Is Manchester United on Its Way to a 2009-10 Repeat?

Venue: Anfield

Opponents: Liverpool and Arsenal

Result: 2 clubs, 2 debutant for each, 2 red cards and 2 goals, all in one match.

How we all love the Barclays Premier League (BPL)!

The Premier League has started with a bang once again and it is that time of the year when everybody’s expectations are sky high for their respective clubs. Majority of the popular media sources have already made their predictions and going by their look of things, it may turn out to be yet another trophy-less season at Old Trafford (Even Sir Alex doesn’t count the Carling Cups in the trophy cabinet).  

For Manchester United admirers, the expectations are always the same: The BPL and the UEFA Champions League. They lost out to Chelsea by a point in the domestic competition and were knocked out in quarters of the European Cup by a well-matched Bayern Munich outfit. One still expects the crusaders led by Sir Alex Ferguson to finish in top 2 of BPL and replicate their last season’s performance in Europe. However, the team claims that the primary focus is to regain the Premier League and we shall concentrate on that for the time being.

In the recent past, United has been challenged for the BPL crown by 3 clubs – Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. This season, we can add a couple more teams to that list.

1. A confident Tottenham Hotspurs

2. An aggressive Manchester City

Man City, by their ridiculous summer spending have promised not just “The Derby Games of the Year”, but have also given themselves a fair chance to go for the Premier League title. All in all, the league has become more competitive than ever. The question is what does Man United have to do differently from last season?

The previous United campaign was unique for a variety of reasons. The offense was still coping from the loss of Ronaldo and Tevez, and Berbatov and Owen were expected to balance the attack to a certain extent. The fact that Rooney became the center of attention after a fantastic 1^st half of the season, led to an over-reliance on him and thereby leading to the team’s downfall in his absence. But the biggest factor was their injury prone defense. A defense that Sir Alex has heavily relied on for the better part of last 4 seasons was all of a sudden looking fragile against the likes of Fulham & co.. Mind you, one should not expect much from a defensive unit that’s being spearheaded by the likes of Carrick, Fletcher and Giggs, but this is Man United we are talking about. A club that should have plenty in their reserve stock to provide legible and sufficient cover for their ailing starting defenders. So how has Sir Alex Ferguson encountered these issues before the commencement of new campaign?

From what we’ve been lead to believe by the reaction of Old Trafford faithful and the British media, the club doesn’t have enough money in the bank account to go after some of the players that folks would like to see after the departure of Ronaldo and Tevez.  So, considering the cash constraint, the boss has decided to go with younger and cheaper recruits to fill some of the gaps. The attack sees the inclusion of a highly touted Mexican forward, Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez and an unknown entity in the form of Bebe. Going by what little we’ve witnessed of Hernandez in the World Cup and pre-season campaign, one must laud the scouting staff for recommending the youngster who may turn out to be one of the top goal scorers in the league. His inclusion certainly takes the goal-scoring burden off of Rooney’s shoulders and should provide some stiff competition to Berbatov, Owen and Macheda for a place in the starting XI. With some brilliant support from Nani and Valencia on the wings, this attack will surely deliver the goods for Sir Alex.

The defense, with the addition of Chris Smalling and the emergence of a few youngsters from the reserve team, signals at stability and reliability. Hence, a temporary loss of Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra and Neville should not put the team in the same situation as the one we witnessed a year before. According to some, the reason to worry still remains the mid-field.  But if Paul Scholes is able to emulate his pre-season form in the league campaign then one need not worry about the creativity factor, or rather the lack of it.

Come May 2011, what will this all mean for Man United?   Trophy, if not 1 then perhaps 2 or may be even 3. The current squad allows Sir Alex to go for rotations and that should hopefully keep the key players fit for the business end of the season.

Final Predictions:

UEFA Champions League: Semis

BPL: Champions

FA Cup: Semis

Carling Cup: Quarters

Bottom Line: Man United are in store for a better season than the 2009-10 one and with a bit of luck, it could be 1999 all over again.