United fans both nationwide and worldwide will look back on last season with a feeling of bitterness. By many pundits version of events, Chelsea ran away with the title and were deserved winners. I’m not saying they weren’t but we were cast aside as bit challengers come the final game. My loathing for football pundits has been vented again and again on my blog so let me stop there.
As I was saying, United missed out on the league title by a single point. That single point will forever be painful to most because the title was ours to lose heading into the last 2 months. And lose was what we ended up doing. So what can we expect from the new season? Well by looking back on last season I can say nothing but winning.
I can take solace in the fact that we achieved a lot last season even though our squad was severely depleted. Yes I obviously know we’re not the only club to have suffered injuries, however the amount of high profile injuries had ruminating affects at one time or another. Our back 5 (keeper included of course) suffered many injury setbacks last season. Not only starters but backup too. These are just things you can’t account for, even if you are SAF.They can and will happen. Not being able to have your starting back 5 for crunch games will cripple even the best of teams. Not having that solid Rio and Vidic partnership was exploited time and time again by average teams even. Some also forget about not having O’Shea for very long spells. His importance if not already known by some was underline last season. Patrice Evra was the one who avoided this injury bug and he performed well week in week out.
We all know about the long term injury problems associated with Owen Hargreaves. Some will say “but he’s only one player, you have an abundance of midfielders”. But when fit Hargo was one of the best things to happen to United. One game which springs to mind is the first leg semi-final against Barcelona in 2008. He played at right-back and was one of best players that night. I won’t go into detail but that versatility and professionalism which he showed in that game is a rarity in today’s game. When he was fit he also brought the best out of Michael Carrick both directly and indirectly. The competition seemed to have kept Carrick on his game, which to be fair hasn’t been seen for about a year. There are other midfield injuries such as Anderson, Giggs, Nani, and Valencia who all faced time in the treatment room. As I said before this wasn’t your average list of injuries. They may not have occurred at the same time but nonetheless still the sheer number was difficult to deal with.
Up top in what was our weakest department was where our season finally crumbled. We lost Owen to injury on more than one occasion, therefore losing our backup. Of course Rooney played out of his skin, contributing to the majority of our goals but when we most needed not only his goals and presence he suffered that ankle injury in the 1st leg of the quarter-final tie in Munich. That coupled with his ongoing groin problems ruled him out during the most critical part of the season.
Losing against Chelsea, being knocked out by Bayern in the CL and a draw against Blackburn is what followed. Having Berbatov as our only experienced front man was by far the worse thing that could have happened. Now this wasn’t a review of our injuries of last season. This was just me highlighting what could have happened had we had a fully fit squad.
So we head into a new season with virtually same squad with the addition of Javier Hernandez and Chris Smalling and the departure of Ben Foster. So can we win the league? Why not!
Looking around the league City seems the only team that has strengthened significantly but whether or not they will gel together as a team is unknown right now. The rest of the now extended Big 4 are near enough the same, if not worse off. We are maybe one striker away from being the outright favourites for the league. Once the long term injuries of Ferdinand, Hargreaves (with God’s aide), and Anderson return, the balance of injured players within the team will return. There’s no reason why with our squad (with the possible addition of another striker) can’t challenge for and win the title.
There are some attention-grabbing deadlines in this article however I don’t know if I see all of them heart to heart. There’s some validity however I’ll take hold opinion till I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we would like more! Added to FeedBurner as effectively
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