be in their own hands.

After the game, Van Gaal said, per BT Sport: "We did our job today. Fantastic, I think. When you see the second half, we deserved to win. We're still in the [top-four] race."

That was the latest in an apparently unending line of rhetoric that sees Van Gaal at odds with fans. There was an improvement in the second half, but the first half was one of the most unimpressive in a season in which that title is hotly contested.

And the manager's own errors were on display for all to see.

Memphis Depay's output looked every ounce that of a player stripped of confidence by a season of mishandling. Rooney proved again that the decision to base United around him at No. 9 was an error that should have been abandoned long before it was. Jesse Lingard was played in a central-attacking-midfield role for which he appears almost entirely unsuited.

He managed not a single key pass all game. Meanwhile, Mata, exiled on the right flank, managed four, per WhoScored.com.

Van Gaal's baffling, contrarian decision-making is equalled by his baffling, contrarian post-match comments. United deserved to win, he is right about that, but Norwich City look bound for relegation, and the manner of United's victory offered no real hope of meaningful change.

It has been a season of regression—with the pleasing distraction of the FA Cup aside—and Van Gaal should be embarrassed by how readily he has embraced United's underachiever status. At the end-of-season awards dinner held by the club on Monday, Van Gaal claimed expectations were too high, per Sky Sports. 

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At the same do a season earlier, he claimed United were "very close" to being Champions, per the Manchester Evening News.

It is a remarkable turnaround, the kind that would suggest he is a manager who is floundering, scrambling to find excuses for what has gone wrong. Against Norwich, he got the result he needed, but United's performance showed just why Van Gaal needs to go.