Manchester United still has a classic problem

DBasia.news – The difficulty of Manchester United winning at Old Trafford in the Premier League continues. In week seven of the Premier League against Everton, Saturday (02/10) night WIB, the Red Devils were held to a draw with the final score 1-1.

As usual, United dominated with 72% of possession over Everton (28%). But from 13 kicks (six shots on target) only one resulted in a goal from Anthony Martial in the 43rd minute.

Meanwhile, Everton, who only tested David De Gea twice, scored a goal from Andros Townsend in the 65th minute of a deadly counter-attack. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer thinks Man United was unlucky not to score a second goal.

“We had enough players behind the ball, we made some bad decisions that cost us in 10 seconds on the counter-attack. It was something where we were pretty well organized behind the ball, but we should have handled the danger better,” said Solskjaer.

“Every game is a big game at Man United. We just have to focus, make sure we use the international break well, we as coaches stay at home, come back with energy again, clear focus, good mindset.”

“Today we dominated, we couldn’t get the second goal we needed. Everton, as we know from last season, was able to score goals out of nowhere.”

A Classic Problem

United overhauled their defense by recruiting Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, and the latest, Raphael Varane. However, they still struggled to organize a tight defense on a consistent basis.

United’s poor defense, especially at Old Trafford, can be seen from Opta’s record.

“Manchester United have conceded at least one goal in their last nine games at Old Trafford, the longest run without a clean sheet since February 1971 (10 games),” Opta said.

Broadly speaking, not only at Old Trafford, United failed to keep clean sheets in their last seven matches in all competitions. In addition, David De Gea has only kept one clean sheet in the Premier League in 2021 and that came last February.

“We are facing more and more games and opponents which allow us to have more possession. They left feeling disappointed but we started better than last season, but this is also not what we wanted,” said Solskjaer.