How important will this be to our title chances?
They swept aside every team that stood before them including us twice as well as showing a ruthlessness that saw them finish the season having scored 103 goals.
Makes them sound dominant doesn’t it? But when you look at the fact we finished just a single point behind them a different picture emerges. Like I said grace in defeat is important and one aspect of this is not making excuses so let’s not confuse explaining with excuse making.
Our defence has been shaky this season, nothing ground breaking about this statement as we’ve all seen 9 goals we’ve conceded in 7 games but when Rio Ferdinand returned against Valencia last week there was a new mettle to our backline that had been lacking and we saw this again on Saturday at the stadium of light against Sunderland thus it is no coincidence we picked up two clean sheets.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who heard the stat that against Sunderland Rio was playing just his 44th games of United’s last 105 since December 2008 with just 21 of those games coming last season in an injury hit campaign. It’s undeniable our defensive absences last season cost us massively and the difference Rio has made in just two games this season shows how influential he is to our team and how much he was missed amongst others.
We have always made a point of having a strong defence, in my opinion it’s the basis for winning anything. In 07/08 we conceeded just 22 goals, in 08/09 it was 24 but last season (even though we still conceded the least goals in the league) the figure rose to 28. Rio played in just 2 of our 7 defeats last season including the game against Liverpool where he clearly was unfit so you can see the correlation between our performances with and without him.
Beyond last season and stats, you can see it with your own eyes the difference he makes on the field. We look that bit more assured and the feeling of foreboding that was present when an opponent attacked in his absence has dissipated. Veteran goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar has noticed this, hailing his performances since his return in the press,
“It is nice when you get experienced players back. He did really well and has been working so hard to regain his fitness.”
Of course no man is an island onto himself and Rio’s defensive partner, Nemanja Vidic is also part of the reason we have looked better but this can also be put down to the fact that he has Rio beside him, remember the game on Saturday was only the 10th time the two had played together in United’s last 51 games.
With Rio back and part of our central defensive pair we can look to a more certain future, it is a partnership that has won silverware before and it appears that it could be the basis for us winning silverware this year too.