Opinion: Does the league table ever lie?

Thursday 20 October 2022 13:06

Most Manchester United fans would surely agree there is every reason for optimism regarding Erik ten Hag's first season in charge of the team.

After a false start, there have been real signs of encouragement as the Dutchman's methods begin to take hold, and the confident victory over Tottenham has put an extra spring into every Red's step.

The derby defeat to Manchester City aside, the progress is clear for anybody to see. After all, United have already beaten Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs this term. These wins did all come at Old Trafford so a taxing assignment at Chelsea provides a chance to show we can also produce top-class performances in the biggest fixtures on the road.

United sit fifth in the Premier League, eight points adrift of leaders Arsenal, but does this paint the true picture?

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We often hear the phrase: 'the table never lies' and yet every campaign throws up different challenges at different times. A club may be a very different beast after a managerial change, for instance, and morale plays a huge part in football. An energetic promoted side can be particularly awkward at the start of the season, while teams scrapping for their lives come April and May should provide more difficult opposition than midway through the term.

When you play the other sides is, of course, down to the luck of the draw. However, it is impossible to deny that Ten Hag has been given a challenging start to life in the Premier League.

Perhaps, on paper, Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford should not have posed the hardest of tasks to get points on the board early on. Yet we struggled in the very early days of 2022/23 and lost both matches. At the time of writing, the two well-organised sides are in the top half, and the Seagulls were then managed by the impressive Graham Potter, who will be in the opposing dugout at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

It should also be taken into account that the two fixtures which were postponed, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, were against 10th-placed Crystal Palace and 16th-ranked Leeds United. Both would have been tricky and fiercely contested encounters, but we were picking up some good momentum in the division at the time, on the back of a high-octane defeat of previously flawless Arsenal.

Following our lengthy pause in domestic action, the derby clearly came at a bad time and it has been a case of regaining confidence since then, something that the squad has managed to successfully achieve.

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Closer inspection of the table, in relation to our programme thus far, shows we have not faced any of the bottom five. Matches with Everton (15th) and Southampton (14th) were away from home and, I think it's fair to say, everybody accepts hard-fought narrow victories were well worth celebrating.

United are, unusually, still to meet any of the three newly promoted sides - Fulham, Bournemouth or Nottingham Forest. We will have back-to-back games against two of these (Fulham and Forest), before the year is out, even if there will be about six weeks between those fixtures, due to the World Cup in Qatar. As mentioned earlier, perhaps this may be a better time to face them rather than in the opening phase of a season. 

If we just look at our home games, we have only had five of these so far. Brighton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle United and Tottenham represent tough opponents, certainly in terms of the table. This quintet are all in the top eight (along with Ten Hag's men) and Brighton were riding higher until Potter's departure. The remaining two clubs in the leading batch are City, who we did face at the Etihad Stadium, and Chelsea - our next rivals. 

In summary, Ten Hag and United have not had the easiest of starts. That appears to be a fair comment. Yet we head into another big game over the weekend, a point adrift of Chelsea, who lie in fourth place.

It is clearly another crucial clash at Saturday teatime but if we can remain very much in the mix for a Champions League spot, which would surely represent progress in terms of a realistic target for this campaign, then we should be in good heart heading into the final stretch of matches before the World Cup.

There genuinely is no such thing as an easy game in the Premier League but the evidence seems to suggest this has been a hard programme for the Reds, under a new manager, so far.

The opinions in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Manchester United Football Club.

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