There are a number of reasons and when one says Man Utd will not win this season’s Premiership one better have a myriad of good reasons.
1) A number of teams got better: You have to single out Liverpool and Spurs. My feeling is that Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel are going to be the deal makers for Liverpool this season. That is because Torres and Babel were coaching decisions, unlike Andrei Shevchenko who was solely brought over at the behest of Roman Abramovich and became the focal point of the unseemly row between Mourinho and Abramovich. Spurs got Bent, Kaboul, and Gareth Bale, to bolster an already potent strike force. Remember Dimitar Berbatov was a huge Man Utd target. Chelsea has not lost a step and Pizzaro and Malouda open a more innovative angle on the conservative attack, largely centered around Drogba. Arsenal had Man Utd’s number last season and there is no reason why it should be otherwise, because the first win at Old Trafford occurred without Van Persie and Thierry Henry.
2) The defense has given up some big games. Man Utd’s last season was by and large smooth sailing but there have been concerns. Both games against Arsenal were losses, shock wins by Portsmouth and West Ham, and the defense was schooled by AC Milan and Chelsea, in the Champions league semi-finals and the FA Cup final, respectively. Injury problems have smitten Gary Neville and Rio Ferdinand. Wes Brown and Gaby Heinze have not been the brightest sparks. Nemanja Vidic is the only defender who earned his spot. Evra is a speedy wing back but his tackling skills are a bit suspect. At this juncture I would take Man City’s defense in a heartbeat. Micah Richards is the future of the English squad and Vedran Corluka is going to be a force to reckon with. Man Utd looked in a defensive meltdown against Inter in a friendly.
3) The Gaby Heinze factor: Remember how Sir Alex singled out the improved locker room atmosphere for the Premiership win, implicating Van Nistelrooy’s departure as a key factor. Well, the Heinze factor basically sets that back. You have a vitiated atmosphere in Man Utd because of a disgruntled player who has been refused a transfer to one of its bitterest rivals. Yes, Gaby Heinze has been consigned to the reserves for daring to negotiate with Liverpool. He is going to chip away at the locker room camaraderie with his unhappiness.
4) The Carlos Tevez factor: Something tells me that this Carlos Tevez imbroglio that has already set Sir Alex’s teeth on edge is going to come back. With a number of strikers at Sir Alex’s disposal, each one a transfer target, investing so much on one striker, is going to have an unsettling effect on the rest of the attack. It just says that Sir Alex’s trust goes so far. Such a contrast to Arsene Wenger’s approach that has seen him repose faith in his present attack.
18 comments on “Chinks in the armour:Man Utd will not win the Premiership”
at least try to talk sense. Your main reasons that United won’t win the league are that Liverpool or Tottenham will!!! Get a grip mate
come on, you have written complete sh*t…
seems like you just want to get attention on your blog 🙂
Man United will be much stronger interms of players and team and will win the Champions League also this year…
good luck
ur a dickhead
Unbelievable. Wishful thinking, distorted thinking (If you can, in fact, even call it “thinking” and lots of incorrect statements. 1st will be tight between United and Chelsea – difficult to seperate them. As for the rest, you can’t be serious.
Liverpool have not improves their defense and with Finnigan and Rise they have very suspect full backs when playing against skilled attackers. I am not sold on the idea that they are that strong centrally either… Torres and Babel will help but if you think that with hargreaves, scholes, neville and tevez in the side the score against inter wouldn’t have been different than you are more deluded than it first appears.
Arsenal are suspect if they have an injury to Gallas or Tourre… Sanderos is weak and they have not replaced Cambell… They still lack genuine width and will be beaten by teams like Chelsea who defend in numbers and counter effectively .. same can be said about Pool..
United will be much improved defensively with Hargreaves and against Arsenal and top teams in Europe United will play with Scholes, Carrick and Hargreaves with Rooney – Ronaldo and Tevez up front. That is simply the best front 6 in the EPL…
Liverpool have not improves their defense and with Finnigan and Rise they have very suspect full backs when playing against skilled attackers. I am not sold on the idea that they are that strong centrally either… Torres and Babel will help but if you think that with hargreaves, scholes, neville and tevez in the side the score against inter wouldn’t have been different than you are more deluded than it first appears.
Arsenal are suspect if they have an injury to Gallas or Tourre… Sanderos is weak and they have not replaced Cambell… They still lack genuine width and will be beaten by teams like Chelsea who defend in numbers and counter effectively .. same can be said about Pool..
