instances have sort of changed over the years, due to changes in culture.
New season, same ambition by Daniel Cuschieri
A
t time of writing this, the league match against Leeds United has just finished. A very impressive performance from the team which should stand as a marker for the following season. Due to COVID, people around the world have missed the atmosphere, the intensity and the excitement that a home game brings with it. The simple things that we took for granted, COVID-19 in my opinion has shown everybody around the world that together, people become stronger. Last season, United finished in a very respectable position. However this club has not been accustomed to enjoying second place or finishing second in a cup by losing the final. Losing the final last year should place a certain amount of determination and experience, and the younger players who have got their first taste of defeat, which will or should be part of the foundation in their career, whereby that experience will help them overcome obstacles in the future which should lead to winning trophies. We can say the same thing happened to the English national team, where an experience in finals has shown throughout the team where they fell short at the final hurdle.
number of forwards, but in my opinion they aren’t the typical number 9. Cavani is still a world class striker but one must agree that age is not on his side, but that does not take away his scoring prowess. That position may be filled next season where I believe the measure is recruiting players for a long term basis, which players who are currently in the squad will have the ambition and mental strength to handle the pressure on a weekly basis and turn out performances that are expected of a Manchester United player, and also maintain an image of being a Manchester United player. These
I think that the recruitment this season was done very swiftly by shoring up the back line and also bringing in Sancho to create a strong right-side, which the club has missed for a number of years since the departure of Ronaldo and also Valencia prior to his injury who filled up the role quite well but still Valencia had strengths which complemented the side in that period. This squad is full of youth. One player who continues to raise doubts, not about displaying ability but his commitment, is Paul Pogba. This is his final season whereby he can sign a pre-contract in January and will be free to leave the club next summer while continuing to play this season for our club. What is happening behind the scenes still leaves much to be discussed. The other teams such as Chelsea have continued to build on their success in the European Cup as they are the Champions of Europe, Manchester City have also beefed up their squad while Liverpool welcome back a number of players from injury notably Van Dijk, who in previous seasons was the cornerstone of Liverpool’s defence and one cannot say that he isn’t a very good asset to Liverpool’s playing squad. I think that the squad is strong enough to take on the challenge of competing for all trophies that they will be playing in but realistically I find it hard to believe that we are ready to take the title from Manchester City. The issue I see is that United lose points, such as draws, against the lesser teams, which if such victories were attained, Manchester City might have had a tougher challenger to the title. This does not mean
This summer, the club has shown its priorities by recruiting Sancho and quite recently Varane, which are world-class players and are being serviced by the worldclass marketing team working behind the scenes to ensure debt decline from certain revenues, and still not impacting the clubs finances to an extent that recruitment was not carried out. The team appears to be very strong in a lot of areas which one would say that the only light position the club has is the centre forward position. There are a
VOL 49 - ISSUE 1 - SEPTEMBER 2021
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