Yesterday's result against West Brom was a real testament to the fact that it's just the luck that United are lacking and that is making all the difference to the results. United could so easily have had 4 or 5 goals had the finishing been spot on. But they didn't really capitalize on all the chances and on the contrary had to live to rue the outcome. The 2 goals United conceded can only be termed fortuitous more than anything else and even West Brom will readily agree to it. The first one was a silly deflection (almost an own goal) and the second was a howler from the most experience keeper in the league! I would have expected United to respond since they had a good 35 minutes to change things around. But such has been the impact of conceding goals , after going ahead (it's such a disheartening thing), that I feel the players couldn't mentally get over it in time to conjure up a response (though they had done that successfully against Liverpool).
I know this post could so easily come across as a "set of excuses" but there are more things that have been going bad for United that are resulting in these kind of results. The biggest of them all has been Rooney. There have been too many things negatives happening around him, for him to play as well as he should (personal life, possible rift with Sir Alex and most importantly his (lack of) goal-scoring form). Wayne Rooney of the last season would have inspired his team coming at a similar situation. But yesterday, he looked too out of touch. For a change, even the Old Trafford faithful (the crowd) were too eager to head out assuming we wouldn't be able to turn it around (you could see empty seats even before the injury time could start) - too unusual a sight.
Perhaps it's all the mental thing that is causing all this and I'm sure Sir Alex will know that. It's time for the players, the supporters and the manager to toughen up and reduce the mistakes and take out the impact the ill-luck factor seems to be having. From watching United so closely for the last few seasons, that's what I feel they need right now. Because there isn't much we have lost yet even though we have dropped many a points. That is because I think it's only Chelsea that we need to fight for the title with and they are just 5 points away - all other teams have been showing too many weaknesses (City, Arsenal, Liverpool). The front men are finding goals pretty regularly in spite of Rooney's issues - Nani (who's just been brilliant), Berbatov (though his shooting isn't yet the best) and Chicharito are all in good touch. The back four aren't looking totally out of sorts specially after Rio's return. Things that really matter (in financial analysts' language, the fundamentals) are still not that bad and hence it's still not time to give in. And I firmly believe in it.
