Connect with us

Manchester United

Will Man Utd finish in top 4?

The bookmakers made us favourites to finish in the top four this season after we thrashed Chelsea 4-0 in the opening weekend of the 2019-20 Premier League season.

Since then, we have been held 1-1 at Wolverhampton Wanderers and embarrassed in a 1-2 defeat by Crystal Palace at Old Trafford.

Four points from our opening three games leaves us in fifth spot, just one point outside the Champions League places, with fourth place currently occupied by Leicester City.

It appears there won’t be any surprises in the top two this season as Manchester City and Liverpool are set to battle it out over the title. Tottenham Hotspur had been everyone’s pick for third place, but they were upset 0-1 by Steve Bruce’s Newcastle United at their new stadium yesterday, leaving Mauricio Pochettino’s side on four points after three games too.

Spurs will be up there come the end of the season. They have some excellent centre-backs, a couple of playmakers in midfield and Harry Kane up top. They’ve been qualifying for the Champions League for the past few seasons too.

Chelsea have bounced back from our trouncing of them by scraping a point in a home fixture with Leicester City and narrowly beating newly-promoted Norwich City at Carrow Road this past weekend. Prior to putting three past the Canaries, Frank Lampard’s side had looked woeful in attack. They never looked like scoring against us with Tammy Abraham in attack as they badly miss Eden Hazard.

Christian Pulisic is still settling in whilst Mason Mount could well be their star of the season. Other than that, they don’t have too much going for them. Pedro and Willian will chip in with a few goals if the manager gets it right tactically. But so far we’ve seen Ross Barkley out on the left wing which doesn’t bode well for the season.

Arsenal had a good transfer window according to their fans and have started the season with six points from their three games – only bettered by Liverpool and City. Sure, they have a mouth-watering attack with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Nicolas Pepe. But behind that they don’t have much going for them. As shown at Anfield on Saturday when they shipped three goals before the hour.

David Luiz is not going to fix their defensive problems. If anything, the Brazillian may make them worse. It was typical of the former Chelsea man to concede the penalty in which Liverpool scored their second this past weekend, and Luiz was at fault once again with the third. Neither Granit Xhaka nor Dani Ceballos will offer much protection in front of their back four.

However, the Gunners are certainly looking better than us right now. And unless Ole Gunnar Solskjaer sorts our consistency out then I can see us finishing below both Tottenham and Arsenal, which would be a real shame. Right now, you can find a decent price on us finishing in the top four but you may want to head over to www.bettingsider24.com to find better value bets for the rest of the season.

We’ve certainly seen the start of a good defensive partnership between Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof, as they showed against Chelsea and Wolves. Aaron Wan-Bissaka performed very well in his first two games too. It’s disappointing Luke Shaw hasn’t created a goal so far this season but the left-back has certainly showed promise.

However, it’s the midfield that worries me. We’ve not replaced Ander Herrera and we don’t have a solid holding midfielder. Goals such as the two Crystal Palace scored at Old Trafford on Saturday certainly could have been avoided.