Robin van Persie has helped United turn a corner

Robin van Persie’s first act as a Manchester United player was to take a corner-kick in the season’s first game at Everton; it almost didn’t matter that the set-piece amounted to nothing, because it was an outcome most were familiar with. It was also Van Persie. And his job was to score goals.

Months on, he’s scoring goals, but doing more. Not that Van Persie was not ever such an all-round player, of course he was*, but United’s aim this season was to learn the lessons of the last; that meant finishing off games, that meant turning one point into three, and ensuring that there was no repeat of what ultimately consigned United to a runners-up spot: 2011/12, as Sir Alex Ferguson said in August, was “the first time anyone has beaten us on goal difference.”

*This should be made clear. What justified the signing of Van Persie was the promise of another 30-goal season and that meant that United, already in possession of an accomplished group of strikers, could pay plenty for a 29-year-old.

After scoring two against Wigan Athletic in Tuesday’s 4-0 win, Van Persie observed that “everybody’s helping each other and everybody wants to share the goals.” In the previous campaign, United would play Danny Welbeck at the risk of leaving goals on the bench (Javier Hernandez and Dimitar Berbatov), with the idea that the young English striker could complement United’s chief goal-getter, Wayne Rooney, best. That generally worked — only this year, by signing Van Persie, they’ve made this super-effective, especially when partnered with Rooney. It’s also worth noting, though at times it feels like an illusion, Hernandez’s added efforts outside the box.

The Wigan game was changed, after 20 minutes of very little action, because United had stumbled onto a new way of creating pressure and building momentum. This season, from corners — corners! — they’ve looked decidedly dangerous, as Jonny Evans and Patrice Evra would no doubt agree, and even if they don’t score directly from one, they are able to put the opposition on the back foot. Ferguson seemed to agree, with much of the same words: ”We took a bit of time to get going but, once we started to get those corner-kicks, with Robin [van Persie] whipping them in, it was keeping them under pressure.”

Fans feel confident when United have corners; gone, for now, are the days when United would take them short to counter their own inability to make them work. When writing about corner-kicks a few years ago, Rob Bagchi noted that they fail because they end up “as a simple equation of being outnumbered, and unless an extraordinary cross or slackness opens up an avenue to score, it becomes a routine defending exercise.” United do not have to follow by this rule any more; sure, there will remain those that are cleared by the first man, but considerably less of it, especially with new personnel (Rooney has been productive from it, too) who can deliver those extraordinary crosses.

The manager was also pleased with United’s willingness to go for a second, scored, unsurprisingly, by Van Persie. It was a goal the importance of which could not be downplayed, hitting the home side again just before half-time. This one was all Van Persie, as he took his time to weigh up an opportunity before turning the ball onto his right foot and placing it in with such precision that Ali Al-Habsi could offer no resistance. And there’s another claim to the striker becoming an all-round player; as he showed for Arsenal in his final season, he is remarkably capable with both feet. Goalscorers must strive to ambidexterity; this particular one has six goals with his less-favourable foot out of 16 (in addition to his 13 out of 30 last year).

With Hernandez’s good form put into consideration (with two more goals at the DW), some are tempted to forget about Wayne Rooney altogether. It shouldn’t be like that; since returning from the gash injury suffered in a game against Fulham in August all the way until United’s draw with Swansea in December, Rooney had performed very well, especially in tandem with his new partner. Still, when Van Persie had signed, many had hoped it would mean that the team no longer relies so heavily on Rooney. They’ve just about achieved that. Now, they’re only reliant on Robin.