Nothing to Talk About: United 1 - Sunderland 0

Photo by Joshjanssen for Flickr

I'm at a total loss of words concerning Manchester United. The last couple of United games have been dreary, boring, and totally uneventful.  Long gone are the days of one touch, breezy, tiki taka football, the kind in which a score always seems just around the corner. Now what we're "treated" to are games characterized by long periods of  Red possession followed by no profitable outcome. Yesterday's first half was a perfect example: 45 minutes of pure drudgery, piled on top of the ninety minutes of crap that United produced on Wednesday. I'm beginning to think that Sir Alex's master plan is to bore other teams to death.... Salvaged only by a Danny Welbeck goal (courtesy of Wes Brown) in first-half stoppage time, United "rolled" to a 1-nil victory over a terrible Sunderland side on Saturday, and picked up another three points at Old Trafford to celebrate Sir Alex's 25 years in charge of the Red Devils.

I'm not sure what's causing the doldrums.  Could it be Wayne Rooney playing in midfield, instead of his customary role as striker?  Or could it be that United are lacking a creative player in the middle of the pitch, one who could pull strings and make things happen?  Whatever the reason, United continued to look slow, lethargic, and totally out of sorts, even playing at home. The offense is bland, predictable, and all too narrow, and the Reds caused Sunderland, not exactly an EPL defensive standout, very few problems on the afternoon.  Fortunately on the reverse side, Sunderland caused United almost no problems at all.  Perhaps they miss Asamoah Gyan more than they thought they might....

Sitting on the bench, three former United stand outs, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, and Gary Neville, must have sat there wondering what happened to the vaunted offense that they once knew. Even Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, also in attendance after a championship season in Norway, would have had a hard time saving this team in its current state.

On the bright side, Saturday represented the fourth clean sheet in a row produced by the United defense, a statistic of which to be proud.  If only the office were as proficient as the defense right now, there would be much more -- and many more interesting things – to discuss.  So for now we'll leave it at this: three more points ground out toward the season total.  They all count the same in the end.

This is a bored farlieonfootie for November 6.