We forgot to score?
Last year people laughed at David Moyes as we all saw different records tumble under his management, on Saturday another record went but this time it was under the manager who is supposed to be getting us back into Europe. Losing to Swansea both home and away is quick bluntly, unacceptable. I don't mean to be so pessimistic but that result has been coming and there is nothing to suggest that it won't be followed by similar results. We all know Louis van Gaals way of playing, you get the ball and keep it, possession play with plenty of ball rotation whilst looking for the perfect gap to attack. We've seen this work at Ajax, AZ, Barca, Bayern and the Holland national team so it can be used effectively. In most games we have seen Man United dominate possession; 60%+. So the first part of his tactic is working, we are keeping the ball which is good. The problem comes in what is say is the main part of the tactic, finding the perfect space to attack and get a goal. This weekend the boss said 'Today we played well, only we forgot to score.' The problem I have with this is that it implies we are creating loads of chances but we aren't, from all the possession we had we got three shots on target. For a club that has Di Maria, Rooney and van Persie in aswell as other big names, this is not good enough and it is the reason why we aren't scoring. I don't know if anyone has looked at our upcoming fixtures but our team may be looking at certain results at the season and thinking if only we'd won that game. Losing six points to Swansea has so far has had a big enough impact, with those points we would have been third and two points behind City. But the point I was making was our hopes for the Champions League are now looking slimmer considering that in our next nine games we have to play Spurs (home), Liverpool (away), City (home), Chelsea (away) and Everton (away) plus an FA Cup tie with Arsenal. Obviously we could come away with a fair amount of important points and results against these teams but with our current performance level and lack of ruthlessness in front of goal we might be looking at one bad result after another leaving us out of the top four and back in Europa/no European football territory. The Swansea result may have an effect on the team which rallies them to perform better from now until the end of the season but I have been waiting for the kick for a while now. There is no doubt that if the key players are gonna come good, now is the time it needs to happen. The players need to start by winning the next game in convincing fashion against Sunderland. We are at home so I would expect a win but we need to win big, we need to win well and keep a clean sheet too. If Falcao wants to stay at United, we need to see the world class striker find his groove and find the net. We must keep believing. Have a good week. Forever United!!!