Manchester United: Grading The Squad For 2017/18

Grade C

Bailly was out injured for the majority of the season

Eric Bailly

This was the year when Eric Bailly was supposed to strip every opposition's attackers down and run them to the ground. Yet, his injury spells and inability to dominate in the air saw him take to the comfort of the bench more than the war the on the field.

Bailly started all of 15 games this season and has been on and off but it's there for all to see that he is indeed the best defender Manchester United have in their ranks. If Bailly can step up and be consistent, he can go on to achieve great things at the club. Chin up, lad.

Alexis Sanchez

Sanchez is yet to truly come to his own at United

Now, where do I begin? Alexis Sanchez was one of the best footballers on the planet last season and in this one, he has been a shadow of his former self. He upset United's rhythm when he joined. He started barging into Pogba's channels and curtailed the Frenchman's freedom.

Often, he held on to the ball for too long and gave possession away cheaply. But on an odd day, he sprang to life. He was immense against Manchester City and looked more like the player United are paying a hefty salary for. Sanchez has scored 2 and assisted 3 from 12 appearances for Manchester United.

Hopefully, he'll gel better with the team next season and will get back to his beastly best. This is one player United can actually count on to take them to the next level.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Shruti Sadbhav