United will be much improved defensively with Hargreaves and against Arsenal and top teams in Europe United will play with Scholes, Carrick and Hargreaves with Rooney – Ronaldo and Tevez up front. That is simply the best front 6 in the EPL…
Liverpool have not improves their defense and with Finnigan and Rise they have very suspect full backs when playing against skilled attackers. I am not sold on the idea that they are that strong centrally either… Torres and Babel will help but if you think that with hargreaves, scholes, neville and tevez in the side the score against inter wouldn’t have been different than you are more deluded than it first appears.
Arsenal are suspect if they have an injury to Gallas or Tourre… Sanderos is weak and they have not replaced Cambell… They still lack genuine width and will be beaten by teams like Chelsea who defend in numbers and counter effectively .. same can be said about Pool..
United will be much improved defensively with Hargreaves and against Arsenal and top teams in Europe United will play with Scholes, Carrick and Hargreaves with Rooney – Ronaldo and Tevez up front. That is simply the best front 6 in the EPL…
Liverpool have not improves their defense and with Finnigan and Rise they have very suspect full backs when playing against skilled attackers. I am not sold on the idea that they are that strong centrally either… Torres and Babel will help but if you think that with hargreaves, scholes, neville and tevez in the side the score against inter wouldn’t have been different than you are more deluded than it first appears.
Arsenal are suspect if they have an injury to Gallas or Tourre… Sanderos is weak and they have not replaced Cambell… They still lack genuine width and will be beaten by teams like Chelsea who defend in numbers and counter effectively .. same can be said about Pool..
United will be much improved defensively with Hargreaves and against Arsenal and top teams in Europe United will play with Scholes, Carrick and Hargreaves with Rooney – Ronaldo and Tevez up front. That is simply the best front 6 in the EPL…
Gallas is more likely to be a locker room disaster. He is constantly , albeit correctly moaning about the stae of affairs at the Arsenal and most likely wished he had remained at the Bridge…
Gallas is more likely to be a locker room disaster. He is constantly , albeit correctly moaning about the stae of affairs at the Arsenal and most likely wished he had remained at the Bridge…
‘There are a number of reasons and when one says Man Utd will not win this season’s Premiership one better have a myriad of good reasons’
You haven’t made one good point.
You say that others teams in the Premiership have gotten better, but fail to mention that Manchester United have had one of the better transfer windows. Nani and Anderson well be great young options off the bench that United didn’t have last year. Hargreaves well be a great asset this year; another option we didn’t have last year. Hopefully the Tevez deal well be rapped up very soon, and that means 4 of the better signings of the year. Torres and Babel; great signings from your point of view for Liverpool. Hargreaves, Nani, Anderson and Tevez; far better in my opinion.
You claim Arsenal have also gotten better, even though they have brought in an unproven striker to help replace the best player in their history that they just sold this summer.
There are double standards right from the get go. Torres and Babel well improve Liverpool, but there is no mention of United’s signings. Arsenal have sold their best player, yet you seem to claim that they have had a summer transfer window far more worth mentioning compared to United.
(PS, Arsenal won without The Rapist and Henry, United were without VDS, Vidic as well as Carrick and Evra for most of the game)
Second of all, the back four was great last year. You claim Vidic was the only player to justify his place? How many United games did you watch last year? Rio had his best season for United, and was our best defender. He was a leader at the back, and proved he was one of the best defenders in the world. Vidic has gotten the praise, but Rio was more consistent and more important.
We played Milan without Neville, Evra or Rio (our two leaders), and Vidic had just come back from injury. I agree, Milan ripped us apart. But, Would not the same thing happen to most teams. Our back four was O’Shea-Brown-Vidic-Heinze. Would not the same thing happen to Chelsea had they been without Terry, Carvalho and Cole, or Arsenal without Toure, Gallas and Clichy, or Liverpool, without Carragher, Agger or Riise?
Most teams with that kind of injury list would not have survived against a side like Milan. The Milan game was not a fair assessment of our defense, because that wasn’t truly our starting defense.
I blame the defensive laspes against Inter on the other pre-season games. It was a marketing pre-season, not a real pre-season. What opposition did our defense really come up agianst when we played those poor Asian sides? You can’t expect them to be sharp enough to play a quality side like Inter when the only games they have played in months allowed them to see very little of the ball.
My point here is that, yes, the defense was bad against Milan and Inter, but it isn’t something that is going to deter us from defending our title.
