Manchester United vs Crystal Palace: Five Things we learned from today's game

2. Anderson’s mistakes

Anderson continued with his mistakes

The Brazilian got his first start of the season today and while he showed tremendous energy in making surging runs to support the attack and likewise to fall back to help the defense, he had problems running with the ball and failed to deliver crucial passes when most required.

One clear instance of this was when Wayne Rooney and van Persie broke free from the centre line in a pulverizing counter attack only for Anderson to give the ball away meekly when in search of a teammate. Anderson was expected to bring in the Samba flair to the team’s game play when he moves from Porto in 2007, but that is yet to materialize.

With Marouane Fellaini likely to start more often as the season progresses, Anderson will have to produce near miracles on the pitch every time he gets a chance to play to keep pushing for a starting XI spot in the team.