Part 7 - English Premier League: Figures and Statistics
It only takes two losses in a row or even two draws in a row for a club like Manchester United to be declared in a crisis. After winning three titles in a row from 2006-2009, Manchester United lost the 2009-2010 English Premier
League title to Chelsea by just a single point. Despite that minute margin, pundits and experts came out in full force in the summer and declared Sir Alex Ferguson and his club a spent force. It is true that Manchester United do not have the likes of Carlos
Tevez or Cristiano Ronaldo in their squad any longer but the fact still remains that there is still a lot of quality in United’s ranks.
Manchester United have always been slow starters but their start to the current English League season has been nothing short of a disappointment. In their last English Premier League match, Manchester United played out a boring
goalless draw against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light. Admittedly, Sunderland are quite a strong team which it comes to their home games but Manchester United were expected to win the game nonetheless. It came as a surprise when Ferguson opted to start
with Dimitar Berbatov and Patrice Evra on the bench as Federico Macheda, Michael Owen and Rafael Da Silva got their first starts of the season in the English Premier League.
United were unable to reproduce their attractive offensive displays that they have become so famous for. More worryingly for the Red Devils is the fact that United only managed one shot on target during the 90 minutes of the match
against Sunderland. The only shot on target came in the 77th minute of the match from the Portuguese winger Luis Nani. Ferguson’s front two of Macheda and Owen was a particularly disappointing combination as both the forward men exhibited a lack
of understanding amongst themselves; they could even get a single effort towards the goal. Something that Ferguson will surely be looking into as far as his post-match analysis goes.
Manchester United are still awaiting their first away win of the season as they drew against Everton, Fulham, Bolton and now Sunderland in their four away games of the 2010-2011 Premier League season. In terms of away wins this
has been United’s worst start in over 20 years as the last time Ferguson’s men failed to win their opening four games of the season was way back in the 1989-1990 English League season, a season where United ended up at the 13th place finish. Newcastle
United are also under focus after their defeat to Manchester City, the main cause of their slump in form as been the goal scoring drought that Andy Carroll has been facing lately.
After starting the season with a hatrick against Aston Villa at Saint James’s Park, Carroll has now not scored in the last five hours of league football for his club, Newcastle United. However a much brighter fact for Newcastle
United would be that they matched Manchester City stride for stride as far as pass completion rate was concerned at the East Lands stadium. Manchester City and Newcastle United both completed 82% passes each. Nonetheless, the Magpies manager Chris Hughton
will be anxious about the fact that in their last forty four English league games, Newcastle have given away 12 penalties due to reckless defending.
Stoke are another team who are suffering from weak defense. In their last eighty three Premier League games, Stoke have failed to dominate possession on a regular basis. However, a bright spark for Stoke City has been their new
summer signing, Kenwyne Jones. Jones has had the third highest number of shots on target this season, the top two strikers in terms of shots on target have been Dimitar Berbatov of Manchester United and Andy Carroll of Newcastle United.
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