1. Manchester United are still not convincing ahead of a run big games
Manchester United’s baffling season continues as they finished Saturday in third place despite another poor performance. In the first half of the season, they took maximum points from games where they were tactically out-thought and out-played, like at Arsenal or at Southampton where Gary Neville famously said United got away with murder.
Van Gaal recently admitted after a 3-1 victory over Burnley that his side performed badly and he will surely be unhappy with some of the football his side displayed against the Black Cats.
United will soon take on Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City and Chelsea in their upcoming fixtures so Van Gaal’s charges urgently need to raise their game if they are to finish the season in the top four.
United can draw a lot of courage from their ability to consistently grind out results, which says a lot about their character, but character alone may not be enough in those looming big games.
2. Sunderland’s strikers should take the blame for the defeat
The Black Cats should have been in front by half-time. They were given more than enough opportunities to take the lead by United’s sloppy ball retention.
Connor Wickham brought the first save of the game from De Gea, after being allowed to run for far too long with the ball once Patrick van Aanholt had dispossessed Angel Di Maria in Sunderland’s half.
Lee Cattermole then popped up to win possession on the edge of the United area for Jermain Defoe to bring another save from the goalkeeper. Defoe tested De Gea again after Wes Brown pinched the ball off Falcao, but they still failed to take the lead. After missing all those chances at Old Trafford, there was only going to be one winner.
3. Wayne Rooney answered calls for a reliable striker
Van Gaal recently raised eyebrows when he said that he does not have a 20 goals-per-season striker. That was despite dropping Rooney into midfield to accommodate a world class strike partnership of Radamel Falcao and Robin van Persie.
Circumstances allowed Rooney to start in a more natural central attacking midfield position, where the England captain frequently charged forward as a second striker.
His brace, which included his first goal from open play this calendar year, proved to Van Gaal that while Rooney is good enough to do a job in central midfield, he is still a consummate striker capable of competing with the best forwards in the division if deployed in an advanced role.
4. Van Gaal should take some of the responsibility for Angel Di Maria’s poor form
Di Maria has been struggling for form since he returned from an injury lay-off and his performance against Sunderland was probably his worst in a Manchester United shirt.
To be fair to Van Gaal, he made the brave decision to take the £59m midfielder off for Adnan Januzaj and that move played a key role in the result.
But that does not absolve the Dutch manager from his part in Di Maria’s dip in form. The Argentina international works best as a left-sided central midfielder or a left attacking midfielder, just as he did at Real Madrid where he was clearly the second best player last season after Cristiano Ronaldo.
Di Maria sparkled at World Cup in those positions as well and he even had a good start to his Manchester United career when he broke wide from the left side of midfield. Indeed, he scored all his goals this season from those positions.
Van Gaal needs to fit his most expensive player in a more suitable position.
5. Referee Roger East can be grateful that his weird sending off of Brown had little effect on the result
This was East’s first time officiating at Old Trafford and the match proceeded smoothly for the referee until he had to deal with a penalty decision. He mistakably sent-off Wes Brown instead of John O’Shea, despite radio communication with his assistants imploring him to show the red card to O’Shea.
Fortunately for East, Sunderland cannot blame him for their defeat as they were still going to have a difficult time chasing the game with 10 men even with Brown on the pitch.
