Will Manchester United paint January red?

David Moyes

The competition is intensifying and as we draw closer to the festive season in England, fixtures have started to come thick and fast for the Premier League teams. It has been till now the most unpredictable and closely fought top flight season in a long time. However, the table at the top has started to have a more usual look of it. Arsenal is presently leading the race followed by Chelsea and Manchester City, but the notable absentee at the top have been the defending champions Manchester United.

The Red Devils are presently at the 9th position, 12 points behind Arsenal and 11 points adrift of where they were last season at the same time. Some critics have already started to rule out any chance of United retaining the title. Whether United will make the critics eat their words or not is yet to be seen, but it is imperative to find out the reasons behind their dismal performance of late.

The Manchester club did appoint a new manager this season after 27 years of the Sir Alex Ferguson era, and that might have its own impingement. However, the new incumbent, David Moyes can also complain in his defence that maybe he is not managing the best United squad of all time or a squad full of world beaters. Certainly something which Pep Guardiola can say about his squad at Bayern Munich passed onto him by Jupp Heynckes.

The current United squad clearly lacks enough quality to keep up with other title contenders. The club’s transfer policy in recent season has had a major role to play behind the impediments faced by the club presently. When Cristiano Ronaldo left the club in 2009, he was replaced by Antonio Valencia at the right wing with further acquisitions of the young Gabriel Obertan and the old horse Michael Owen. Shinji Kagawa and Marouane Fellaini were brought to the club in subsequent years to provide the much sought steel to the midfield and continue challenging for the trophies.

Then there are players like Anderson, Nani, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, Ashley Young, Alex Buttner etc. who have joined the squad over the years. Some of the players have failed to prove that they belong to the highest level. Some of the players like Nani, Kagawa have failed to match the expectations at a top club like Manchester United. While some of the players like Smalling, Rafael and Jones have shown the potential but are still too young to become the main stay.

It looks like somewhere down the line the club’s transfer policy settled down for quantity over quality with an exception of Robin van Persie’s acquisition. A policy having stark similarity to the one adopted by Arsenal after their invincible season of 2003-04. Arsene Wenger invested his faith in young players bringing their transfer expenditure significantly down in comparison to other top clubs, however, the story since then is well known to everyone.

Players like Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Van Persie are getting old, and the squad lacks their able replacement at present. In fact Ryan Giggs has looked the most creative among all the midfielders they have. It is to be seen what Moyes would do in the coming transfer window but the call certainly has been for him to paint the transfer window red and save their derailing season!