Your third point may be irrelevent as I believe SAF is ready to sell Heinze, but just not to Liverpool. If Juve really are interested, then I think he well go there for the right price. I don’t expect our spending to be over right now, nor do I expect our selling to be done. Heinze well probably be sold, just not to Liverpool.
I don’t really understand your last point? We are getting Tevez on loan, we aren’t spending that much money on him yet.
Either way, you said above that Torres well be a difference maker for Liverpool; but then you say that Tevez well be negative because SAF is spending SO MUCH on one striker!!!! Torres cost Liverpool over 20m, what is the difference exactly?
Tevez well give us another option in attack, as we well still have Rooney and Saha, as well as Ole. We have sold Rossi, and are about to sell Smith. That means we have 4 strikers, two that aren’t fit.
You have applauding Liverpool’s signing of Babel and Torres, Chelsea’s signing of Pizzaro and the Spurs signing of Bent, yet United’s signing of Tevez, in contrast, is going to unsettle the team.
Chelsea have Drogba, Sheva, Pizzaro, Sinclair and Kalou. Liverpool now have Torres, Babel, Kuyt, Voronin and Crouch. Arsenal have Walcott, Von Persie, Adebayor, Da Silva and Bendter. All of them have more fit first team strikers then United.
So no, Tevez won’t wreck affect, he well improve United, possible becoming the best signing by an English side this year.
You are clearly not a United fan, and you have a number of standards that apply to United (signings, moral effect, etc.) but at the same time not to others (Chelsea, Pool, Arse, Spurs).
There are points that support your opinion that United won’t retain their title, but you haven’t mentioned one of them.
I agree that United will not win this year, but for different reasons. I agree that other teams have improved, but not enough to make a title push. It would take Liverpool 3 years at the least to do that.
United’s defense was amazing last year, though not the best. Almost all of their defensive follies came at the end of the year, when United were down to two defenders in some games (Fletcher and Richardson filling in) and were very fatigued. I don’t think any team in the world could cope with losing Ferdinand and Vidic, never mind Neville, Silvestre, and Evra as well. I would also say that I think Evra earned his place in a few ways. One, he was always up the wing to assist Giggs, because he has the speed Giggs has lost. Two, he is good at tackling. He actually set a record in February by completing every tackle he attempted. Not many defenders can say that.
As for Heinze, I think he was one of the reasons United’s defense was the way they were. He had an opportunity to step up and hold the back four together, especially in both Milan games when defenders were sparce, but never did. He is an experienced defender, and has been on the team for a few years. I think they should let him go while they can still get some cash for him.
I don’t think Tevez will have a negative effect on the team, other than the possibility of being another Veron. Fergie will drop him if he turns out to be a bad buy.
I think United won’t win because this will be a year to break new players into the team, and make a push for Europe.
No one expected them to win this past year, and certainly no one thought they would make a push for a treble like they did. I, as a United fan, expect nothing from them this year, other than to play attractive football, and showcase the new talent.
lol Shourin knew he was tossing out controversy with this post. I second much of what was said in the comments.
The number one most important reason ManU will not retain the tile is Chelsea. With Cech back, a host of new attacking options, the trophy will likely return to the Bridge.
An important aspect of a premiership race is how the teams at the lower end of the table stack up. You don’t win by defeating the top 4 otherwise Arsenal would have the title. And in the new campaign, West Ham, Manchester City, Newcastle, Sunderland, Tottenham are all shaping up to become teams which can grab draws from what was an assured win last year (from the big 4 teams).
Withstanding that kind of campaign a squad needs depth, where the 2nd team is comparable to the first, where the players compete to earn positions. Only Chelsea can claim that. The title is theirs…
Arsenal aren’t ruthless enough, weaker teams snatch undeserved draws from them. Same with Liverpool.
I completely agree with whatever Michael Wittmann has posted.All your arguments are weak and heavily biased.
Firstly the arrival of Nani and Anderson are likely to add more depth into the squad and also adding some more quality and variety to it.Hargreaves will be able to fit into the team in a position that caused us problems last season.And how the hell does the fact that Berbatov was a transfer target for Man Utd even matter?
Secondly our defence was good last season,perhaps caught wanting at times but on the whole very impressive.You also claim that Man Utd’s defence is on the wane ignoring the fact that most of the other teams you have mentioned(bar Chelsea) have themselves conceded goals in pressure situations.Liverpool for example conceded goals against top opposition on a consistent basis.To the best of my knowledge neither Liverpool nor Arsenal have strengthened their defence’s by a great extent.
