Manchester United have endured a torrid start to their Premier League campaign this year, and while they picked up all three points yesterday, six from 12 simply isn’t good enough if they have genuine ambitions of finishing in the Champions League places.
Erik ten Hag’s side have looked defensively suspect against each team they’ve played so far, and while they have created chances, the goals just haven’t come.
This poor start to the season in front of goal now means that, despite having played four games, the whole squad is being outscored by a superstar centre-forward the club were once instructed to sign by a former manager.
United’s poor start to the season
Now, while United were able to stop the bleeding somewhat with a professional 3-0 win at St Mary’s Stadium yesterday, it would be hard to deny that their start to the season has been dreadful.
The three-time European champions won against Fulham on the opening day but followed that up with a loss away to Brighton & Hove Albion and a 3-0 home hammering to fierce rivals Liverpool.
In all, the Red Devils have only found the back of the net on five occasions this season, with new boy Joshua Zirkzee opening his account against the Cottagers, promising winger Amad Diallo staking his claim for a starting spot against the Seagulls, and Marcus Rashford, Matthijs de Ligt, and Alejandro Garnacho all getting on the scoresheet on Saturday.
While the positive spin on this is that goals are coming from everywhere in the team, the negative perspective is that not enough are coming, which is made all the more clear when their noisy neighbours can rely on a certain goalscoring phenom who United were once told to sign by Ole Gunnar Solskjær.
Erling Haaland’s goalscoring form
Yes, the striker United missed out on signing in the past is none other than Erling Haaland.
On an episode of The Overlap earlier this year, former manager and goalscoring icon himself, Solskjær, revealed that in the summer before he was appointed as the club’s manager, he told the Red Devils that they simply had to sign the young Norwegian, but they disagreed. Who did they sign that summer instead? Well, Lee Grant, Diogo Dalot and Fred were the names.
“Erling was with me at Molde for two seasons, more or less. The summer before I came, I rang the club and said: ‘You have to sign this boy, he is going to be absolutely top class.’ That was in June or July and they said they didn’t have enough reports.”
Now, it’s bad enough to miss out on a generational marksman just once, but the 51-year-old then revealed that he asked the club to go back in for him a few months later when he was made caretaker manager, even though he had just joined RB Salzburg, as he wasn’t playing and had a £20m release clause in his contract.
However, the United legend was once again ignored, and the rest, as they say, is history.
|
Halland’s recent club record |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Club |
Molde |
Salzburg |
Dortmund |
City |
|
Appearances |
50 |
27 |
89 |
103 |
|
Goals |
20 |
29 |
86 |
99 |
|
Assists |
6 |
7 |
23 |
14 |
|
Goal Involvements per Match |
0.52 |
1.33 |
1.22 |
1.09 |
Since then, the Leeds-born dynamo has dominated in every country he’s played, racking up 36 goals and assists for RB Salzburg, 109 for Borussia Dortmund and, as things stand, 113 for City.
In just his first season for the Citizens, the “unreal” poacher, as dubbed by content creator Steven Mcinerney, broke the Premier League record for most goals in a season and ended with 52 in 53 games across all competitions. It really is no wonder he’s now valued at a mighty £152m by Transfermarkt, a far cry from the £4m he was valued at when United rejected him.
While he took a slight step back with 38 in 45 last year, he’s already found the back of the net nine times in four league games this season.
Ultimately, every top club misses out on young superstars here and there, but United must be particularly annoyed at letting Haaland slip through their fingers as he’s outscoring their entire squad, and had they just listened to Solskjær, he’d be donning red at the moment.
