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

3. The Finishing touch

Manchester United couldn’t get their finishing right

The contest today was between the defending champions of the Premier League and a newly promoted team to England’s top tier. United were expected to cruise past Crystal Palace. However, It was anything but that. Yes, we did get two goals in the end but both of them were from set pieces.

Even though Palace played with 10 men for the entire second half, we were unable to find a single goal from open play. United had several excellent build ups up to the box only to see someone misplace a pass and bring the whole pack down again. It is an unsettling characteristic that has now been noticed on the last three occasions. Against both Chelsea and Liverpool, we enjoyed majority of the possession like we did today. United, however, was unable to find that one crucial through ball or that looping cross in the box on all three occasions.

Yes, we did have 12 attempts on goal today but there were hardly any that Speroni couldn’t deal with. I wonder how long Moyes is going to wait before he realizes he holds a beautiful answer in his hands to this finishing puzzle, who is still warming the benches.

Shinji Kagawa attained a near legend status as a no.10 in just two years at Dortmund. His quick one-twos with the strikers and strong darting runs off the ball were instrumental on many occasions for Jurgen Klopp’s team as they romped to the league titles in successive years. He may well prove to be the difference in our title challenge this year and Moyes would do well to employ Kagawa’s services promptly as the league table starts taking shape.