Choosing an unproven Man City defence over United’s back 4 is an indication of your knowledge of the game.Rio was among the best defenders around last season consistently putting out good perfomances,while Vidic had an impressive season forming a formidable pairing with Rio.Evra’s defensive form may be suspect,he is reasonably good and has done the job for a season.
About the Heinze factor,even by your own standards this is an incredibly weak argument.He hasn’t been consigned to the reserves as yet-he hasn’t even returned from holiday.
Tevez’s impending arrival isn’t likely to cause problems for anyone.Rossi’s gone and Smith is likely to follow in his footsteps very soon.That leaves us with only Saha(injury-prone),Solsjkaer(in his last season at the club) and a few other youngsters in addition to Rooney.Again to the best of my knowledge neither are any of them are targets for other clubs nor are they going to completely drop out of the pecking order should Tevez arrive.So investing so much on one striker isn’t likely to have a huge impact-if at all its likely to have a positive impact(Rooney and co. have already admitted they can’t wait to play with Tevez).
Next time you post get your facts right…Arsene Wenger hasn’t retained faith in his strikers he has signed Eduardo da Silva to replace Henry.Sir Alex’s trust doesn’t even come into the picture here,he ‘s mereley adding depth to the squad.
Lastly,about the entire Torres and Babel thing.Why would Tevez cause problems at United but not Torres?Why does the fact that Torres and Babel were coaching decisions even matter-Morientes,Crouch,Pennant and Bellamy were all coaching decisions and they hardly set the world on fire.
United may not win this year,but your article doesn’t contain any of the reasons for it.You seem to be completely delusional and also seem to prove to all of us that you have no knowledge of the game.
How was our defence schooled by Chelsea when we created more chances than them.
They had to resort to 40 yard shots every time they had an attack on, Rooney had 2/3 one on one’s with Cech.
I see I got the Man U fans all hot and bothered.
CL aspirations:
SAF is concentrating on the CL. The $100m splurge is not to give them another domestic title. The assembling of a whole bunch of players with international experience is to make sure that a Milan repeat does not happen.
Getting Nani and Anderson aboard is not a Premiership title move. They will not make an impact this year. Who are they going to displace?
Defense’s endurance:
The title of the post is chinks in the armor. I think Man U’s defense did well but as the season wore on they began making mental errors. Wes Brown and Gaby led the way. Even dependable Rio had his moments. I still can’t forget Rio’s own goal against Portsmouth.
On the other hand Chelsea weathered the season better with a very good finish after their injury concerns. They still have the best defense, tough and durable, and in the Premiership that is what wins the title. Not number of goals. Otherwise Arse would have two more titles.
Formation uncertainties:
I think Man U is going to have difficulties settling on a formation also. At stake are Carrick’s minutes unless SAF goes in for a 5 man midfield and rotates the strike. Which I don’t see happening because Tevez’s services will then be part of that rotation and at $25-$30m, I don’t think SAF wants to compute pounds per minute appearances.
But you will miss out on Carrick’s passing abilities with Hargreaves in a 4-4-2. It makes a difference where Ronaldo or Rooney are going to fetch the ball from as they might have to start deeper.
Bossman, have not seen you around for a while!
Interesting reading all the defensive and angry mancs. Shourin, I agree with you completely.
I think Chelsea will get the title back (and I say that with no pleasure, I don’t like Chelsea) and neither Manu nor Chelsea will win the CL.
I think it’s more difficult than it ever was in the past for a club to win both a league title and the CL — I think it’s even more difficult for English clubs because of the Prem’s pace. Since both Chelsea and Manu will not give up the Prem title chase, they won’t make it to the CL.
Everyone’s focusing on Manu’s transfers but for me the transfer story of the season (other than Henry) is Malouda to Chelsea. He was France’s unsung hero in the wc final last year (and critical in all their matches). Malouda is a workhorse, powerful, intelligent and scores great goals.
Chelsea’s transfers this season have been very quiet, credible, reasonable — nothing showy. And with Cech back, they’re set. The only that might hurt them is this current injury crisis but they’ve got plenty of depth to deal with that.
Whereas for me Manu’s sensationalistic transfers have created a very unwieldy, cumbersome, unsettled team. Plus they went on a pre-season Asian tour that was more about marketing than actually getting match fit.
It’ll be the same ol’ Spurs; but I don’t doubt that this season will see some movers and shakers!
Let’s hope so, I don’t think last year was a good season at all.