Manchester United continued their good form in the UEFA Champions League Group Stages
#4 Can United keep a clean sheet?
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Manchester United v Leicester City - Premier League
Manchester United managed their first clean sheet of the season against Burnley FC in their 4th game of the season and as of now, it remains their only clean sheet in the League so far. In the midweek, United managed to secure a clean sheet against PSV and now the defense seems a little bit more balanced. There are still a few errors left in there, but hopefully, things will get better with each passing game. Much of the improvement has been achieved because Mourinho has stuck to the same back two for the last 2 League and 1 midweek European games.
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Chris Smalling and Victor Lindelof are perhaps the most unconventional central defensive pairing, but they have worked well together because they have a strong adaptive backbone despite the differences in their playing style. Lindelof is the better of the two with the ball and has the intelligence that Mourinho likes in a defender. And Smalling has the experience and the hardcore defending that completes the pairing. However, there’s another aspect of United’s defense that has been overlooked recently – David De Gea.
Despite having only 1 clean sheet in the league so far, De Gea has made 11 saves, only one less than Alisson who has 3 clean sheets and 3 more than Kepa, who has 2 clean sheets. De Gea’s start to the season has been hampered with United’s defensive complications, but the current Golden Glove winner is slowly coming back to his A game and another clean sheet right now would do him wonders.
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Deepungsu Pandit
Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written close to 9000 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.
Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.
Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.
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