Manchester United have done it again – a drab 0-0 draw that is even tough to analyse, for the third game in a row. Manchester United have gone to Selhurst Park and played a goalless draw against Crystal Palace, in a match that will be forgotten in a few days. It was uninspiring and lacking real events that could be looked upon with interest.
After the expected lack of real push against Real Sociedad in that 0-0 draw last Thursday, there was a 0-0 draw at Stamford Bridge which did not see United create much and last night it was even worse in terms of attacking performance.
Here are the four things we learned from this affair.
Truly Poor From Man United
This was simply not good enough from Manchester United. To not have a single big opportunity in the entire game against Crystal Palace, a team which has conceded as many goals as the bottom-of-the-table Sheffield United really says a lot about United’s poor attacking display. The Devils have been without a goal for three straight games and it seems as if only a good old penalty for Bruno Fernandes could break that streak right now. A back four of Joel Ward, Cheikhou Kouyate, Gary Cahill and Patrick van Aanholt had not real issues in stopping United’s attackers.
Bruno Fernandes Struggling In 2021
Looking at pure numbers, Bruno Fernandes is having a great 2021 so far, scoring eight goals and making three assists in the process. But such numbers are stripping us of any kind of context that is necessary. Three of those eight goals were penalties, which are not really an indicator of how a player is playing. Even when Bruno had a goal to his name in some games, those would sometimes come after a not-so-great performance all around and making him stand out despite him having a poor match for the most part. Some might say – well, who cares for the other 85 minutes if he scores? While that might be tempting, it is still not a great logic, because as we have seen, he cannot always score after having a poor performance. In fact, that is more of an exception rather than a rule and we had seen that last night in London. Bruno was not his old self and he was not there to make things tick for others.
A Boring Watch
Just looking at the underlying metrics like expected goals, we will further see how boring of a match this was. There was one decent chance throughout and that one came for Crystal Palace, which Dean Henderson took care of. The young goalkeeper got his chance as David de Gea has personal obligations and this was not a great match for him to show why he could be so important for United. That in itself is not bad, but the play on the other end was almost as equally uneventful.
A Fitting Storyline For The Manchester Derby
Next match for Manchester United is the Manchester Derby against City. That game will have a fitting storyline which, stripped of any context, will see the two teams face off as the two of the best Premier League sides this season. But Manchester United are 14 points behind the leaders and the way City are playing, it only seems that distance will increase – not necessarily this coming weekend, but there will be ten more rounds of matches after that…