So, where to begin.
Manchester United, the team who ever so cruelly had their title snatched away from them last season, have kicked off this season in a different manner shall we say.
Out of 6 premier league games that they've played so far, they have fell behind in 5 of them, won 3 and lost the remaining 2.
Now you may look at this and say "they recouped points from a losing position though, that's good right?" and in some sense you would be right. But having had a proportion of the squad on international escapades at the Euro 2012, players missing pre-season, players being brought in near the back end of the market, it's not a good thing falling behind and having to push a squad which is all at different fitness levels, to unnecessary levels of intensity.
Now combine that with players that are performing nowhere near their level of ability which we've seen in the past.
I'm only looking at a few players with that sentence however, a couple of names which a lot of United fans including myself have been cursing since i can only remember! Nani and Patrice Evra.
Here you have two players, one who was labelled as the best left back in the world at one point and another who has the world at his feet and nobody enjoys seeing footballers suffer especially when they play for the team you support.
Now Patrice Evra has had a turbulent last five or so years, having had the whole France squad walk out at Euro 2008, losing his place in the National team and losing his brother, you'd almost pardon him for having a slump in form, right? If you play for a team of Manchester Uniteds magnitude, you MUST be at the top of your game for every single match you play, or else you may as well not turn up and that's the truth whether you choose to believe it or not. Yet you look at the Evra and you have a player who seems to have forgotten how to mark, defend and stand up to wingers, be it to get tight to them or give them a yard, he doesn't do either, he gives them 5 yards to do whatever they want to with the ball which does not help your centre halves at all as they themselves have a given duty to mark the centre forwards who dart in after the crosses.
All Evra has to do is show the winger down the line and the danger's either cut out by the centre half or by Evra himself and if you know how to play football, you know how frustrating it is watching players getting dragged out of position and conceding stupid goals.
Now last season we had one hell of a combination of defenders playing at the back, i think we played 8 players their, 3/4 of which are not defenders and a lot of people used that as an excuse as to why we conceded a lot of goals and to some extent, we/ they're right, but that was last season so we move on, right? So we go into 2012-2013 and we see Vidic is back into our line up, collective "cheers" up and down the country because our best centre half is back, maybe some stability! Until Sir Alex starts chopping and changing his goalkeepers around, then Vidic, Smalling and Jones all get injured and suddenly you're stuck with two goalkeepers on rotation, neither of which know what's going on, a 33 year old centre half who by the looks of things hasn't adjusted to his own legs slowing down and adapting his game to them circumstances and a half fit Jonny Evans. Now Jonny Evans has put in a lot of work over the last year or so to become the defender a lot of us, know he can be and everyone has used him as a scapegoat for a United loss at least once, so don't sit their and deny you haven't!
Now we've narrowed it down a bit, you can sort of understand why we're conceding quite a few goals so early in the season.. lack of stability! We really should look at the silver lining and look at the right back position where Rafael's finally settled in and is finally showing the potential we all know he has, plus he's pitched in with a couple of goals too! Luckily Robin Van Persie's took to our team like a duck to water and is scoring goals like they're going out of fashion, 7 in 7 to be precise and our other strikers haven't even come out the blocks yet, which brings me to another subject.
When i myself heard about Robin Van Persie not signing a contract extension at Arsenal, i said to my best friend that i wouldn't want us to sign him because he'd halt Welbecks and Hernandez's progress in the first team, but in hindsight i didn't realise it would take pressure off Wayne Rooney's shoulders who's been scoring all our goals it seems, for the last two seasons!
So far i'm slightly right as well, Welbeck's been kept on the bench and Hernandez does not look like he's at the races, despite him missing out at the Olympics to rest up for this season.
You'd think having another striker being brought in would up your own game, keep you on your toes and give you an incentive to push on for a starting spot but it doesn't seem this way with these two, who knows why? Maybe because they're young, they haven't matured properly yet in that mindset? As a United fan, i can honestly say i cannot wait till they are both "given the ball and told to run with it" because when they do, hopefully we'll have four strikers capable of scoring at least 20 goals each, that's no exaggeration too, we all know they're capable.
Now to Nani!
We've all seen him labelled as " the next Ronaldo" and we all know why, similar direct styles not to mention they're the same nationality *hurrah*! nobody likes to see a footballer struggle especially when he has bucket loads of potential. However this is a kid, quite literally who got the most second assists in the Premier League last season and still finds himself second choice on our right wing, behind the man who most prefer in that position, Antonio Valencia. Now Antonio Valencia is a very powerful, direct winger who will get the job done 9/10 however Nani brings another dimension to an attack doesn't he? He has skill, flair, pace, power and on his day has one of the best deliveries in world football and he's in a rut. It's up to him and only him to get himself out of it and he can also get out of Ronaldos shadow where most of us believe he is! He has the potential to be the best right winger in the world and a lot of football fans know this. It's all fun saying "a person being paid thousands of pounds to kick a ball should be able to do it correctly" maybe it's not that easy, we're all human and we all have imperfections and feelings! Having 70'000 collectively sighing at you when you do something wrong does not help anyones confidence at all, i'm sure. So instead of booing/sighing whatever .. cheering and encouragement is actually a good enough substitute to help somebody fulfil their potential. Frustration is a bitch but you cannot win as a team and lose as individuals. I've done it before and picked at the first player i saw and blamed them for a loss. Team game!
Think about it.
